When Melissa Fowler, Re/Max Real Estate agent of Calgary, Alberta approached me to develop a new logo and tagline for her, I was delighted. Here is a quick story about how we strategized about the tagline and the imagery we would use.
Melissa Fowler has been in real estate for a number of years in Calgary. She is a second generation real estate agent, following in the footsteps of her father Gord Fowler, a well-known real estate agent in Calgary, Alberta who now makes his home in Vernon, B.C. and is part owner in the Salt Team with Lisa Salt, his wife, of Re/Max Vernon.
First, I met with Melissa by phone. I asked her who her ideal customers were and how she pictured herself. She mentioned that she wanted to be known as a cutting-edge agent who uses social media tools like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube to market her client's homes. Also, that she truly cares about her customers. What she was most proud of, however, was that fact that her father still has such a good reputation as an agent in Calgary, that often times she'll be asked by a prospective new client if she is related to Gord and, "How is he doing". Then, she'll hear stories about how he helped them choose their first home, or how he helped them sell.
As a Marketing Strategist, I wanted that pride to translate into her new tagline. "What is a tagline?" you ask. A tagline is a short statement after your company name that quickly and succinctly tells your customers and prospects exactly what you're about. It's a feeling. It's a bold statement. It implies your values or what is important to you. It is also a statement that positions you against your competitors, or sets you apart in the minds of your customers.
Here is what we came up with.....drum roll please...... "The Next Generation"
This statement, first off, lets us know that Melissa Fowler is indeed related to Gord Fowler. Next, it tells us she is leading-edge. It implies that she is using the latest technological and social media tools available to market, which is one of the main objectives of a great real estate agent. Thirdly, for anyone who is thinking about tearing down their old bungalow and putting an infill in, which is so popular in Calgary, it implies that the next generation of home can be accomplished. Fourthly, it speaks to those young professionals who are either thinking about having children, or have just had them, and are looking for a larger home.
Once the tagline was established, we moved on to an image for her company, also known as a logo or icon. We chose a font that looked fast and next generation-like for the main word that we wanted everyone to see: "Fowler". We used really easy-to-read fonts (typeface) for the rest. And we came up with a futuristic looking building on top of them all. Most important, was that this logo would be easily read on real estate signs.
We made over 27 designs for her to choose from, and then refined them from there. We had the first 5 designs to her within 48 hours of our very first telephone meeting. The whole process took less than 30 days from start to finish.
Here is the final result of the blue version of the logo:
Once the logo was complete, we created it in black on white, white on black and red and blue, for marketing in other materials. Here is the black on white version:
Plus, we provided Melissa with the logo in .psd, .jpg, .ai, .pdf and .eps formats so that she could easily email the files to her printing partners in one single zip file to work with the format of their choice, depending on the size, colour and software they were using.
How do you like it? I would love to have your comments back right in my blog comments section.
For your next logo or tagline, please think of my company, Lava Marketing, to design it for you. The cost is way less than you probably think and I've been doing this for over ten years now.
Thanks for reading.
Courtenay Pitcher, tagline writer extraordinaire
Owner of Lava Marketing & VernonGirl.com
http://www.vernongirl.com
http://twitter.com/vernongirl
