How to brief your estate agent when you already have a marketing partner.

You have appointed a marketing partner for your scheme. Could be us, could be someone else. Either way you now have two firms on the job, and whether the campaign works comes down to how well they pull in the same direction.

Most of that is settled in the first briefing. Here is what to cover.

1. Split the scope on paper, before anyone starts

Marketing owns the brand, the content, the development website, the campaigns and the buyer list. The agent owns viewings, negotiation, sales progression and completion.

Write it down, one page, both firms copied in. Every dispute that happens later is about something that was not written down now.

2. Tell the agent what they keep, first

The instruction. The fee on completion. The sale itself.

A proper marketing partner does not sell houses, does not do viewings and does not negotiate. Say it in those terms, early, and you have answered the only question the agent really has. Everything after that is admin.

3. Put both fees in writing

What the agent is paid for selling. What the marketing partner is paid for the campaign. Both sides knowing both numbers removes the suspicion that someone is eating someone else's lunch, and suspicion is what actually breaks these arrangements.

4. Agree the handover

This is the bit that decides whether the campaign converts. How does a warm buyer move from the marketing list to your negotiator, and what comes with them?

A name and a phone number is a lead. A name with a budget band, a buying position, a timeline and a note of what they asked about is a buyer. Agree which of those two gets handed over, and when. Our answer: the second kind, the moment the list gets its first look at the scheme.

5. Agree who talks to buyers, and when

Marketing talks to the list before release. The agent talks to buyers from the first viewing onwards. One buyer, one conversation. Nobody wants a buyer getting two different stories from two different firms in the same week, and buyers like it even less.

What good looks like

The agent sells faster because the buyers arrive warm. The marketing partner gets clean credit for the demand. You pay less in total than a bundled fee, and you can see where every pound went.

And on the next scheme, both firms want to work with you again. That last one is worth more than it looks.