3 and 4 December 2014 saw the annual International Property Awards Summit take place at the Madinat Jumeirah Hotel in Dubai.
The awards celebrate and acknowledge the highest levels of achievement in the real estate sectors worldwide, and the Rawson Property Group was honoured to win in all four categories in which they entered.
Their wins included Best Real Estate Agency Marketing Africa, Best Real Estate Agency Website Africa, Highly Commended Real Estate Agency South Africa, and Highly Commended Residential High-Rise Development South Africa.
The entries were judged by a panel of over 80 experts, with backgrounds ranging from architecture and design to real estate, hospitality, business, investment, and more. Every year, competition is of the highest calibre – and this year was certainly no exception.
Debbie Reabow, the Rawson Property Group’s Brand and Communications Manager, and leader of the growing marketing team spearheading the strategy that won the group the Best Real Estate Agency Marketing Africa Award, gives us a glimpse into the thought process behind their approach.
“Since the company’s inception, we have always believed that expert local area knowledge and training are fundamental pillars of success in the real estate industry. Based on these pillars, we introduced a new tagline last year – “Your Neighbourhood Experts” – highlighting our ongoing drive to ensure we arm our clients with the best property advice.”
“To launch this to a wider audience, we created a TV advert that showcased our love for our neighbourhoods – an advert we believe is completely different to any other property group.”
Reabow goes on to explain that the Rawson brand has always done things a little differently.
“We are constantly aiming to impart expert knowledge to all our clients across residential and commercial sales and rentals. Our marketing is aimed at providing this advice in a fun, yet informative way.”
“At the same time,” Reabow continues, “the Rawson Property Group provides a range of value-added services – from commercial sales and rentals to bond prequalification, and bond origination at no cost through Rawson Finance. Our marketing showcases all of our services across Southern Africa to ensure that our clients know all their options before they embark on what could be the biggest investment of their lives.”
Customer service is also at the core of the website design that won Rawson the Best Real Estate Agency Website Award for Africa.
“We know that over 80% of people start their search for property online,” says Reabow, “so we wanted to make sure that our website gave our clients a fantastic user experience. It needed to really make it easier to find the perfect property in the perfect neighbourhood, be it residential or commercial, purchase or rental. We focused our web development on creating great search functionality.”
As part of their aim to provide expert advice and tips to their clients, the Rawson website also features a news section which is updated daily. In addition to this, they launched “The Great Neighbourhoods Project” - a section where people can upload photographs of the things they love most about their neighbourhoods, and share their contributions on their social media profiles.
“We hope to build up a great resource for people who are investigating neighbourhoods, with a host of information treasures that they won’t find anywhere else,” explains Reabow.
This kind of commitment to service excellence, coupled with their dedication to a successful franchise model, has seen the Rawson brand going from strength to strength over the past three decades. With over 210 franchises and 1200 agents throughout Southern Africa, it was a source of great pride to have their efforts recognised with the Highly Commended Real Estate Agency South Africa award.
The Rawson Property Group’s development arm, Rawson Developers were equally thrilled with their win in the Highly Commended Residential High-Rise Development South Africa category. Awarded for The Beaumont development in Claremont, Cape Town, the achievement reinforced already impressive amounts of positive feedback on the project.
When asked about the Rawson Property Group’s plans for 2015, Reabow reveals that they won’t be resting on their laurels.
“While winning awards is great recognition for a lot of hard work, our real pride comes from helping our clients make informed property decisions. We’re honoured to receive the awards, but our focus for 2015 will be on continuing to provide expert service to our clients. We will keep developing tools and programmes to do just that.”