9 Ways to Construct a Commercial Real Estate Advert

In commercial and retail property sales today the advertising process has to be well considered given that the competition properties in the local area are likely to be many, and they will be overlapping your marketing efforts.  Every marketing campaign should be well crafted to attract the right target audience and readership.

So let’s say something very significant here.  The first 4 weeks of any marketing campaign are really important in attracting the right levels of enquiry and creating qualified inspections of the property.  If the marketing message is too generic and bland it will slow the potential of getting inspections and offers on the property.  If you waste the first 4 weeks of marketing on poor decisions and advertising layout, it is quite likely that the property will stay on the market for a long time.

The advertising should be created on a theme with a clear message.  The target market for the property should dictate and shape those theme decisions.  Here are some rules to help you with achieving that:

1. What will be the target audience for the property?  What are they looking for and what is going to be special and relevant about the property to that target audience?  How can you build those facts into the promotional campaign?
2. Will there be some positive history of the property that can be used in the advertising and the editorials written?  Has the property been used as something unique, occupied by someone special, or been a local ‘landmark’ to the greater community?  If this is the case, write about it and feature that positive history in your advertising message.
3. Given the property layout and features identified, create a headline about its offering for sale.  To help with the words that you use here, use a thesaurus to find word alternatives that make the headline stand out.  You can also check out the headlines from magazines to find some attractive phrases and comments to help the impact of your headline.
4. Set some key words and phrases around the features of the property. Those key words should feature as dot points just below the photograph(s) of the property.
5. Get some professional photographs of the property to feature the benefits of ownership and occupancy.  The visual impact of the photographs will help in attracting readership.
6. A good advert will inform and activate a person to contact you.  Most adults do not like reading lengthy adverts; your primary focus should be in getting them to call you.  You have to balance ‘bulky’ property detail with simplicity and layout.  Keep your sentences short, to a low number, and break them up into paragraphs.  Leave the greater detail for any direct contact that you have with inquiring parties.
7. Make it easy for people to call you or email you.  Ideally you want them to call you for a conversation where you can identify and qualify them.
8. Track and measure all your marketing results on all exclusive marketing campaigns.  Understand what works when it comes to property marketing.  Repeat what works and drop the advertising activities that are not getting the results.
9. Get others in your agency to check your draft advertisement and its editorial not only for accuracy but also for attraction.  Cast a critical eye on the ‘action’ potential that your advertising creates.

With all this in mind, put together a great property advert to get the best results.  Drop the ‘generic’ marketing approach that you may have been using for years, as it wastes a lot of money and creates less direct inbound enquiry for you.

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