A Complete Package of Advertising Principles for Commercial Real Estate Brokers

To a large degree, the choice of media to be used in commercial real estate marketing will have an impact on advertising design and layout.  There are however choices to be made allowing for the amount of marketing spend, and the message to be conveyed.

The most effective time to attract enquiry for any listed property is in the first few weeks of promoting the listing.  If enquiry is low in the first 14 days of property release then there are issues to consider and adjust such as:

• The right property message
• The correct choice of media
• Images
• Headlines
• Copy
• The timing of the campaign
• The factors of attraction
• The size and coverage of the marketing campaign

Don’t let a property go stale through lack of attention to marketing feedback.  Every exclusive listing should be tracked for enquiry frequency and enquiry type.  In that way you will know what is happening from a business perspective.

Every exclusive property listing should have a specific campaign that is targeting the right audience in a meaningful way.  It is acceptable to ‘generically’ market open listings given that the client has not given you total control of the listing stock for a period of time.   Exclusive listings on the other hand should attract extensive attention and effort to make sure enquiries and inspections follow the property release.  That’s where the layout becomes important.

Attract the Property Enquiry

Here are some tips to help commercial real estate agents design and set out property adverts so they can attract the enquiry required:

1. Target Audience – Decide exactly who will be reading your advertisement.  Is it a property investor, owner occupier, or business owner?  The words used in the advertisement should be adjusted to suit.
2. Keep it Simple – Complexity is not required in any property advert.  Leave matters of complexity to the next stage of enquiry where you can send out pdf brochures and property information memorandums.  Use dot points in your advertising that focus on the strengths of the property.
3. Relevant Headline – Your headline should not be generic.  Whilst you can always see what other agents are using in the industry for marketing the property type, look at the headlines that magazines use to see if you can create variations and adopt fresh headlines to a property theme.
4. Descriptive Words – Don’t repeat words in your advertising copy that are the industry standards and common phrases.  Use a thesaurus to get variations to otherwise standard words and phrases.  It is very easy to change a standard phrase into something that is more appealing from a reader perspective.
5. Impressive Photography – A good picture in a property advertisement will attract readership.  To make a great photo even better you can take the photo in the early evening where the lights of the building can be turned on to feature the property frontage and design.  The strategy works well with office and retail properties.
6. Link to Website or PDF Brochure – Make reference to greater detail in a pdf brochure that may be downloaded.  The object of the download facility is to get the email and name of the person making the enquiry.
7. Industry Keywords – Every property advertisement should contain a few keywords that are location and property type specific.  In that way you are helping the search engines and the portals find the property for sale or lease.

So these are simple things but they are quite specific when it comes to a marketing campaign for any exclusively listed commercial property.  Target and track your marketing efforts for all property listings so you can see what is working from a property promotion perspective.