Advertising Ideas and Secrets in Commercial Real Estate Marketing

A top quality listing should be comprehensively promoted and especially so when the property is located in a large city or town.  That single requirement needs special planning and consideration.  

Don’t rush into a property marketing campaign without a degree of planning.  Make the right choices when it comes to advertising your property so that reasonable rates of enquiry come to you from the very beginning.

So what can you do? Get the client involved in key marketing decisions relating to their property and explain your perceptions of the target audience and how you will draw them in.  

The client should be paying for (or at the very least contributing in part) to the property promotion, so media choices and spending issues should be considered to optimise the inbound enquiry.

Don’t just take on a listing and advertise it generically on the portals and in the newspapers.  Make that property special in ways that encourage readership.

Marketing and Advertising Ideas that Really Work

Here are some ideas to help:

1. Mix online and offline marketing – Use the traditional newspaper marketing methods but merge into that a good degree of online and internet based marketing.
2. Track the enquiries – You will get enquiries from the telephone, email, and database.  Have your office track the enquiries coming in for all listings, and replicate the process yourself.  At the end of every week you can report to your exclusive listing clients about the enquiries for all campaigns and media choices.
3. Campaign Timelines Set – How long should the promotional campaign be for the property type?  Typically 6 weeks is sufficient time to cover most market segments although you could consider the time of year and any seasonal holidays or business cycles that could impact enquiry.  You can measure the enquiry weekly and adjust advertisements accordingly.
4. Monitor Click throughs – With the online promotional processes across the industry portals it is common to track click rates and click throughs.  When you do that across a number of listings you can get a real feel for what is working from a online marketing process.
5. Banner Advertising and Elite Listing Exposure – The industry portals will offer you some alternatives to promote a property prominently online. The issue here is that an ordinary property listing will get lost in a batch of many other ordinary listings.  If the property is of reasonable quality then it should feature in the ‘Elite’ or ‘Prime’ property category within the portals.  The cost of that is a vendor expense, so ensure that you are prepared to pitch the cost in any client presentation.
6. Professional Photographs – A property can be featured effectively by the use of professional photographs.  Those photographs can be taken either late in the day or in the early morning when the natural light from the sun is streaming directly onto the property frontage.  To make a property stand out photographically you can also use night photography with the building lights switch on, or time lapse photography to show movement in the street in front of the building.
7. Video Use – There is no doubt that videos convert considerably more online clicks from interested parties.  They encourage people to go further and look at the property configuration and improvements..  You can get professional photography and video packages to complement your marketing strategies.
8. Showcase the whole property – Make sure you understand all the features of the property and particularly the ones that send a strong message about improvements and layout.  Showcase the property comprehensively using keywords and carefully crafted sentences.
9. Call to Action – You want property buyers and tenants to call you.  Make that an easy process and include an email for those people that do not yet want to escalate the enquiry to a conversation.
10. Timed Methods of Sale – In the case of a property sale, the timed methods of promotion are desirable.  If any person is motivated to enquire about the property they will have to act before a given event such as an auction date or expressions of interest date.  Set that date with a view to getting a result for your client.  Usually you will need only 6 to 8 weeks to get a result.

From these simple processes you can see how the marketing of any property can be uniquely handled and optimised.  Make that campaign of promotion unique in every way.