Clear Ideas for Great Advertising Campaigns in Commercial Real Estate Agency
In commercial real estate, you need to plan your advertising campaign to attract the correct levels of inquiry and build the potential for good property inspections.
It is no secret that there are plenty of properties on the market today for sale or for lease. This then says that every advertising campaign should be carefully considered and structured.
An Exclusive Listing Focus
Typically an advertising campaign will be created for an exclusive listing. Openly listed properties are promoted randomly and have little strategy or funding to attract inquiry. If you choose to work on open listings, recognize the fact that you do not have control the stock, the client, or inspection results. Don’t spend too much time on open listings. The best way to expand your market share is through exclusive listings; that’s the rule.
Plan the Property Promotion Campaign
Here are some tips to help you with planning a comprehensive marketing campaign in commercial real estate today. This process would normally apply to quality exclusive listings and clients.
- Get the property facts so you know what the strengths and weaknesses are that you need to work with. If there are any weaknesses within the property, they may need to be addressed prior to the marketing commencing.
- Define the target market for the property. Determine the features of your property that should be built into the campaign thereby attracting the target market.
- The target market or the audience to be reached with your marketing material may have an ideal time of property interest and activity. Choose the best time of year or season to connect with this target audience.
- Select the right channels of media to be used for the property and the promotion. Most commercial and retail property campaigns occur throughout 6 to 12 weeks. Within that time frame, the first four weeks are critical to attract inquiry and generate inspections. That will be the primary window of time where you spend most of your marketing effort and funds.
- Determine the duration of the campaign and the frequency of advertising. Your budget will dictate some of the decisions here. Set your budget to utilize vendor paid marketing funds in the best way possible, and get those funds paid prior to the campaign commencing.
- Develop a reliable and timely response mechanism to gather inquiries from the marketing material. Normally, you will utilize office telephone, mobile telephone, and e-mail. There may be a number of people involved in taking inquiries for the listing. It is important that they capture the entire inquiry as it comes in and respond appropriately when the prospect has been qualified. Test and measure all the marketing results as they come in.
- Draft the necessary advertising material for the approval of the client prior to the commencement campaign. Get the client to sign off and approve all advertising material.
Some of the biggest mistakes made in commercial real estate marketing today are any of the following:
- Failing to recognize that the marketing of one property can be integrated with similar properties in the same area and listed by the same agency. This approach can help you compound your inquiry opportunity and the potential inspections.
- Some are agents attempt to take shortcuts when it comes to lead times on structuring a campaign. This invariably leads to poorly constructed advertising and generic marketing with average outcomes. You need a full week to structure a good marketing campaign before it commences.
- Some agencies are inclined to skimp on marketing costs to capture listings and obtain funds from vendors. However, the reality of the property market today requires comprehensive communication with the target audience, which requires adequate and well-directed marketing funds.
When you have listed a quality property, take the time to establish the best marketing campaign that will encourage enquiries. That’s how the top agents succeed in the industry.
