Commercial Real Estate Marketing Tips – How to be an Expert in Property Promotion
To compete successfully in the commercial real estate brokerage industry today, the top agents must be experts in property marketing. The standard marketing approach is ineffective when it comes to winning and promoting quality listings and prime properties.
Any high quality property has to stand out as real and relevant to the potential buyers and tenants that are looking to rent or purchase. Consider these questions:
- How do you differentiate your marketing?
- How do you promote your high quality properties?
- What can you do from an advertising perspective that is superior to that of your competitors?
They are three simple questions but the answers that you give should be very specific and direct. Some clients and property owners will expect some quality information from you as you give the answers to the questions.
Why are you so good as an agent?
Give the clients you present to some specific reasons to use your expert services. Tell them how you will do things and why that is so. Demand an exclusive listing appointment as part of offering your marketing and promotional solutions.
Let’s look at some specific things that you can do to boost your property marketing systems and profile in commercial real estate sales or leasing:
- Advertising Copy and Layout – The words that you use in your property advertising should be descriptive but they should also be interesting and special to the property. In many respects your advertising copy can be enhanced by using a few ‘words and phrases that sell’. There are many good books available that talk about descriptive ‘sales based’ words and phrases that help promote and encourage a response from the reader. If you want more enquiries from your advertising then it would be wise to retain a copy of such book for reference and use.
- Professional Photographs – A good quality photograph will always boost enquiry on a property for sale or lease. That is certainly the case with online advertisements and website property promotions. Show your client some good examples of property advertising and those that feature high quality photographs.
- Superior Signboards – Most properties will sell or lease to businesses and investors in a local area or the same town or city. A signboard is a good strategy to use in opening up the interest of local people. Ensure that your signboard is special to the property and location. Place the signboard on the property so that the passing traffic can see the board.
- Property Plans and Drawings – Any good quality listing will benefit from professionally prepared plans and drawings. You can use those plans and drawings in and after property inspections, and when sending out information about the listing.
- Campaign Alternatives – A single property can be promoted in a number of ways. For that reason you can and should provide your client with three different marketing approaches to selling or leasing the property. The client can then make a choice of marketing based on what they can afford and what they believe will attract the enquiry.
- Website and Online – The online marketing process for property listings can be greatly improved when you use a matrix of strategies including blogging, articles, social media, industry portals, YouTube, Podcasting, and the brokerage website. Cover as many of these online marketing tools as possible. Feed your high quality listings into each online strategy.
- Database – From your database it should be possible to create a good number of property inspections from a shortlist of qualified tenants and buyers. Over time use your database as a listing tool in your property presentations. It is very hard for a client to ignore a database that is matched to their property type.
- Information Memorandums – The information memorandum that you create for the property can be quite special when it comes to layouts, photographs, plans and drawings, and property information. A good quality document will help when it comes to improving property enquiry and converting inspections. It is not unusual to charge a reasonable fee for the creation of this document; that fee is separate to the costs of the marketing campaign. For a large property with an extensive tenancy mix, the cost of the information memorandum compilation and creation could reach an amount of $5000. That then is a separate charge to the owner of the property.
- Property Brochures – With all of your brochures, use professional photographs, creative copy, and professional layout. It is not unusual for a property brochure to be compiled by an advertising agency with the cost of that process being merged into the vendor paid marketing campaign.
- Editorial Content – The local newspapers are always on the lookout for interesting property editorial. If your listed property has a history or an identity, and editorial is something that is easy to create and of interest to the local group of investors and or business leaders. Support the editorial with a few professionally taken photographs.
- Project Launches – In any complex property launch, and particularly a launch involving a number of properties or premises as part of a project, the advertising budget can be significantly large and by its very nature covering a number of different media strategies. With any large project it is normal to involve a team of people from the brokerage to support the marketing, enquiry, inspection, and negotiation process. All of those people can be given specific tasks when it comes to the property promotional process. Those people can also be nominated and dedicated to tasks as part of the overall property presentation.
From the list mentioned above, it is easy to see how the marketing process should be carefully handled when it comes to any exclusive listing and property of quality. Make your marketing campaigns stand out as real and relevant to your clients today; design those campaigns with special focus on the locality and the targeted group of buyers and tenants. Identify yourself as the top marketing expert that you should be to resolve the sale or leasing requirement quickly and effectively for the client.
