Creative Marketing Strategies for Commercial Brokers

When you have listed a commercial or retail property for sale, the real work starts.  The promotional campaign is the ‘make or break’ strategy to pull in the enquiry.  You are the person to build the promotional strategy and make it work.

In talking about ‘promotions’ and ‘campaigns’, there is a significant difference between those processes which would apply to open listings versus exclusive listings.  Spend most of your time, promotions, and resources on the listings that you can control ‘exclusively’ for a reasonable amount of time.

Set your promotional targets

So, it can be said that a property marketing campaign can help you capture the interests of targeted buyers; your database will grow faster through that process.  Top agents do that all the time.  Think about your property marketing campaigns and make them special.

It directly follows that your promotions with exclusive listings should be better than the others in the location, and certainly those that are undertaken by your competitors.  Why are your property listing campaigns and promotions better than your competitors?  I hope you have a specific answer, and one that is real and tangible; use that message with your clients and customers in presentations.

You are the difference to the promotion

Put yourself into the promotional message and strategy for all of your property listings.  You are the difference to making a property promotion work in a location and across a market segment.

So here is a promotional campaign structure that works very well with quality listings and priority clients:

1. Inspect the property comprehensively and do the required research – get to know all the strengths and weaknesses of the property at the earliest stages of your investigations. Look for the factors that could frustrate any inquiries, questions, and or negotiations.  Preparation will help with your inspections and listing processes.  A checklist approach will help you find the factors that could later be ‘hurdles’ in a listing or marketing process.
2. Target market – from the previous point you can set your target market of buyers and identify where they may be coming from. That targeting process will help you with campaign structure and composition.
3. Campaign spend and spread – property promotions cost money, and vendor paid marketing is the best way to handle exclusive listings. You have the property in a controlled form for a period (i.e. 3 to 6 months), where you can build on the momentum of inquiry and market coverage.  Spread your campaign for the listing into the well-chosen online and offline media alternatives.
4. Timing of promotions – consider the location and the competing listings. Your new listing should ‘fit’ into the location from a promotional point of view, and it needs to ‘stand out’ as relevant and real to the interested buyers.  How are you going to do that?  Develop a strategy of promotional timing plan that covers the market, the location, and the interested targeted buyers.
5. Best choice of media online and offline – some media alternatives will be better than others to get the property message out. Mix and match the alternatives into a staged campaign approach. The online marketing approach will be cheaper than the newspapers and ‘longer lasting’, so understand the value of marketing in the different ‘channels’.
6. Client conditioning to market conditions – look at the local property market locally and its level of inquiry for the property type. Some client conditioning will be required to explain ‘time on market’ and best methods of sale.
7. Best methods of sale and marketing – there are a few ways to promote and sell a property. Given the current market conditions, what do you think would be the best way to promote the property?  Should it be at a price, by auction, by negotiation, or by tender?  The right choice should be integrated into the promotional campaign and advertising layouts.
8. Features of the property – every property will have obvious features that will help attract buyers and inquiry. So, look for those things and merge them into the advertising message, the editorials, and the articles that you write about the property.  Develop a ‘core message’ for the property that will ‘carry across’ all your marketing material.  Have the client review those drafted promotional items before you go to press.  Get the client to agree to your message and strategy.
9. Comparable properties – review the location or property precinct to understand the different competing or comparable properties that you will be up against with pricing, promotion, and enquiry. The buyers that could look at your property will know what is happening locally with the other properties.  Determine the differences that help your property listing stand out as ‘attractive’ when compared to others in the location.
10. Images and portals – get plenty of professional photos done for the listing, so you can attract potential buyers online and in the newspapers. Photos are the first level of attraction when marketing a property.  Get a professional photographer to do the images, and merge that cost into your vendor paid marketing budget.
11. Direct local area marketing – whilst it is important to promote a property listing online and in the newspapers, there is a further level of promotion that should be ‘locally directed and addressed’. For any exclusive listing, take the property with all its features into the immediate location.  Canvass all the local property investors and business owners.  Tell them about the listing that is coming onto the market, tell them about the features of the property, and show them how near the property is to them.  Encourage awareness and inquiry.

There are many good things that can be done here with commercial and retail property listings from a promotional perspective.  Perhaps you can add to the list based on your location, but most of the points raised are critical to a property marketing campaign with any good quality listing and or client.  Build the structure that works for you and sell the message comprehensively to your clients.