Essential Marketing Rules for Commercial Real Estate Agents
In commercial real estate marketing today, every exclusive listing should be optimised for the target market that it attracts. That being said, any open listings are and should be a ‘generic’ marketing approach. If a client to a property has not trusted the real estate agent with an ‘exclusive’ listing, then the effort and strategy put into the marketing process for that property should be ‘ordinary’.
So let’s get back to the quality end of the marketing process with top listings and ‘exclusive’ agency appointments. When you know that you have the client’s engagement on a valid ‘exclusive’ listing appointment for a number of months, you have something to work with. You can go out into the market and attract the buyers (or tenants as the case may be) to your listing. The negotiation process becomes more genuine and specific; you can give the client a far better coverage and outcome from your marketing efforts and the inspection processes.
Assuming you have that higher quality listing, here are some tips to help you establish a quality marketing process to attract the best levels of inbound enquiry:
- Inspect the property thoroughly so you understand all elements of property function, title, legality, and cash flow. When in doubt ask more questions. Get to the bottom of all the things the buyers could ask you about.
- Determine the right target market that will have a good interest in the property for what it is in design and permitted use.
- A quality signboard should be placed on the property to attract the local business owners and property investors. Ensure that the signboard includes featured professional photographs and information about the property in a simple way that will encourage prospects to call you seeking more detail. Simplicity is a good rule to apply to signboard design.
- Website listing placement will be essential. That placement will be on an industry portal and your own website. Ensure that you are using the right keywords from the search engines to tap into the best number of ‘property hits’ on the listing. Pay for a priority placement on the industry portal so the listing does not get ‘lost’ in other more ordinary local properties.
- Local area marketing will be essential. Door-knock the local businesses and property owners to tell them about the new listing. That process will give you a lot of leads.
- Newspapers still have a use in property marketing albeit quite limited. Devote some of your marketing funds to sensible sized newspaper advertising. Do not go ‘overboard’ on this as they can be a big drain on your marketing budget with limited lifetime value.
- Direct mail marketing should occur into your database with every quality listing. That being the case you should also follow up all direct mail pieces sent to your database. That follow up can be by a telephone call.
- Cold call your market if you have a high quality listing that will attract interest and inspections.
- Flyers and brochures can be sent through the local post office or mail exchange. The target group for that will usually be business owners and business letter boxes.
Finally, something should be said about the best method of sale. Ensure that you choose the method of sale that suits the prevailing property market and the target buyers that you are seeking to attract. Make the right marketing choices in promoting your listing; the enquiries will then come in to you and make the inspection and negotiation processes a lot easier.
