How to Write Successful Commercial Property Advertising
In commercial real estate brokerage every good quality exclusive listing should be directed at a particular target market.
In that way you can optimise the enquiry and the inspection opportunities.
Every property advertisement should be tuned to the target market and the local market conditions. That’s your job!
As the property specialist, you are the best person to do that, and then as a consequence help the client understand where their property sits in comparison to others.
The Key Promotional Factors
So the message here is that the promotion of a property should be carefully considered and balanced to a number of key factors. The broker or agent can do that with the client. Help the client see and understand exactly what you are saying.
Inspect the property first as part of the listing process and then consider the following important factors and decisions.
- Define the target market – most of the properties that you sell or lease will be directed at the business community or local property investors. In each case you can take that focus and refine it to particular business types, or investors looking for certain future opportunities of property ownership and gain. Avoid the generic advertising strategies used by other agents in your location. Be specific and be direct when designing the advert for the target market.
- Review the competing listings locally – it is very likely that there will be other properties on the market currently in the location or the precinct. Research and review those properties to understand the relative points of difference and the time on market in each case. Your listing will need to compete, and you will need to shape your listing for the opportunities that you can see from your property comparisons. Help the client understand how you will be tapping into those specific opportunities in the advertising program.
- Build on property features – every property and every listing will have certain features and strengths that you can weave into the promotional strategy. Those strengths should be supported by dot point layout, and professional photography. Attract the target market through the use of the property strengths and features.
- Headline impact – design a headline that can promote interest and attraction with the appropriate buyers or tenants in your target market. You should also be tracking the hit results from online advertising across all of your active listings. Soon you will see the benefit of a good headline with a property advertisement. Make the right choices with your listing headline and advertising layout.
- Location relevance – look at the property from the viewpoint of a person searching on the Internet. What location would they type into the search engine or industry portal to find the listings that they seek? Where ever possible, feed the property location into the advertising headline or sub-headline.
- Dot point the features – make it easy for adults to read your advertisement and interpret it within a few seconds. A dot points strategy will help you do that. All of those dot points should be tuned to your target audience.
- White space – keep the advertisement simple, and avoid the use of too many words. A clean and open advertisement with plenty of white space will always attract the eye of the reader. That is especially the case if you can use professional photography to support the balance and the message of words used in the copy.
- Storyline – if a property has a story or a history, you can feed that message into your promotional strategy and campaign. You can take the story-line into an editorial layout in addition to any advertising undertaken. Use the story-line and the history of the property to create further interest.
- Simplicity – when attracting a target audience, simplicity will always win. Keep the campaign simple and the advertising message basic. Don’t cover too many target markets or ideas in the advertising itself. Simplicity will always convey the right message in an effective way.
- History or local area interest – consider the local area and the business owners or investors. Could they be considered as the targets of your advertising? Will you need to do some other promotional strategies to attract them to your listing and create the momentum with inspections? Local area coverage is sometimes best approached through direct mail and direct telephone calls. You can also choose specific online and traditional advertising methods to activate the local area interest.
- Professional photographs – a professional photographer will always help your marketing message and help you pull in the specific interest of the buyers or the tenants you require. The photography should be at vendor cost, so feed that costing process into your property presentation. Ask for the money and build the marketing costs into your property presentation.
- Repeat and refresh – when you have a listing to promote, monitor the feedback and the results that you are achieving over time and through the campaign. Every three weeks the advertisement should be refreshed and re-positioned on the portals and the websites. Keep the message and the property listing active with your target market; you can do that through modified photography and advertising copy. Keep the property listing active.
So there are plenty of things that you can do here when considering and designing advertising campaigns with your commercial property listings. Spend the time at the front end of the campaign to make sure that you are reaching the target market effectively and directly.
Avoid the generic marketing process. Ensure that your exclusive listings stand out as the listings of choice for the target market.
