Marketing Standards and Systems in Commercial Real Estate Brokerage
There are many marketing standards and systems to consider in commercial real estate brokerage. Importantly, they should all be well planned to match the local market conditions and the required branding of the office.
Consistent branding and market penetration will help consolidate commission and listing opportunities for the brokerage. The same can be said for the individual agents within the brokerage. On that basis, it is wise that the individual agents be given a marketing brief to apply to their individual promotional circumstances. Consistency is essential to real estate marketing and promotion.
When preparing the marketing process for your brokerage, consider the prevailing market conditions, the competing agencies, and the needs of the greater property community. Within those three factors, your brokerage needs to send a consistent and solid marketing statement that helps you build on listing opportunity.
Here are some categories of activity to merge into your promotional planning system:
- Signage presence through the market is more important than many people understand. The traditional signboard placed on a quality property will give your brokerage significant profile. Quality properties should be exclusively listed. As part of that activity, a quality signboard can be created and installed on the listing.
- Colours applied to your brokerage branding should be well considered. Certain colours relate to certain property types and segments of the market. If your business is predominantly commercial real estate, then it is best to choose from the primary colours of white, black, red, blue, and yellow as part of your branding.
- Franchise groups can provide certain advantages to you when it comes to marketing and profile. Some of those franchise groups have a strongly recognisable brand. Joining the franchise group will give you immediate market profile and penetration. As with all good things, it comes at a cost, so ask the appropriate cost related questions.
- The franchise groups will also have limitations and guidelines that apply to the marketing process. If you are considering joining a franchise group, ask questions about the marketing package, its versatility, and its limitations. Some of these groups will place a premium on marketing materials to achieve a further income from their members. You may need to compare marketing costs and suppliers locally to see if this will have an impact on your brokerage operations.
- Website and online marketing are critical components of a successful real estate business today. You can add to that the factors of social media, and the industry portals. It is quite easy to establish your website and have of operational within a number of hours. The cost of the process does not need to be high. There are plenty of people available to give suitable guidance and momentum to the website design process for real estate agents. What needs to be said here is that the online marketing process should be ongoing and highly professional. A website should not be static in any respect. The search engines give high priority to those websites that update their material frequently with the industry related articles and information. Certainly listings will have pride of place on your website, however industry information and articles will help the search engines focus on your online presence. Several times a week you should be loading industry related articles to your website. Those articles should be at least 400 words in length. If you do not have the time or the people to devote to the process, it is wise to seek a professional copywriter that can support you accordingly.
- E-marketing strategies integrate with a database within your office and your website. The branding needs to be consistent across the entire process. It directly follows that all of your electronic e-mail newsletters should be linked back to your website, your blogs, and your articles. Social media should also integrate with the website and the E-marketing process.
So there are plenty of things to do here when it comes to marketing standards and systems. The clients and the prospects that we work with expect profile and professionalism. They like to list their property with the agents that dominate the market in many different ways. Your marketing package should extend across all of your listings, your agents, and the local area. Consistency is the key to marketing success.