Marketing Without the Problems in Commercial Real Estate
In commercial real estate brokerage, your marketing efforts can take a lot of your time and create a lot of frustration. For this reason you need to set some rules to attract and process inbound enquiries. That is how you build market share. You don’t need to have problems when it comes to the marketing process. You need to have the tools and systems.
In the first instance, and if you work in a busy brokerage, it is best to set the following rules:
- The mundane tasks of lodging the advertising and marketing should be passed over to your administrative assistants.
- Given that the agent or broker has inspected the property, they will be required to write the necessary draft advertisements and obtain the professional photographs that feature the property correctly.
- The initial listing process should be controlled by the agent or broker so that the necessary approvals and vendor paid marketing funds are obtained.
- A dedicated and direct marketing process should always apply when it comes to exclusive listings. Don’t waste too much time when it comes to promoting open listings.
So why should someone list their property with you? If someone said to you, ‘Why are you the best agent to use for this property?’ what would you say? Specific answers need to be given and you should always be prepared for the question from the clients and prospects that you serve.
Can you give some solid reasons why you are better than the competition? Can you prove it? Are those reasons relevant and not ‘generic’? There are far too many generic agents around the market today. Your promotional process should be quite specific and very professional.
When you set the right marketing systems in motion, the business image that you want locally will grow beyond that of the competition.
So there are two sides to the promotional process in commercial real estate. They are:
- To market ourselves as experts in a location and with a property type
- To promote our listings to attract the right levels of inbound enquiry
With the many changes in the internet today there are lots of tools for us to use in promoting ourselves and our listings. To do all of this marketing correctly you should have a ‘compounding’ process where you do certain specific promotional things every day; they will be the things that bring in the best levels of enquiry and help you grow your brand. The tools that you use can be selective. Here are some ideas to help you:
- Quality listings will always attract the enquiries from the buyers and tenants that are in the market today. This then says that your prospecting activities should be suitably targeted to the right clients and the right properties.
- Set your target market and your specific location. Focus all of your marketing efforts within those two criteria. If you work a large property or a zone, split the larger area up into smaller patches or precincts.
- Get vendor paid funds when it comes to each exclusive listing. Well directed exclusive listing campaigns will help you build your brand faster and that of the agency or brokerage.
- Track and measure in bound enquiries so you know what works and what doesn’t. Establish a campaign with each exclusive listing that taps into the target audience correctly and effectively.
- Use every quality listing as leverage to talk to more people in the local area. Around each quality listing, you can talk to 10 or 20 nearby businesses and property owners.
Know what works when it comes to your area and attracting the right levels of enquiry. In each proposal or presentation you can specifically say how you can optimise the enquiry and produce the numbers of inspections required.
