Rethink Your Commercial Real Estate Advertising and Here is Why

As commercial real estate agents, it is up to us to generate and maximize the inquiry for every quality property that we list.  Every exclusive listing that we convert should receive a dedicated focus to marketing and property advertising.  When you totally understand the process, you can radically improve the levels of inquiry that you achieve from the property marketing campaign.

After days if not weeks of chasing down the right property owners and prospects in the market, an agent can convert a new listing opportunity and take the property to the market.  At that point, everything unfortunately becomes a bit generic in most cases.

Many agents and brokers have no real skills when it comes to property advertising and marketing strategy; the generic approach to marketing in our industry is far too common.  Evidence of this fact is clearly seen if you have a look at the industry portals and the properties listed.  A 15 year old school kid could have written most of the advertisements on the industry portals.  Everything looks the same and the advertising copy is of a low standard.

An advertising professional will tell you that a lot can be done with advertising copy, photographs, layout, and promotional strategy.  If you are tracking and measuring the inquiry rate that you get from your property advertisements today, it is logical that you should be improving the marketing process in any way possible so that the levels of inbound inquiry escalate.

So the message here is quite clear; when you have a quality listing and a new property listed, your marketing skills and your advertising copy should be of the highest quality.  The marketing strategies and the advertising layout should clearly show that you are the agent of choice when it comes to attracting inquiries and converting a sale or a lease.  Make no mistake, many of the local property investors and business owners are judging you today on the skills of your marketing and property advertising.  They are reading your advertisements!

Every advertisement that you write and place into the media both online and offline should show that personal promotional skill and that point of difference.  The generic approach in marketing today has no place in our industry.  I go back to the point that when you win a listing it must be promoted professionally and completely into the local area.  You are being judged on the skills of your marketing each and every day by the people that matter.

Here are some tips to help you with your advertising process with your quality listings:

1. Understand the focus of the local area when it comes to properties for sale and properties for lease.  When you track and measure the inbound inquiries you will soon know what people are looking for.  The results of that tracking process can be shown to potential clients as part of your listing sales pitch and presentation process.  Most agents don’t do this, and therefore cannot offer strategic market advice when it comes to effective property advertising.
2. Most marketing today is very visual.  Simple advertisements with simple layouts always attract more inquiries.  On that basis keep your advertisements in simple format and short in length.  A good property photograph followed by four or five simple feature points will attract the eye of the reader far more effectively than three or four paragraphs of advertising copy.
3. You will be listing properties both exclusively and also on an open listing basis.  The marketing focus with exclusive listings should be dedicated and intense.  The marketing focus for open listings should be generic and ordinary.  As part of your listing process, show the potential client the difference in marketing focus that applies between exclusivity and open listings.  If they are serious and dedicated to selling or leasing, the marketing differences should help you convert more exclusive listings.
4. Every quality property should be targeted to a particular segment of your market.  Include the client in that process so that they can understand how you will be reaching out to the target audience.  That strategy will also help you sell the concept of vendor paid marketing.  Any agent that can convert more vendor paid marketing per listing will always have a better market share and a greater number of completed sales and leasing transactions.  As to the amount of vendor paid marketing you should achieve for each campaign is somewhat variable although it will usually be between 0.5% and 1% of the property value when it comes to a sale.  In the case of a lease marketing process, the value of the marketing campaign should be between 3% and 5% of the first year’s rental.  The relevance and specialized nature of the marketing campaign will help you with the conversion.

Most agents and brokers will have a constant focus on generating more listings and improving commissions.  Whilst there are many things to do as part of that process, advertising and marketing quality listings will help you stand out as the industry expert and the marketing specialist locally.

The people that matter in your local area from a property perspective are looking at your advertising each and every day.  Make sure that you stand out as the local marketing specialist and agency expert.