When it comes to selling or leasing commercial real estate today, the marketing plan process is fundamental to getting the message out to the market. Property investors and business owners have to be attracted to the property given its attributes, improvements, design, and functionality. A good marketing plan will do this even when the property market is tough or slow. Here are some tips from our Newsletter for Commercial Property Agents.
There are fewer buyers and tenants around for the average commercial property that is taken to market, so enquiry is limited and clients should be made aware of that restriction from the start of the campaign.
The property market is today more restricted than previously with the sustained pressures on finance availability, so each marketing campaign has to be correctly structured and implemented. Some agents fail to adjust to this fact and do little that is different between property types. Generic property campaigns are not successful today, and in many cases the generically marketed properties stay on the market for a very long time.
Today’s promotional campaigns on commercial property are or should be specifically constructed and implemented. The agent really does need to know the target audience that they are seeking to attract from their marketing, and they should also understand how to tap into that audience.
The best marketing campaigns for commercial property today are a mixture of the following:
- Defining the target market before the campaign commences, and helping the client see what you are to do with that
- Identifying the right media and advertising that will reach the target market will be a central component of your strategy. Stagger the media in an appropriate promotional way.
- Branding the property with a theme that can be consistent across the marketing campaign and feature in all the marketing.
- Defining a core period of promotion at the start of the campaign will help drive results. A full 75% of the marketing costs and efforts should go into this ‘core period’.
- The process of ‘test and measure’ is more important today than ever before. As the campaign proceeds, keep a close check on where the enquiry is coming from. When enquiry is lacking, adjust the campaign quickly.
- If the property fails to attract enquiry and results in 3 months, it is better to stop the public advertising process and promote the property verbally off market. This allows the property to freshen up and wait for a new selling and promotional period.
Today there is a lot more personal involvement and promotion in property marketing. Every property campaign has to be driven by the personal involvement of the commercial property sales person. That is why an ‘exclusive agency’ is more important than ever before. Any property that is ‘openly listed’ should not attract any special marketing effort of the salesperson. Open listed properties are an exercise in hope and luck; if that is what the client wants to do, then so be it, they will see what generic marketing will do in slowing things down.
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Commercial Real Estate Online 
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