Commercial Real Estate Agents – How to Resurrect Old Unsold Listings

Some commercial property owners start their property marketing campaign with a high price and a poor quality agent.  Some of those clients can also have tried to market their property themselves before the talk to an agent.  Either way they suffer lost time and little enquiry.

How many of those clients will tell you that their property did not sell because of the agent?  Most of the clients you talk to in this situation will believe that their unsold property is the result of the agent inaction, and not the high price or poor marketing effort.

The fact of the matter is that an overpriced listing will ‘kill’ its own enquiry before any enquiry is forthcoming.  The listing quickly becomes ‘stale’ very fast. If you take on one of these listings, you will need to have a plan to ‘resurrect’ the marketing momentum.

When it comes to property marketing today, ‘hope’ does not feature as a good tool or strategy.  Any marketing campaign based on ‘hope’ will go nowhere and the client should be made aware of that.

So how can you ‘resurrect’ these mistakes in marketing?   Here are a few ideas to help you.

1. Take the property off the market for at least 4 weeks.  That means nothing should be advertised anywhere about the property.  You can then work on new marketing points and promotional strategies for the client.  When the property is advertised again it has to be done differently.  If you want to market the property inside the first 4 weeks, then do it personally in ‘one on one’ contact.
2. Get an exclusive listing for the new marketing effort.  That exclusive listing should be for at least 4 months.  It will take you that long to create fresh interest in the property.
3. Vendor paid marketing should be the rule when you revitalise the listing.  Create a specialised campaign using the marketing tools that you believe are the best for the property as you see it today.
4. Assess the results that have come in from previous marketing efforts.  What worked and what did not work?  Understand those facts so you can avoid making similar errors again.
5. What target market was used in the last marketing effort?  Was it relevant and did the property really connect with the target audience?
6. Go through the property today and check out the improvements that are advantages in your marketing.  How can you reposition those improvements to get better enquiry?  How will they feature in the marketing effort?
7. Check out the words that the internet search engines are seeing as common search terms for commercial or retail property in your area today.  Incorporate those terminologies into your new marketing activities.
8. Get professional photographs taken of the property so any advertisements can appear fresh and revitalised.
9. Have a serious discussion with the property owner about the previous price and factors that may have held the listing back from getting the required enquiry previously.  You will need to get a price adjustment before you go back to advertising the property again.
10. Give the client a time line of strategies that will start on a particular date and adjust weekly until the property is sold.  Show them how things will progress with you and your marketing efforts.  Get them to commit to your recommendations.

Old listings can be resurrected.  It just comes down to the strategy that you adopt and how you condition the client.  Don’t let them repeat their earlier mistakes.  Be specific and drive the listing forward.