If you’ve been around in this racket long enough, you know that marketing strategies are difficult. They’re not impossible, but they require a lot of foresight, techniques and take up a lot of your time – if you don’t maneuver the waters well enough. Tough? Let’s talk about successful commercial real estate marketing plans that plain work. (And can be put together in a weekend – or week, if you enjoy your weekends off.)
1. Test Everything
Let’s get a handle on this thing right off the bat: reviewing. You know about hiring SEO consultants for your website. You also probably know about attending tradeshows and getting your name out there. Have you dabbled in Google AdWords? Whether you have or not, you most likely know that you have got to test, test, test. It doesn’t matter which avenue of marketing you take. How are you going to know what works if you don’t send out a lot of tests and campaigns?
2. Online Listing Websites
Listing websites for commercial properties let you look at descriptions of properties. You can find out their highlights, their characteristics, and even get a lay of the land. These websites are a valuable resource for you to get all the information about properties you need to give potential buyers – including your own website.
4. How Will You Get There?
Having goals is important. Even more important, however, is writing down your plan for conquering those goals. You could make the argument that we spend too much time planning. Anybody can have goals – what separates the winners from the losers is this: our ability to do what needs to be done to reach those goals.
“Ideas are horse sh** – execution is the game.” – Gary Vaynerchuk, entrepreneur who services Fortune 500 companies.
4. Press Releases
So far, we’ve talked about the preparation aspects of marketing strategies; pre-launch. This is because the more information you have, the more powerful as a real estate broker you become. There’s a common phrase in marketing: “Make 80% of your efforts do 20% of the work.”
One of doing that is through press releases. Major companies such as Microsoft or McDonalds do press releases. The act of getting your name/company/agent’s name in business publications is a huge success for you. How do you get started? By gathering PR contacts.
5. Email Marketing
You know what Email marketing campaigns are. Anytime you hand over your email address for a subscription, you receive emails. (John Carlton, a copywriting legend that wrote a “control” sales letter for Men’s Health magazine, regularly sends emails advertising his copywriting services/products.)
6. Direct Mail
Direct mail is a profitable venture for you – provided you have the funds to run campaigns and rent lists. Look in your mailbox and see how much mail you get from companies you didn’t even subscribe to. I caught the “DM bug” years ago, and haven’t looked back since. Studying Agora Publishing (a multi-million-dollar newsletter publisher – largely considered to be the “masters of marketing”) doesn’t hurt.
Ensuring your customers actually open your mail – instead of thinking it’s junk mail, be smart about your envelopes. Handwrite the address of your customers/clients/prospects – to add a personal touch. Use a plain white envelope – the way average Janes and Joes do. It might be tempting to stamp your company logo on the envelope, with a huge headline that screams “SAVE 50% OFF REAL ESTATE TODAY!” This screams “ad”, and is the #1 reason most mail ends up in the trash.
7. Local Advertising
Almost nothing ensures high return-of-interest (ROI) percentages than local advertising. Listing your business Google, Yelp and Yahoo—not to mention taking hold of LinkedIn—is a free way to get yourself out there. By doing this, you’re showing your townspeople that you’re not some big-city braggadocio fluff. You’re someone they know – someone they trust.
Conclusion
These strategies have been proven to be insanely profitable time and time again. Choosing just one will yield high-profit returns and secure high gross profits and margins. (Provided you put in the effort – we’re talking about the future of your real estate business here.
