The real estate industry is both broad and diverse and, during Co-Communications’ 18-plus years in business, we’ve had the opportunity to work with many great companies who are moving the industry forward. From design-build firms to residential brokerage agencies, we’ve helped real estate companies mine for great PR stories, improve their websites, refresh their brands and build strategies for increasing marketing ROI. So, what makes a real estate marketing strategy effective? It starts by following these five best practices:
#1. Think visually
Whether you work in construction, brokerage, property management or another facet of the industry, there are countless visual marketing opportunities at your fingertips. For example, potential tenants may enjoy a behind the scenes look at your latest commercial office space building as it moves from foundation to framing and so on. If you’re a residential or commercial real estate broker, consider how tools like video and photography can help to enhance the strength of your marketing.
#2. Take an integrated approach to marketing
Effective marketing strategies aren’t built in silos and high-performing marketing programs are multi-channel. Knowing which marketing tactics to integrate starts with understanding how and where your target audiences like to be communicated with. With these key insights in tow, it’s time to determine what content is best suited to which communication channels. From your tradeshows and industry expos to your email marketing and PR program, ensuring consistency of brand messaging and image are key to achieving integrated marketing success.
#3. Leverage your networks
Let’s take a commercial brokerage firm for example. If you have a team of 20 agents, those are 20 unique networks that can be tapped for referrals, strategic alliances and the like. When developing your marketing plan, identify how you will leverage the company’s networks as well as those of your team to help increase the reach of your content. This may include authoring guest blog articles on strategic partners’ blogs, ensuring all commercial real estate listings are shared on LinkedIn, etc.
#4. Know your competition
Outshining the competition can be a challenge in any industry. Every company has a different marketing budget and varying depth of internal and external resources to support their efforts. The key is to make sure you are monitoring your competitors’ marketing and identifying opportunities to strengthen your own marketing. In some instances, your real estate company may opt to directly and aggressively market against the competition – think billboards on the same interstate corridor – while in others, establishing a presence in areas where competitors are absent may be a more prudent allocation of marketing resources. This determination, obviously, lies on what makes most sense for reaching your intended audiences and how best to penetrate those channels with your given budget.
#5. Be consistent
We’ve all see the real estate blog that launched with a bang and hasn’t been updated in months, if not years. And, we’re all familiar with the construction company that shares step-by-step updates on progress from their Facebook page when a large development project is underway and goes dormant in between projects. This inconsistency makes it challenging to maintain and engage audiences. At the end of the day, it’s all about setting your audience’s expectations for the frequency at which content will be delivered and where they can receive this information. Now, that’s not to say that a timely event such as a banner month for sales or being awarded a major contract doesn’t call for some extra content. It’s to say that your marketing plan should be based on a frequency and budget that can be sustained throughout the year.
Taking a strategic approach to marketing can help companies – be they property management firms, commercial brokerage agencies, architecture firms, etc. – to set goals and develop campaigns that are aligned with their overall business goals. Whether your company is new to the market or celebrating its centennial, opportunities to set your real estate firm apart from the competition abound.
Looking for more tips on real estate marketing strategies? Contact us today!
