Consumer and trade. Print, online, broadcast and social. Where is your real estate firm telling its stories? With so many avenues for storytelling, developing a multifaceted PR program is key to ensuring optimal reach and showcasing the diverse aspects of your company – be it a key vertical, special geographic focus, work in conjunction with a major economic development initiative, unique areas of expertise, etc. Follow these key steps for building a better PR program that is the lynchpin of your overall marketing efforts:
Start with a great blueprint
Your PR program should be built around a research-informed strategy that is aligned with your company’s overall business goals. The blueprint for your PR program should include everything from key message points and target audiences to tactics and timelines. While it is critical to keep your blueprint up-to-date and plan at least 3-6 months in advance, you’ll also want to gauge your company’s bandwidth for adapting to timely media opportunities and know what you can adjust to seize the “can’t miss” chances for your spokesperson(s) to be quoted in target media.
Be willing to break ground
New hires, key contracts awarded, company milestones, accolades and awards, and expansion into new markets, to name a few, will always be newsworthy. But getting feature quality coverage often requires a unique hook to pique a reporter’s interest. Be willing to break ground and tell a story that your company or industry has yet to tell, be it about trends, the state of the industry or an innovation that is revolutionizing the way business is conducted and closed in the real estate industry. A word to the wise – take the time to play out the different ways a reporter could map the story before you make the pitch. Some stories have other angles that could be pursued and ultimately yield less than flattering PR coverage for a brand.
Take a new lease on an old standby
Let’s go back to those routine but newsworthy items we just mentioned. What can you do to give them a new façade and increase their appeal to media? How does recent growth impact clients and your industry as a whole? What is the significance of your recent expansion – does the building have unique history? Are you the only company of your kind in the market? When mining for new leases on old/standard stories, be cautious about using superlatives – only use what you can prove.
Build around compelling visuals
Television, in particular, requires strong visuals to tell a compelling PR story. When pithing reporters, anchors and producers, help them to visualize the package on-air and what their viewers will take away from the story. Likewise, the growth of social media marketing channels such as Instagram offer great opportunities to showcase the visual stories/aspects of your business, from new building projects, construction updates and renovations, before and after shots, new listings and the list goes on. The visual marketing opportunities available for the real estate industry are nearly limitless.
Real estate PR is an important component of a company’s overall marketing strategy. When built around a solid strategic framework and enhanced with the right design accents, it can set companies apart from their competitors, enhance expert positioning, help populate social media marketing channels and email marketing with timely and relevant content, and contribute to the overall ROI of a company’s marketing program. Check back next week for more great real estate PR tips.
