Traditional commercial real estate marketing seems to be experiencing erosion.
Why?
Because many of the old models don’t work well in an increasingly collaborative world where people want to have a relationship and role in the creation of their investment outcomes, that’s why.
How is your property being marketed? How quickly can you turn the message and communicate change to thousands of people in a moment of time? These are huge questions for property owners.
In the marketing of your property are you running with the big dogs or licking with the pups? How can you break from the pack in 2010 and beyond enabling you to run with the big dogs?
Meet the Puppies Lickin’ and Playin’ on the Porch
When it comes to commercial real estate marketing, there are pups on the porch lickin’ and there are big dogs in the fields runnin’.
High failure rate marketing models such as cards, letters, complicated brochures, mindless spreadsheets that don’t cut-to-the-chase, ugly property signs and costly networking meetings are increasingly being replaced with lean and quick, impactful, attention-getting, direct and digital marketing models. Interactive, please.
In today’s commercial real estate marketing game slow is bad…speed is good; actually, speed is essential. In a competitive environment, slow is costly, while speed, agility and message delivery creates economic margins and a more responsive audience.
Big, old-line marketing is expensive, complicated and difficult to control, modify and monetize; the message is mostly, non-repetitive with a single impression that yields lower results. Message renewal is necessary for property owners, but old models make its delivery expensive and its recreation clunky and difficult.
A large factor in effective marketing is the ability or inability to edit our message on the fly…THIS IS HUGE IN TODAY’S FICKLE MARKET. Minutes and hours can make the difference in deal-making. Speed counts. Reaction time is money.
Break from the Pack…Lone Wolf Marketing
Ask yourself why Twitter, MySpace, YouTube, Craig’s List and Facebook have hundreds of millions of global viewers daily. Why do companies like Exxon, General Electric, Hollywood film makers, resorts, news networks and national retailers have Twitter accounts?
Why did candidate Barack Obama choose online, digital “speed marketing” as his primary message channel resulting in his raising more money than any candidate in history with the end game being his election as President? Uh, let me see…because it works? Why does it work?…uh, let me see…because, at the end of the day, people like it?
Lean, new straight-line marketing via hard-hitting and informational emails, digital brochures, property websites, video, blog content, RSS feeds and narrated PowerPoint presentations are, at the end of the day, a lower cost marketing approach per impression, editable and evolutionary and can deliver a higher and measurable result for property owners.
There are more reasons commercial property owners should take a careful, studied look at how they create, broadcast and control their message. Let’s start with “people” and how they currently gather information in general.
We’ve become tired of direct mail marketing…we don’t like to read all the crap that is thrown at us…we’d rather get the message first hand in a form we like and can access at any time, 24/7/365. In short, people want to control the marketing message they receive not have it shoveled upon them.
The old line “rapport” building is still valid…we are just going to have to build rapport faster and more effectively in order to succeed in the commercial real estate marketing game. We have to earn rapport faster than “power lunching” and meeting attendance.
Prospect rapport isn’t always fostered by eating with them, running around from place-to-place, engaging in never-ending phone tag or flying from airport to airport. I and owners earn prospect rapport by how well we communicate, the speed of our communication, its accuracy, style and ever changing content delivery.
Frequent, Fast, Evolving and Affordable
I’ve become the Chief Operating Officer for frequent, fast, affordable real estate communication models. Such models are easier than ever to create and their potential for audience and monetization are better than every. The upfront cost creates a digital magazine that can be edited constantly…example…look at this commercial real estate blog!
I am asking all of my substantial clients, i.e., those with multiple properties or large office complexes or retail centers to do the following, do it soon and to pay the freight now for a marketing infrastructure that will accelerate their communication and create a basis for an ever-changing property message:
- Create a Commercial Property Website (I can help)
- Communicate features, themes, and lifestyle benefits (I can help)
- Deploy video, podcasts and narrated presentations (I can help)
- Increase digital communication, links and downloads to gain audience (I can help)
We are entering a period of time when many properties are going to get drowned out in the ocean of similarity in the minds of a shrinking pool of prospects.
Owners who can attract users, separate them from the masses and hold their attention will be those who break from the pack. Owners who do not adopt new marketing methodologies will continue to see their properties languish, sadly.
Collaboration through real estate blogs and social media channels, coupled with powerful presentation marketing that attracts and hold eyeballs on your property is becoming the central marketing challenge for owners and, for that matter, commercial real estate brokers.
Remember this, the spreadsheet analysis means nothing if no one sees it. A great CAP rate doesn’t sell if the marketing fails to perform. In a market with increasing vacancies and volatility, sustained attention created with speed of message becomes paramount.
If you need a more effective marketing platform, consultation, an action plan, a property website or just some free advice…call or email me.
Donald Teel is a Senior Associate with Arizona Commercial, an Arizona commercial brokerage and property management firm. Need more information? Please call (928) 777-8100 or, if you prefer, you may email Donald Teel