Develop A Real Estate Marketing Plan To Maximize Results

Before you break ground on your next big real estate venture, it is important to have an extensive marketing plan in place to not only get your project maximum exposure but also set you up for potential long-term success. 

Whether you are developing real estate for the purpose of a renovation and re-lease, purchasing raw land to transform into something new, or selling developed land that you have acquired, keep reading below to find out how you can add leverage to your portfolio that will help you stand out amongst your competitors.

Why You Need a Great Real Estate Development Marketing Plan

A comprehensive marketing campaign for real estate development will enhance the portfolio of a developer and establish accessibility, credibility, and visibility for future clients. Developing a marketing strategy to reach a target audience through various avenues such as branding, paid advertising, search engine optimization, and cold prospecting will yield successful results and positive growth if executed properly.

So, how do you know where to begin your process of building out the best marketing plan?  How can you be sure to execute those plans advantageously? Keep reading below for tips to help your company utilize the resources available to create a strong marketing foundation with unending potential.

Drawing up the Best Blueprint for Your Real Estate Development Marketing Plan

There are two things you need to establish when planning your marketing strategy: target audience and brand. You want your target audience to recognize your brand anytime they come across it, and you need to reach your audience on the platforms they are using regularly.

Finding your Target Audience

Your target audience can change with each project that you are associated with, but there are three consistent ways to identify your client.

1. Define your niche. Defining your niche is contingent upon the purpose of each real estate development project. Are you renovating a property, purchasing new land, or selling land you have already acquired?
2. Know your existing customers.  If you are a well-established real estate developer, review what your current client’s wants and needs are. If you are an up-and-coming firm, utilize market research and customer surveys to determine who your customers could be.
3. Research your competitors. Take a look at what your competitors are doing to make themselves visible. Review what customers have said about their company. The best way to know your audience is to see who your competitor is appealing to so you can position yourself to reach them in a more effective way.

Once you have established your target audience, then you need to focus on making yourself recognizable and consistent.

Designing a Consistent Brand

When building a real estate development marketing plan, you need to have a vision of where you want to take your company. A brand is not just about a distinguishing logo or recognizable name, though those are two important things, a brand is directly related to the reputation of your company.

Elon Musk, a tech entrepreneur and CEO of Tesla Motors said, “Brand is just a perception, and perception will match reality over time.”

Here are a few things you can focus on when creating your brand for your real estate development marketing plan project:

• Pinpoint your focus. Are you helping under-developed communities or renovating old buildings for office use? Understand the why and how of the reasons why you are developing specific real estate.
• Choose your personality. What kind of personality would your target audience be attracted to? Choose three words that describe the personality you are wanting to portray. Corporate, exclusive, and efficient are examples of a real estate development company that is building new office space for sports management companies using sustainable resources.
• Develop a unique name. A unique name will attract curious clients while helping your company stand out and gain notoriety. Since you will be using your name as a domain name for a website or social media, make sure you search to see if any other company has already staked its claim to that name.
• Create a slogan. A slogan can evolve as your company evolves, but you always want to start out with something short and catchy.  The slogan can be used for your social media tag lines, business cards, or on paid advertising.
• Be strategic with color and font. TheLogoCompany website is an excellent resource for helping you determine how the colors of your brand affect your audience.  The font you choose needs to be easy to read and if you are using two fonts, they need to play off of each other well.
• Design your logo. Different types of logos range from mascot to emblem, abstract to an icon. Your logo will be the picture that accompanies your brand on all marketing platforms and will be what your clients associate with your company.  

Your brand can change over time; however, the key is to stay consistent. The more exposure you have, the more that customers will recognize your company across the market and on social media.

Traditional Advertising vs. Social Media Marketing

Now that you have identified your target audience and developed your brand, it is time to put a strategy in place to get maximum exposure. Traditional advertising and social media marketing will have two separate approaches, and you need to determine which one will work best for you.

Pros and Cons of Traditional Advertising for Real Estate Development

Traditional advertising such as tv/radio ads, billboards, and magazine or newspaper ads will provide a wide reach for your company but might not target your specific audience. Likewise, social media marketing can be used to track exactly who you are reaching but might be lacking that personal touch.

Pros

Traditional Advertising	Social Media Marketing
Hard to ignore on billboards or tv/radio ads.	Digital ads are on all social media platforms.
DIY options cut down on external agency costs.	Free content and graphics generators.
Less potential risk so you can control your brand.	Quickly update ads based on customer needs.
More targeted for a certain audience.	Analytics help reach the target audience.
Deliver specific offers for specific people.	Instant feedback from customers.

Cons

Traditional Advertising	Social Media Marketing
More expensive to create advertising	Easy to scroll past without reading content.
Not as measurable as social media marketing.	Not as personal as traditional advertising.
Can take longer to execute.	Easily copied for others to use.
Less targeted for a wider audience.	Time-consuming to post content consistently.
Losing an audience.	Platform updates require formatting changes

Most businesses still use a mix of both traditional and digital advertising when they are building their strategy. To determine what is best for your company, you need to keep these things in mind:

• Audience – Do you need to target a specific geographic location, or will mass social media marketing be more effective?
• Budget – Try looking into creating a marketing budget to help you determine what would be the most cost-effective advertising strategy for your real estate development marketing plan.
• Timeline – Do you need to get content out sooner rather than later to meet project deadlines?
• Availability – Will you have the time and availability to create content, or will you need to hire an external company and/or employee to oversee the marketing plan?

Your marketing strategy is likely to change over time, so make sure you are paying attention to how your audience is reacting and responding to the ways in which you are advertising. If you have more responses to emails, adjust accordingly. The best advice is to be flexible with your advertising and be aware of your reach.

Executing your Real Estate Development Marketing Plan Successfully

You have determined your target audience, developed your brand, and decided which advertising route you are going to take, so how do you execute consistently and successfully throughout all platforms?  Here are some tips for getting started with each avenue to pump up the exposure for your real estate development project.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Almost 60% of consumers use Google search to find business, which results in 80% of searches leading to direct sales on in-store purchases. Optimizing your website and social media to be a top result for online searches should be in the back of your mind at all times when you are creating content. If you maintain these basic principles, it will help you stay ahead of the curve:

Do

• Create content that is for your audience, not for search engines. 
• Be truthful. Do not deceive your users by promising things you cannot keep.
• Avoid tricks to improve rankings in search engine results.
• Stay unique, valuable, and engaging to your audience.

Don’t

• Use auto-generated content.
• Saturate your content with links for paid ads.
• Copy content from other pages, maintain original content.
• Have hidden links or text.

Search results are constantly changing, so make sure you are keeping an eye on trends and evaluating what is being displayed as a top result.  If the top search result is not you, think about how you can adjust your content to appeal to your audience.

Website and Social Media Optimization

Your real estate development marketing plan should aim to appeal to search engine algorithms. There are many resources available to help you strategize content for your website and social media platforms to land you in the top search results for your target audience.

• Keyword Research – You know your audience and you know what you are trying to market to your audience, now you need to know what keywords will allow google to rank your content at the top.  Use a keyword planner to help the algorithms find your content. 
• Create content with keywords – Sprinkle the keywords throughout all of your content on the website so that the algorithm has plenty of places to find results.
• Speed up your website – Google will rank slow websites towards the bottom of the search results. Make sure you are using a website speed monitor often to check your website’s speed.
• Use landing pages with keywords – The title of your Landing page should have keywords related to your real estate development. Make sure to delete any pages that are underperforming.

High-quality content that is updated frequently is one way to keep your website as one of the top search results. Another thing to keep in mind is to keep your branding consistent throughout your website and social media platforms so that you are a recognizable and credible source for your current real estate development project and any future endeavors.

Paid Advertising

Social media marketing utilizes paid marketing to get your content on websites and platforms that are related to your business. Ads are usually affordable and most importantly they are measurable so you can see exactly who you are reaching.

Cold Prospecting

When researching your target audience, you can get an idea of customers or organizations that might be interested in your real estate development. They can be reached by advertising, networking, cold calling, or public relations.

Sales Funnel

Create a sales funnel for when you are speaking to your clients. When a potential client is hooked by your marketing, it opens up the opportunity to pitch your real estate development to convert them into long-term customers. A sales funnel strategy helps to answer questions before your customer has them and quash any doubts or uncertainty they may be feeling.

Email Marketing

Email marketing provides a special touch and makes things feel more personal.  There are 5 types of email marketing that you should utilize for your real estate development project:

• Welcome Emails
• Newsletter Emails
• Transactional Emails
• Re-engagement Emails
• Review/Story Emails

Several email marketing services, such as GetResponse, also provide packages that offer additional perks such as customer surveys and feedback.

Conclusion

Building your real estate development marketing plan from the ground up will help set a strong foundation in place for the future of your project. Once you have identified your target audience, visualized your brand, and decided how to approach your marketing strategy, the execution will help you gain maximum exposure and have long-term success.

Contact now Mediaboom to develop your real estate marketing plan.