Designing to sell on a large scale – Tips for marketing your property

Property agents and developers rely heavily on marketing to sell or rent their buildings (and land) and this starts from the moment the plans are drawn up and the planning application is submitted. From gaining the support of local communities through to branding the building itself, the site signage, and the glossy brochures have to sell, sell, sell.

Whether its industrial, office, retail or residential everything is aimed at achieving ROI, to fill empty properties, increase footfall and raise the sites profile for the client; You are encouraging people to part with a lot of money, so how do you ensure that your brochure / signage is marketing your property in the best possible light?

Whale have put together our top tips for marketing your property:

· Branding – Make sure you get the name right from the start and create a brand which is desirable. A good brand gives a site personality and should make people connect with it, they should feel like they could live or work there. Your brand should reflect the selling points of the site and be punchy … gaining their attention at the first hurdle.

· Design – Make your building stand out whether by its signage, the promotional emails you send out, PR, brochures and the website - appeal to your target audience. There should be a synergy running through the creative, if someone receives a brochure sees the signage and clicks on the website they know they’re in the right place.

· Copy – Be creative with your copy and link it to the branding. Build up excitement by promoting the lifestyle, the opportunities it offers and sell benefits not just features.

· Imagery – Make sure you have the best shots available of your property and take different angle shots. If you are selling off plan, creative inviting floor plans along with 3D impressions of how it will look will add to the feel of the marketing. Using aspirational people based imagery will persuade your target audience to buy into the lifestyle.

· Call to action / invitation – What do you want people to do after seeing your material? Book a visit? Request information? Come to a launch? Don’t forget to ask them!

· Contact Details – Make sure you offer various methods of contact to appeal to a larger audience, some people will just want to email for information and others will want to call and ask questions. Don’t alienate potential renters or buyers by not offering them their preferred means of contact. You can also offer the brochure to download on a website which they can get by entering contact information, this then adds to your database of potential clients to follow up with.

· Launch Events – Placing an ad can be quite expensive and not too cost effective, ask yourself, who do you want to see the ad? Gather a list, be specific, invite them to a launch event, whether its breakfast or lunch with your tailored captive audience you’ll find it will be more cost effective than an ad.

If you need help with marketing your property, we work with Peel, Knight Frank, CBRE, DTZ, Cushman & Wakefield and King Sturge so contact Marian@whalemarketing.co.uk who will be happy to speak to you about your requirements.

How to write good PR content for Business to Business industries.

Here at the whalepod we are passionate about creating great content which will engage with B2B audiences and will inform and entice them towards our clients products/services. Although all pieces of PR tend to follow the same rules of content; there is a different focus applied to B2B than B2C PR articles.

For any B2B company knowledge & information is key. B2B decisions are made through a different thought process than B2C they work on the basis of getting to know all the keys facts to help them make a decision on whether a product/service is for them. Whereas consumers make snappier decisions on whether the offer is right or whether it is supported by their favourite celebrity.

Businesses will want proof that a product/service works before investing their time or money into it. This is an important factor to consider when writing PR as you need to think about whether you are providing the reader with all the information that they feel is relevant. You need to ensure content has substance that engages with, informs and influences your audience, but at the same time keeps both your audience and of course your clients satisfied.

You need to understand the industry and its audience. Most B2B companies are serious about what they do and will not appreciate mistakes when it comes to knowledge within their trade. Make sure you check all spelling of people’s names, places, products and technical references. Who will want to do business with someone who can’t get the basics right?

It is also important to provide comment and opinion but to make sure that it is based on fact. The last thing you need is someone commenting back that they disagree with your comment; which is something we see happening within trade press.

But also let’s not forget that just like B2C you’ve got to make it interesting. Try and think of different topics to write your PR on. It is great to showcase recent projects you have completed but why not think of other ways that you can showcase your business through interesting feature pieces on subject matters that will engage with the reader and show them that you have influence within their trade.

Secrets of the Superbrands

We in the Whalepod have been inspired by watching BBC3’s documentary series ‘Secrets of the Superbrands’.

The programme attempts to explore how exactly it is that giants like Coca Cola, Nike and McDonalds ensure global coverage and why is it that their logos are so memorable?

Alex Riley, the programmes presenter, thinks he's immune to brands. So how did that pair of Adidas trainers get in his wardrobe? How did that can of Heinz Baked Beans make it into his shopping trolley? Why do we buy, trust and even idolise these brands?

The sheer power of the so called superbrands had the Whale Marketing team captivated. We have worked on branding with hundreds of clients over the years but are fascinated by how these consumer giants continue to dominate the market. So, what about B2B clients.. could these strategies work when you are aiming at a completely different type of audience?

B2B brand promotion works very differently compared to B2C. For example, B2B brands avoid mass market broadcasts and generally use media that can be targeted at a specific business audience, such as direct marketing both on and offline.

B2B companies are present where their potential customers are: Trade Shows, Exhibitions and increasingly so in online communities but they never advertise on a mass scale like the Superbrands.

As a B2B marketer your brand is your most valuable asset, particularly in recessions as B2B prospects and customers conduct significant research leading up to purchases. That means you as a marketer have to educate them early on, and establish your brand as a trusted resource that gets their problems and has the solution.

You may never be McDonalds… but you can certainly learn from their relationship building tactics. In B2B world, your brand is key and by making your corporate clients trust in it in the long run you will reap the rewards.

How important is Social Media for B2B Marketing?

With over 30billion pieces of content shared on facebook and 95 million tweets each day it is hardly surprising that we keep getting told that social media marketing is integral to any marketing campaign. The benefits of using facebook and twitter to target teenage girls about a new make-up range is pretty obvious but what about business to business marketing, can social media really help?

The big difference between B2B and B2C is that with B2B you are not trying to convert a million individual consumers to become your customer you are trying to reach a smaller number of large companies to invest their budget in your products or services. This may make you think that social media will therefore play a less important part in trying to target this audience but this is incorrect as a study has shown that over 86% of B2B companies are using social media in one way or another.

This means that if you are not participating in social media yourself you are missing out on an opportunity to reach a wide percentage of your target audience.

One main thing to consider when thinking about social media for B2B is that interaction is not going to lead to automatic sales. Social media is about moulding relationships, providing an opinion and attracting attention to be recognised. Businesses use other businesses because of their expertise and a bigger decision making process is involved than B2C; this is why using social media platforms is so beneficial to B2B companies as you are able to showcase your expertise and knowledge.

One main advantage of utilising social media platforms is that it will increase your SEO ranking, as by appearing across multiple platforms you are increasing the chances of your search terms being found. Research has also shown that people are now turning to social media platforms instead of search engines to find out the information they need.

B2B companies are more likely than B2C to maintain a company blog and participate on Twitter so make sure you don’t get bogged down with the perception that social media has no place in your marketing strategy as you just might be missing out on the quickest and cheapest way to reach your target audience.