Need a Real estate development Marketing plan? Of course, you do! To be successful in Real estate development you need to have the right technical skills and be able to execute. But it is also largely about having connections and reputation. Your Real estate development marketing plan will help you accomplish many things. It will help generate leads, build connections, and show your authority and credibility.
If you are just starting out then building your network, authority and credibility are critical. Even if you’re a well-known real estate developer or Real estate development company you still need to effectively market yourself. In this series of blog posts we detail how you can create an effective Real estate development Marketing plan.
Intro to our Real estate development Marketing plan series
In this article we discuss the foundations of an effective Real estate development Marketing plan. These include developing effective branding and deeply understanding your target market. We also cover how to establish a strong online presence through your website and other channels so you are seen and heard.
In future articles in this series we cover individual marketing tactics to market your company and your developments.
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Are you ready to create your developer marketing plan? Great! Let’s get started!
Looking for help with your real estate development marketing? Check out our marketing services.
1. Establish the foundations of your Real estate development Marketing plan
Jumping in without a solid plan in place will result in wasted time and effort. To get it right you need to do some critical foundational work. What are the foundations? We’re referring to your brand and your target audience.
If you don’t solidify these prior to starting the you’ll find yourself running around without a clear plan. Tactical work is necessary, but only if you have a clear plan to execute. It is not effective to say the least.
Make sure you truly understand and define who your target market is
Who exactly are you targeting? Do you know? If you don’t have this locked down your messaging and content won’t be relevant. It won’t be valuable. In other words, no one will care.
You will most likely have more than one target audience. It could be investors for funding. It could be end-users (renters/buyers) if you’re focusing on marketing a specific Real estate development project.
But here’s the kicker. You have to define and truly understand each one. Each target market will have different needs, problems. Different messaging and hooks will work with each. Designing the same messaging for multiple targets will not be effective.
Understand your target audience’s demographic information, including age, gender, location, income, etc. You will also need to understand who they really are, what’s important to them, and what they care about. What are their pain points? What do they value, and what do they expect?
This information will be used when creating your branding. It will also be used to create content and messaging that truly speaks to them and provides value.
Establish a strong company brand, brand story, positioning, and messaging
In order to craft the messaging that will go into your website, content, ad copy, printed materials, etc. you will need to have a clearly defined brand. This is critical to your Real estate development marketing plan.
As part of this exercise, you need to create your brand story. This is the narrative of your brand. Your brand story details why the company was started, why your brand exists, and why people should care.
You also need to determine your company’s value proposition and positioning statement.
Your positioning will show your value proposition to your target audience(s). At the same time it shows who you are as a brand, what your purpose is, and why you are different. In a mass of Real estate development companies you will need to clearly differentiate yourself. Why are you different? Why should your target audience choose you?
In order to develop an effective positioning statement you will need to solidify the following:
- your target market
- your specific market category
- the pain-points of your target market
- what your target market values
- what you provide to your target market (what problem you solve)
- your values and mission
Last, you need to develop your messaging. Your messaging should speak to the heart of what your target audience cares about. What are their pain points, and what provides them with value? What are you strong at as a company? Use your brand elements, along with your target audience’s pain points and value creators to create messaging that resonates with your target audience.
Your Real estate development Marketing plan needs to first establish your online presence
Establishing your online presence should be a major part of your real estate development marketing plan.
Why? You want your brand to be visible everywhere your target market is present and gets their information. If you don’t show up everywhere your target audience does then you will be an afterthought. Depending on who your target market is you will need to be in different places.
Web design and your Website: your virtual home-base
At the very least you want to make sure you have a well-presented and functional website for your company. Your website is most likely the first impression your prospects will get of your brand. It needs to look professional and speak to them. By functional, we mean it has the ability technically to accomplish your company’s goals.
Side note: this section refers mainly to your company website, although some of the principles carry over. It will depend on your strategy, but you are most likely best-suited to develop and launch individual websites to market (sell-out/rent-out) each development project. This will help promote each specific development and have the appropriate functionality for each. It will also drive traffic back to your company website and create backlinks.
Your Website needs to be able to accomplish your marketing goals
As such, the functionality of your Website needs to be built with your specific company’s marketing goals in mind. What do you want to accomplish? Generating leads? Securing funding? Building a reputation?
This is mission critical. We always recommend establishing clear marketing goals before starting any design or development work.
How will you capture leads? Will you be able to present critical information? What kind of media does your site need to host? What other functionalities does your website need to have in order to accomplish your goals? Think through these critical items before the design and development start.
Your website needs to speak to your target audience and provide them value
The content of your site needs to be catered to your target audience(s). Go back again to your target market definition. Who exactly is your target audience? What do they care about? Go back to your branding. What is the messaging and values, etc. you want to portray on your site to your specific target audiences?
A website that does’t provide value to your target audience is useless. No one will stick around long enough to convert them.
Your content should also play up your strengths, value, credibility and reputation where appropriate. Showcase your past work and highlight the success of these projects. Support your high quality images, videos, etc. with copy and documentation that talk about the actual results (the numbers).
Expand your online presence beyond your website
Next, you want to make sure that you can be found (be visible) almost everywhere your target market gets their information. This includes setting up all relevant social media channels, setting up and optimizing your Google My Business listing, getting your company listed on industry directories, and being present on industry-specific forums or platforms, etc.
The specific “locations” you need to be present on will depend on who you are trying to target. Again, understanding who your target audience is will help determine where they are spending time online.
This expanded presence will help to do several things.
First, you will be present and top of mind when your target audience is looking for a solution.
Second, your prospects are going to vet you out. That is a given. So you want to make sure that you show up online whenever and wherever they search for you. A new or unoptimized site doesn’t always come up when people search for your brand. This is an issue, as you don’t look credible if you don’t exist. Because of the domain authority of these social platforms and listing sites, your brand will come up one way or the other. So prospects will know you are real even if your site does not come up when they search for you.
Don’t miss all future articles in this series
This i just part one of our real estate development marketing plan series. In future articles we will cover individual marketing tactics. These tactics can be used to market your Property development company and/or your specific Developments. These tactics include social media marketing, lead generation, email marketing, inbound marketing using funnels and automation, content marketing, paid advertising, search engine optimization, prospecting, etc.
Make sure you sign up for our newsletter to get notified when the future articles in the series are released.
Need help with your Real estate development Marketing plan?
Looking for a real estate marketing agency to help you create a marketing strategy that works? Well, look no further! We can help your company get more leads, find investors and build your authority and reputation. Macaw Digital is made up of expert marketers, with real estate investing experience. We have worked with property developers, and have achieved results! Give us a call today at +1 978-729-5944 or contact us below to schedule a free consultation and get a free proposal.
