aenspire delivering developmentprofit.com

[NOTE: This section of the book can do with an update, given the dramatic changes in social media, search and AI over the last few years.]

When you ask most agents for their marketing strategy they send you an advertising budget. Advertising is not marketing. Advertising helps you spread your message whereas marketing is about creating and massaging the message. Of course, the two are inextricably linked — your marketing strategy helps determine what advertising you will use and the form of advertising available in the market influences how you present your message. Advertising mediums include:

• Direct selling — agent or developer targeting existing contacts, or simple old canvassing and cold calling.
• Internet — agent website, market wide multiple listing websites, online adverts, social media.
• Specialist real estate magazines.
• Signage — bus-backs, bus shelters, billboards, on-site advertising boards.
• Newspaper real estate sections — national, regional, local, ethnic.
• Target market publications — flight magazines, community publications, foreign magazines, home design magazines, financial and investment publications.
• Advertorials in publications and newspapers.
• Flyers and postcards — distributed around the neighbourhood, mailbox drops, placed in retail shops.
• Radio advertising.
• Television — mainstream channels, cable, community or ethnic channels, on-demand internet TV
• Sponsorship — local sports teams, charities, radio or television programmes partnerships.

Advertising needs to be budgeted for accordingly. Have your agent provide a breakdown of all proposed advertising mediums and their cost over a one, two or three month sales programme. Challenge the agent on each medium asking them to present the evidence to justify you paying for this advertising. Listing your project and individual sections or homes on multiple listing websites is very cost effective and let’s face it — everyone who wants to buy a home is looking at web listings every day, throughout the day. Therefore, do you even need a newspaper or print publication advertisement?

Maybe, as it can help reinforce your project in light of the competition and great advertising can be lost on the internet as compared to in print. In addition, when you list on the internet you have to define specific categories about your homes or sections and therefore you are relying on the buyer’s search criteria finding your project. If yours are the only sections being sold in your area, potential buyers who have not considered buying a section versus buying a home and land package may not even know your option exists.

Establish a way to measure how effective your advertising is. Ideally you will determine your cost per sale for each form of advertising. With real estate advertising typically utilising multiple channels (and many building on and reinforcing others) this will be near impossible to calculate.  However, make your best effort to record the data and measure over time. When the agent holds open homes or gets contacted by a potential buyer get them to ask and record ‘how did you find out about us?’ A second more powerful question is ‘what made you contact me today?’  Try to determine what advertising is best at attracting buyers and what advertising has little effect.

When placing print adverts the location and prominence on the page is important and the publication will price accordingly. Expect to pay more for a right hand side page than a left hand. A full page costs more than a half page which costs more than a quarter page (but not necessarily proportionally). The cover is prime advertising real estate, often accompanied by the inside cover and first page for a three page spread. The rear page is also sought after. A typical approach is to launch your development with prime adverts and continue with full page adverts in the first month. Then, if sales are progressing according to expectations rely on smaller adverts. Expect to do more advertising in a softer market.

Agents like to profile themselves as much as possible and love having their photo attached to all advertising — it helps them get facetime in their market and win their next listing. This is not necessarily a bad thing for your development but you must be careful to balance the development branding so it does not unduly compete with the branding of the real estate agent or their agency.

Whichever medium you use you need to employ your price setting strategy to advertise your price. Price positioning can include several techniques to draw buyers, for example:

• Prices start from $500,000
• From $500,000 to $750,000
• 4 Bedrooms $600,000, 5 bedrooms $750,000
• One left at $499,000
• First release pricing $399,500
• All priced below $599,000!

You may decide not to present a price and use by negotiation, tender or auction. However, you definitely want to instil a call to action. One way is to advertise how successful the development is and how many units you have sold. Overtime, buyers who look at the same advert each week see available stock decreasing — this can act powerfully to create a sense of urgency. Advertising ‘call to action’ examples:

• 30% sold out!
• 30% sold out first weekend!
• Only seven left!
• 15 sold, 3 remaining!
• Averaging 10 sales per week, only two weeks inventory left!
• All four bedrooms sold out — only five bedrooms remaining[1]  

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[1] Be careful this doesn’t create a negative reaction in a buyer — why does no one want the five bedrooms?

Andrew Crosby
+64 21 982 444
andrew@xpectproperty.com

Where the agent is going to be doing the selling influences what marketing collateral you will use. This will be the place where you present the marketing that describes your development. Here are four options of increasing expense:

1. Sell from your real estate agent’s office. Have them dedicate wall space, a corner or even a separate room to market your development.
2. Sell onsite in a temporary building or within an existing onsite building.
3. Build a semi-permanent custom sales suite and display either onsite or in space nearby.
4. Build the first house in your development as the show home.

The larger and more luxurious your development the further down this list you will likely need to go. Once you have construction underway you could fast-track one home to act as the sales suite for the other homes in the development. For options 2 and 3 you can include building a mock-up of key features to give buyers a preview of what they will be purchasing, for example, a kitchen or bathroom complete with flooring, joinery, fittings, fixtures and appliances. If you do build in examples of what purchasers will be receiving then you need to decide whether you show the base specification or upgrades and optional extras. If the latter, then the agent will need to carefully sell potential buyers on what is the base and what is an upgrade.

Plan the layout of your display suite to enhance the sales process. Involve your agent in the layout. The entire sales suite should be designed to close sales. Help the agent tell the project story in a logical flow like a fully immersed live brochure. Here is an example of the agent interacting with a potential buyer in a well-designed display suite:

• Provide a comfortable entry setting to enable the agent to build rapport with buyers and uncover their needs and priorities. This may be an inviting reception room where there is plenty of space and maybe some couches for people waiting. 
• The agent then takes the buyer into the display firstly describing the background of the project, the developer’s vision and the greater location — selling the big picture aided with printed and interactive displays.
• To reinforce quality and deliverability the display may present a brief synopsis of past projects and experience of the developer, builder, architect and urban designer.
• The display progresses to outline the site plan and amenity of the development — perhaps a spectacular model — to illustrate all the benefits why one should buy in this subdivision.
• Then the presentation can focus on the individual sections and the features and benefits of each. This may be on the model, through large rendered site plans, or computer animations where you can zoom into individual sections and view the topography and building platforms.
• Floor plans, renders and computer generated animations allow the agent to present the types (size and design) of homes available (or suitable for, if selling sections). Attention is limited to high level key benefits at this point (such as two living areas so the kids can play without disturbing the adults and a great deck for outdoor summer dining).
• Before delving into too much floor plan detail the sales suite evolves into a mock-up of the kitchen, living and bathroom. This is where buyers can touch and feel the product and imagine themselves (or their tenants) living there.
• Material palettes, colour options and any upgrade options are displayed so the buyer starts to personalise (in their mind) their potential purchase.
• The agent then goes from a presentation mode to an initial closing mode. They show how many sections and homes have sold (like red dots on a wall-hung site plan) demonstrating the call for the buyer to take action.  From there, with the hook well and truly snared, the agent sits the buyer down at a sales desk, sales office, or just on a couch to talk through specific floor plan options, section details, pricing and the formalities of signing the agreement.

Even if a buyer is not accompanied by an agent, they should experience the development within the display suite as if they are being told an enticing story. The ending of course is with them signing a contract!

Andrew Crosby
+64 21 982 444
andrew@xpectproperty.com

Site and Floor Plans

Site plans and floor plans should be of a reasonable size (especially if they are small in the brochure) and should be printed on good quality stock for handing out and discussing with potential purchasers. Consider 3D house floor plans, although done poorly they can make rooms look crowded and the layout difficult to read.

Website

The easiest way to get a cost effective website up and running is to book the designer in and provide them with your draft brochure and tell them to ‘web it’. Websites have actually decreased in complexity over the years, primarily to allow for viewing on phones and tablets. You may even consider just making a social media page as the website (Facebook.com if it still exists by the time you are reading this). When the brochure is 100% then you can get the web designer to drop in the final images or text. To avoid rework don’t have the web designer undertake any graphic design themselves on the images to drop in (like plans and renderings). Make sure the website is fast on both computer and phone and easily navigable. The website’s overall quality should match the level of quality and luxury in the development you are creating.

Colour Boards

Colour boards that show the key finishing materials and colour palette options for the houses you are selling can be put together by your architect, interior designer or just do it yourself. Don’t provide too much choice as it gets difficult to manage the different options chosen between purchasers.  Consider limiting it to two or three colour schemes with no mixing and matching or substitutes allowed. Anything else is to be priced as an upgrade. Examples for the base that the materials will be glued or taped to you include a large tile, wood board, foam board or plastic/polymer sheet. On each base board material include the ten or so core interior materials:

• Wall paint
• Ceiling paint
• Feature wall paint (if any)
• Carpet
• Kitchen and entry tiles
• Bathroom tiles
• Kitchen benchtop
• Kitchen splashback
• Kitchen joinery
• Bathroom vanity top
• Bathroom vanity joinery

You could also include a kitchen cabinetry handle to highlight the materials.

Upgrades

If you are offering upgrades then you will need product information or material samples available as well.

Marketing Collateral Plus

Beyond the minimum described above there is plenty more marketing collateral you can present (and pay for). Consider the following if you and your agent determine it will help sales and make your project more profitable:

• A slideshow of artist’s impressions and floor plans.
• A computer animated rendered fly thru of the development.
• Drone flyover of the existing site, highlighting location amenity and views.
• A professionally made movie, starting with actual location and amenity scenes and zooming in and through a 3D fly thru of the development and then individual house types.
• Computer rendered interactive rooms where you can move throughout the home, linked to virtual reality headsets.
• Touch screens linked to website, or a custom application providing a menu for the buyer to select from to learn about the design and features of the development.
• A physical model of the development’s greater location.
• A physical model of the development site, with lights to highlight individual sections.
• Physical models of house types, with a removable roof or cutaway section to display internal layout.

Andrew Crosby
+64 21 982 444
andrew@xpectproperty.com

It used to be an actual artist would paint or draw an image in perspective of the development based on the plans that the architect would provide. Nowadays every architect has software that will generate a three dimensional render. Except for large firms with dedicated staff, the quality of these renders typically does not compare to firms who specialise in producing photo realistic renders. The very best ‘artists’ create images that look like professionally staged photographs — especially interior shots. The artist’s impression renderings are crucial to help sell your product so put your best foot forward. The old ‘a picture tells a thousand words’ is never truer. To get an artist’s rendering right takes some management as there is a number of issues to consider:

Exterior

• Prepare wireframe or quick block renders first so you can choose the best view angle for the render. Don’t leave it to the architect or artist to choose this and don’t proceed with the render until you have agreed the best angle. For a subdivision you will probably want to show a render of a streetscape profiling a couple of different house types close up. You may also consider doing a perspective of the entire development from above. If you are selling sections, without any house design, you still will want to evoke the emotion of what the development could look like when houses are actually built. By focusing on amenities, like a park, you can leave the houses in the background so you don’t have to worry about detail you haven’t actually designed.
• Include your agent as the perspective proceeds. Have them to comment on sales emotions invoked by the render.
• Cars, are they modern, current and match the target market?
• Do the people shown represent the aspirations of your potential buyer profile? Are there enough or too many? What are they wearing? What ethnicity are they? Are there any double ups (where the artist has cut and pasted a clone in different parts of the picture). Consider if you need people in the perspective as it is difficult to make people look realistic.
• Lighting. Is this to be a day shot or a night shot? Consider what time of day to get the best effect from sun shading for your development.
• What materials and colours has the artist used? Are they compatible with what you have planning permission for and what the architect has specified? Artist’s perspectives are typically done before the architect has completed their specification detail. However, the rendering is what buyers believe they are getting, so in essence the artist’s impression can trump the architect’s plans if there is a discrepancy. You may find yourself selecting construction materials as part of the artist’s perspective process rather than during the architectural developed design process.
• Use glazing to add interest by adding reflections or depth with furniture and people behind the windows.

Interior

• Choose the wireframe views before it is fully rendered. If you are on a tight budget consider just a kitchen and dining render. Other interior renders can include bathroom, living, bedroom, a combination view or even an angle from standing on a deck if the outlook from your development is a key selling feature.
• Are you going to have a view superimposed on shots where there is a window (requiring drone photography onsite)?
• Does the furniture and interior decoration match your likely buyer profiles? Be careful not to clutter small spaces so the effect of spaciousness is lost.
• Once again be careful about materials and finishes — are you really providing full height glazing? A continuous splashback across the entire kitchen wall? Intricately detailed lattice work on the stairs? A custom made integrated joinery unit?
• People are difficult to include without detracting from the shot, especially as they will be close up. Frame the render like a real life interior design photography shoot and be very selective on using people, if at all.

Andrew Crosby
+64 21 982 444
andrew@xpectproperty.com

The brochure is the guiding document for all marketing collateral as it requires the development name, a logo, pictures of what the development will look like and all the key messages and detail. Completing the brochure forces you to answer all the questions on branding, imagery, your sales pitch and your design with finalised floor and site plans. It can take some time to put together so ideally you start the brochure early and run it concurrent to finalising the floor plans and renders. When plans are finalised you can drop them into the brochure, replacing prior versions used as placeholders. Obtain a fixed price to design the brochure as the back and forth and hourly costs with even an affordable designer will mount quickly.  

Brochures can take all forms and the greater the number of pages the longer it will take to produce and review. Once the brochure is printed you don’t really want to have to make changes and reprint them. Make sure you include only what you need to in the brochure and what you print is actually your final sellable product. When running everything concurrently and taking the risk of marketing before receiving planning approval this can be challenging.

The brochure should tell the story of the development and a common format is to start with visual or textural impact and key messaging elements and end with the detail of floor plans and specifications. A house and land development brochure, assuming a booklet style presentation will include variants of the following elements:

• Cover. Development name and logo, exterior artist’s impression or other seductive imagery and text.
• Location. Describe the location with a map graphic, images and text showing local amenities, transport and distances to key nodes like airports or the central business district.
• People. Lifestyle imagery and text targeted to the likely buyer profiles.
• Site plan. Show house types and sections numbered, amenities being created (such as parks and playgrounds) and a statement from the urban designer. A streetscape rendering may also work well.
• House design. Use interior and exterior artist’s impression, images and text describing material selection and a design statement from the architect.
• Colour options. Include internal material palettes and statement from interior designer.
• Floor plans. If you have 30 different types you may only want to include the most common ones to limit the size of the brochure. Where the houses are exactly the same but the sections vary, then include an indicative section landscape plan.
• Outline specifications. Keep this to one or two pages of the key materials, fixtures and finishes of the house. This is where you can include a description and pictures of optional features or upgrades. Use the outline specification (in conjunction with associated images or photos from a display suite) to help sell the features of the house, including quality and durability. If you are only selling the sections, limit this to what is being provided in general terms (for example, we provide a flat building platform and all engineering works to achieve local authority approval).
• About the developer.  Showcase previous projects and experience in delivering as well as developer’s vision. Focus the content that is most relevant to your target market for this project.
• Team profile. Highlight key consultants (urban designer, architect, interior architect, project manager) and contractors to show a high quality team that delivers. If this is your first project then you can leverage your consultants’ talents rather than focusing on your own inexperience.
• Disclaimer. Don’t forget the fine print stating the pictures are artist’s impressions only, specification items subject to change, best endeavours on content. This is important as the brochure often finds itself appended to a signed sale and purchase contract.

Andrew Crosby
+64 21 982 444
andrew@xpectproperty.com