Insight 4: Online or Offline
Once the imagery is completed, how is it going to be presented and how are you going to achieve maximum exposure? Have you thought through various online and offline methods of project marketing?
Today there is an enormous range of methods available to present and sell your project off-the-plan.Google Adwords campaigns, dedicated websites, email marketing campaigns, Twitter and Facebook marketing are all adding new channels for reaching your prospective buyers and ensuring they preview your projects and make an enquiry.
However, having all these various online channels does not remove the need for having print advertising of the developments. Billboards in highly visible locations and print campaigns in local newspapers are difficult to measure ROI, yet are still very valuable for raising visibility and profile of the development in the public eye.
The output of the artist impressions process has to be delivered appropriately to handle all these various methods. For high quality printing, the imagery often needs to be produced at 150 dpi or above and at least 5,000 pixels (px) wide. However, for web styled images often 1,200px wide images are sufficient.
- Keep in mind various online and offline channels for marketing your development
- Presenting your development with its own website allows you to display a number of lifestyle photos along with beautiful visuals of the project
- Online marketing methods include Google Adwords and campaigns on social media channels like Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin
- Offline methods include print brochures, billboards, newspaper editorials and letter box campaigns.
Insight 5: Value or Cost
Imagery plays a major role in the purchaser’s mind when considering various off-the-plan apartments. So if the imagery is of poor quality, then the purchasers are that much more likely to look elsewhere.
And although the cost of the project visuals is an important consideration when it comes to marketing development projects, what should really be considered carefully is the value that high quality 3D visuals can bring to your development.
Presenting unique features of your development at a high level and style lifts sales values of the project by at least 7 per cent, as surveyed through a number of marketing agencies we have worked with. Furthermore, from the same group surveyed the typical budget allocation for marketing imagery should be between 0.5 to 1 per cent of the total construction cost of the project.
Selling property off the plan is much more challenging than selling traditional real estate, so high quality visuals will make it easier for your selling agents, allowing them to showcase more effectively all the unique features of the project
- Value of high quality artist impressions lifts sales figures of developments by at least 7 per cent on average
- Allocate a specific budget for marketing imagery in the initial feasibility stage for the development
- This value in the feasibility should be between 0.5 to 1 per cent of total construction cost
Insight 6: Present a Complete Picture
When launching a project, one of the most important keys is that all marketing collateral, including website, real estate advertising and other graphics, should be launched at once. When the online campaign is presented, the billboards and print brochures must be ready for the real estate agents to work with. At the same time the website must be up and running to ensure that the prospective purchasers doing research on the development arrive at their expected destination rather than stumbling across a work in progress.
In this world of instant gratification, if we don’t deliver 100 per cent then doubt about the development instantly creeps in. Loss of professional, comprehensive presentation can cost the developer dearly in lost sales.
- Collate and present all the material at once
- Launch offline campaign when online marketing is active, then the multiplier effect comes in of people really seeing the project in many places
- Online campaign must be launched simultaneously with print and offline channels
- Create a consistent message that the development is high quality through professional presentation
- Purchasers doing research on the project must arrive at their expected destination when typing in the project’s URL
- Small errors can cause thousands of dollars of lost revenue in lost sales and time delays.
Insight 7: Work with an Expert
Working with experts makes marketing projects enjoyable and smooth flowing. There are fewer headaches, less wasted time explaining simple concepts, and higher quality visuals that help sell the development more effectively.
There are already enough complexities in development, and if one of the vast complex areas, which is one of the most important in creating the marketing tools for selling the project, is taken care of by experts that creates an easier path forward.
Our direct background in marketing development sites gives us a unique advantage of being able to guide and help our clients in creating effective marketing to position the development from a real world experience.
- Work with an expert team to save time and increase your profits
- Rely on the experience of the visual marketing strategists to deliver high quality results
- We use our unique experience in marketing development sites to guide our clients in the creation of imagery
- Enjoy the process of property development rather than deal with extra headaches.
Case Study
Recently we were approached about putting together a set of marketing images for a medium size townhouse development. Unfortunately these clients have had a stream of apparent ‘bad luck’. It took them three years to attain a reasonably straightforward permit of six town houses.
However, upon further investigation it became quite apparent that even this permit is not worth the paper the drawings were printed on. There were mistakes all over the drawings and numbers that did not correlate; these plans were approved by a local authority who obviously didn’t check the finer details.
Our feedback on this project was that they were not ready and would find a hard time selling these units off the plan as the layout of interiors was very poor.
These townhouses were primarily aimed at owner occupiers and would be priced around $800,000 each. At this level, the purchasers are quite discerning and would expect to see high quality in everything about the project.
And since the development was already behind the ‘8 ball’ with poor quality architectural drawings, regardless of how well polished the marketing imagery became the estate agents still would struggle mightily to sell the units.
***This article is abridged – for the full report ‘7 Insights to Killer 3D Marketing Campaigns’, see eagleproperty.com.au.
Stan Zaslavsky is the Managing Director of Eagle Vision Property. This post originally appeared on eagleproperty.com.au.
