As a property developer, you’ll naturally want to make sure you’ve left no stone unturned in your marketing efforts to maximise your return. Fortunately, there are lots of things you can do to better market your new project and boost interest from potential buyers. Selling property is all about attracting the right buyer at the best price – and optimising your marketing campaign will give you the best chance at doing just that. Here are 10 things you should look to do to ensure your next campaign hits all the right notes.
1. Use digital imagery
As useful as written content is in promoting your projects, in the property market especially, imagery is the most important form of marketing collateral. Investing in top-quality, professional imagery will help to show off your designs in the highest detail and give you a headstart over competitors.
Modern technology gives developers the opportunity to exhibit their developments in a number of ways. At Modunite, we work closely with you to ensure you get the tools that are right for your marketing campaign. We offer a range of professional rendering services designed to help you bring your property to market quicker.
2. Still CGIs
Still CGIs form the foundation of most modern property marketing campaigns. Having these snapshots of your property to hand allows you to quickly and easily exhibit its external and internal appearance to potential investors. Often, these pictures will be the first impression people get of your property, so you’ll want to ensure they are of the highest standard. Property CGI can bring architectural sketches and blueprints to life, helping customers to visualise their new space from the very beginning of the house-buying process.
3. Virtual tours
Virtual tours are becoming increasingly prominent in the property market, with both developers and house hunters seeing the benefits of this handy product. It gives prospective buyers the opportunity to take a digital tour of the property, examining each room and every little aspect in the highest detail.
Even if your property hasn’t been built yet, our team can take your designs and specs to generate a realistic virtual tour, giving you a headstart on your marketing campaign. What’s more, this imagery can highlight any potential flaws during the design process, so you can make any adjustments before construction begins.
4. 3D floor plans
Traditional architectural sketches are incredibly detailed and will intricately show the layout of each room inside your property. However, to the everyday house buyer, these complex sketches can be difficult to understand and visualise. That’s why 3D floor plans are such an integral part of modern-day property marketing.
They can help to bring an architect’s vision to life, with prospective buyers getting a thorough understanding of what they’ll be walking into before seeing the property for themselves. This will reduce the number of unsuccessful viewings, helping to streamline the entire process. 3D floor plans differ from virtual tours by giving you a birds-eye view of the layout, which is helpful for buyers looking to visualise the flow of the property and how each room could be arranged.
5. Make sure show homes are staged to perfection
Technology has come a long way in helping clients to view and visualise properties without ever physically visiting the site. However, in-person viewings naturally remain an important part of the house-buying process, and developers shouldn’t lose sight of their significance.
Home staging is all about making it as easy as possible for customers to visualise how the space will look once they’ve moved in; it’s literally a case of making a house a home. The process of home staging has a clear impact on buyers, with 47% of respondents in one study saying staging improved their opinion of a property. Best of all, when it comes to home staging, there are lots of quick wins that can help to facilitate a faster sale. Ensuring the space is well-lit, clean, furnished and ultimately looks and feels fresh, will encourage clients to form more positive associations with the property from the very first viewing.
6. Leverage virtual staging
An important part of home staging for modern-day property developers is leveraging virtual staging. Virtual staging is an effective way to boost the appeal and perceived value of a property by utilising 3D software to build out a space and virtually fill an empty room. It isn’t just about adding furniture to help buyers to visualise the home. With interior image rendering technology, designers can alter the lighting, textures and colours in a space. To really make the most of this technology, you can use a split screen to show off a space before and after virtual staging effects have been applied.
This has proven to be an effective way to boost interest and bring your home to market quicker. In fact, 2015 research reveals that staged homes sell 87% faster, and for 17% more, than non-staged properties. Leveraging the opportunities that both virtual and in-person staging present is the best way to ensure you’re maximising your property’s appeal.
7. Capture buyers’ emotions
To elevate your home staging efforts further, one approach to consider is emotional staging. As well as optimising the visual elements of a property, you can engage your customers’ other senses during a viewing. Sight, smell and touch could all have an important role to play as potential buyers form their first impressions of a home. Engaging all of these senses in a positive way will make a viewing more memorable and could help your development to stand out from the competition in buyers’ minds. You can also appeal to their imaginations by ensuring the space is free of clutter, presenting them with a blank canvas that they can make their own.
8. Give your customers a realistic experience with VR
The potential of virtual reality is starting to be realised by businesses in all different industries, and property developers certainly haven’t missed the memo. In fact, only a handful of industries are expected to attract more virtual reality/augmented reality-related investment than real estate in the near future. But why is it so valuable?
The process of carrying out a property viewing is a big investment of both buyers’ and developers’ time and money. But VR has the potential to replace costly in-person viewings by virtually transporting prospective buyers inside the homes, giving them a greater sense of depth and space within a property. You can even change the lighting, furnishings and colour scheme at the click of a button, so viewers can clearly visualise how their future home could look.
9. Create a consistent brand
Wherever and however you choose to market your next project, one of the keys to an effective campaign is creating consistent branding across all your platforms. Without consistent branding, it will be more difficult for existing and prospective customers to identify your marketing collateral. Establishing a recognisable identity will help you to differentiate yourself from competitors, and encourage customers to start to form positive associations with your company from their very first interaction.
It’s important that your branding is done with your target market in mind, appealing to the demographic that are most likely to be interested in your developments. From colour palette, to logos, to tone of voice, think about how you can resonate with your audience through your branding before rolling it out across all of your marketing channels.
10. Market the local area
While your properties should, of course, be front and centre in any marketing efforts, it’s crucial not to forget about the surrounding area. Buyers aren’t just interested in the building itself, they want to know all about the neighbourhood, local transport links, schools, community and local amenities.
Digital imagery can be used to show off the local area around the property, offering prospective buyers a better insight into how the building will fit into the surrounding neighbourhood. Give customers both the good and the bad; ignoring any negative aspects is an inefficient way of marketing a property, since buyers won’t have all the information before viewing. Giving customers a better understanding of the area your property sits in will streamline the process and could ultimately bring about a sale more quickly.
Property marketing done right
All of these things are intertwined, and when they’re all working well together, you’ll have an extensive, professional marketing strategy in place. Review the tools you already have at your disposal, and focus your attention on any areas where there may be room for improvement. Commit to being flexible with your strategy, responding to customer feedback from your target market along the way.
Buying a property is one of the biggest decisions most people will ever make, so you’ll want to do all you can to provide as much information to your customers as possible. This way, you’ll be able to speed up the selling process, and attract the right buyer for your next project.