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Thought Leadership

A place to keep up-to-date with the latest marketing trends

Project Marketing, Strategy

3 ways to make liaising easy for project marketers

By on

9 September, 2020

- Project Marketing, Strategy

Project marketing involves liaising with an array of consultants, agencies and professionals; content agencies, photographers and videographers, community managers, renderers, copywriters, builders and landscapers just to name a few.

 

To make your job (and their job) easier, it’s essential that you’re a good briefer. In fact, we can’t emphasise the importance of good briefing enough!

 

Briefing is your opportunity to provide your consultants with clear expectations, allowing you to really set the tone of the assets you want created.

 

Here are some things you’ll need to consider when you brief.

 

1. Be a clear briefer. One of the best ways to clearly outline your expectation is by filling out a briefing template. In your brief, be clear about what you want and what you don’t want. You may even like to provide examples. And always set realistic timeframes and provide budget expectations.

 

2. Provide solution-based feedback. Always start your feedback with what you liked. Then voice your ideas and criticisms in a constructive way that will help the professionals to understand your expectations. And be prepared to listen to suggestions from your consultants – after all, they’re the experts!

 

3. Be thorough. Provide the consultants with all the necessary information and assets at the same time to reduce inefficient ‘back and forth’ communication.

 

For more useful project marketing insights and tips, download our free Project Marketer’s Handbook.

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Content Marketing, Strategy

27 content ideas to engage your community in September 2020

By on

8 September, 2020

- Content Marketing, Strategy

Given Sunday’s disappointing announcement from Dan Andrews about the extended lockdown for Melburnians, your community is craving digital interaction and entertainment more than ever!

 

Use this time to engage and amuse your audience by creating content that they can relate to and enjoy.

 

To help you get started, here are 27 different content ideas you can implement, starting today.

 

8 September 2020 – International Literacy Day  

Blog idea: X must-read books about (topic)

Community engagement idea: Ask your homeowners to post a photo of their favourite book and write why they love it (and tag your handle!) to your social media page.

Competition idea: Host a competition where members of your Facebook community write a poem or short story and post it to your page. At the end of the day, pick a winner and offer a prize.

 

9 September 2020 – Teddy Bear Day  

Blog idea: DIY backyard teddy bear picnic set-up / X best local parks to enjoy a teddy bear picnic

Event idea: Host a virtual teddy bear picnic on Zoom that your community can tune into. During the picnic you can read books and play songs for the kids to listen to. This is an excellent activity at any point of the month – your invitation could be sent on Teddy Bear Day for a date later in the month!

Community engagement idea: Ask your social media community to post a photo of their childhood teddy, or their children’s current favourite teddy, and a short caption about why it matters to them. Make sure you ask them tag your social handle in the caption!

 

10 September 2020 – R U OK? Day

Blog idea: X ways to show your friends and family you care

Communication idea: Show your community and staff members that you care about their mental health and well-being by asking them the simple question – are you okay? Make a social post, send out an email or text, give someone a call. It doesn’t matter how you do it – even the smallest gesture can have a big impact.

Spotify idea: Compile a playlist of uplifting and positive songs to share with your community, and bring a smile to their faces.

 

10 September 2020 – Swap Ideas Day  

Blog idea: Partner up with another brand or individual (such as an interior designer) and share ideas about a relevant topic in a casual interview setting. Top and tail the transcript with an intro and outro to make an interesting read for your customers. You could also film or record this interview and create a compelling video or podcast episode.

Social media idea 1: Use this day to shout out a word of appreciation to other brands or individuals who you have collaborated and shared ideas with.

Social media idea 2: Use your Instagram stories to host an idea sharing session. Ask your followers to send through ideas or suggestions for the community, and respond to them in a short stories video.

 

13 September 2020 – Positive Thinking Day  

Blog idea: X positive affirmations to tell yourself every day

Video idea: Get your sales team to record themselves saying their favourite positive quote, mantra or affirmation using their smart phone. Compile the clips into one montage and share to your socials.

Community engagement idea: Ask your social media community to post their favourite positive quote, mantra or affirmation and tag your brand. Or, host an Instagram stories session where your followers send you their favourite positive sayings and you read them aloud in a video – be sure to give a shout out to each person whose submission you read!

 

16 September 2020 – Working Parents Day  

Blog idea: X confessions of a working parent in iso

Community engagement idea: Ask the working parents in your community to post a video of a funny ‘truth’ or ‘confession’ about being a working parent in iso to your socials (and tag your handle!). You can add incentive by offering a prize for the funniest video.

Social media idea: Post something motivating to your social media today, to acknowledge the hard work of the working parents in your community – especially those working from home with kids!

 

20 September 2020 – National Women’s Friendship Day 

Blog idea: X ways to show your friend you care

Community engagement idea: Encourage your female followers to have a virtual date (or in-person if restrictions allow) with their close female friends and post photos of their catch up, tagging your brand.

Spotify idea: At least one week prior, ask your followers to send through their favourite songs about girl power and friendship. Compile the suggested songs into a Spotify playlist and share with your social media community.

 

21 September 2020 – World Gratitude Day  

Social media idea: Post an inspirational quote or thought to your social media today that encourages your followers identify the things they’re thankful for.

Video idea: Ask your sales team to use their smartphones to video themselves saying something they’re grateful for. Compile the clips into one video and post to social.
Community engagement idea: Ask your community to post about what they’re grateful for in their home or their estate (in a caption or in a video) and tag your brand. Or, host an Instagram stories session where your followers send you the things they’re grateful for and you read them aloud in a video – be sure to give a shout out to each person whose submission you read!

 

22 September 2020 – Hobbit Day

Blog idea: X inspirational quotes from The Hobbit or X important lessons in The Hobbit

Competition idea: Throughout the day, post a range of quotes from The Hobbit to social media. The first person to guess who says the quote correctly wins a prize chosen by you!

Quiz idea: Host a virtual quiz on Zoom. Participants must write down their answers and email or direct message you afterwards with their answers. The person who gets the most questions right wins a prize chosen by you.

 

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Customer Experience, Project Marketing, Strategy

23 things you need to include in your project marketing budget

By on

8 September, 2020

- Customer Experience, Project Marketing, Strategy

When launching a project, development teams take a no-expenses spared approach to branding, creating brochures and installing the biggest billboard council will permit along the freeway. Hundreds of thousands of dollars are spent on creating impactful first impressions. And while this is very important – you never get a second chance to make a first impression – what happens after you establish that initial contact and try to build a relationship?

 

All too often we see project teams leaving little budget consideration for lead nurture and content marketing activities. While branding initiatives are important, so too are the actions involved in nurturing your leads from initial enquiry to final sale and beyond.

 

Here’s a list of the items your budget will need to cover:

 

[ ] Brand identity development
[ ] Content and copywriting
[ ] Project website
[ ] Collateral
[ ] Lead generation
[ ] Lead nurture
[ ] Landing page/pages
[ ] Maps
[ ] Print media
[ ] Digital media
[ ] Project movie
[ ] SEM
[ ] Photography
[ ] Renders
[ ] Floorplans
[ ] Signage
[ ] Asset development eg photography, drone, videos
[ ] Display suite
[ ] Model and/or touch screen
[ ] Social media (posts and campaigns)
[ ] Press
[ ] Builder engagement
[ ] Launch event/ongoing events

 

For more insights on how to set up your new project for success, download our free Project Marketer’s Handbook.

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Project Marketing, Strategy

5 considerations for developing your property brand

By on

7 September, 2020

- Project Marketing, Strategy

Brand development is the ‘fun’ and creative part of setting up any new project.

 

During this stage, it’s important that your creative agency is well briefed on the intricacies of your project and that the brand reflects and responds to your Value Proposition.

 

You’ll need a project name, brandmark, logos, design guidelines and a vast array of creative assets. Maintaining clear and effective communication with your creative agency is key here, to not only ensure you receive a high-quality final product, but a creation process that involves minimal ‘back and forth’.

 

Key Considerations

 

1. Will the brand resonate with your target audience? How your brand looks, sounds and interacts is crucially important. Take the time to ensure you get this right from the outset – it often takes several rounds of refinement to get it to the right place. This is a very important first step!

 

2. Will your brand stand out from the crowd? Flick through the property pages and you will see a vast array of developments being promoted. How can your brand avoid being the same-same? Think clever brandmark, a bold colour, unique application or strong brand statement.

 

3. How will the brand translate across multiple mediums? A beautiful gold foil logo looks fabulous on a brochure but how will a gold logo translate in a digital environment? Your agency will be able to make recommendations, however these are considerations you will need to make to ensure your brand is always best in show!

 

4. Big ideas are great but often come at a cost! Your creative agency will be working to ensure your brand resonates, stands out and gains traction. Just be clear about your budget from the outset. Big, shiny ideas are great however they often break the bank! Work with your agency to come up with cost effective solutions that still achieve a great outcome for your brand.

 

5. Brand Guidelines are a must! Once your brand is established, ensure your agency establishes brand guidelines so all contractors understand how to replicate your brand correctly. Consistency is key!

 

For more important information on how you can set your project up for success, download our free Project Marketer’s Handbook.

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Customer Experience, Strategy

How to start the marketing strategy for your new project

By on

4 September, 2020

- Customer Experience, Strategy

Developing a strategy is a crucial step for any new project, initiative or venture.

 

In order to set your project up for success, you need to have a documented strategy that delivers on the vision and value proposition, demonstrates a clear understanding of your customer and how they move through the project lifecycle. This then influences the brand development.

 

Your strategy will have a greater chance of succeeding if the whole team is on board with a thorough understanding of the value proposition and their individual responsibilities. This means that the development of your marketing strategy needs to involve the marketing, sales, design, development, customer relations and community teams.

 

Start with the objective

 

Let’s face it. A development business exists to make a profit. A marketer that can think in terms of achieving sales and delivering profit is worth their weight in gold. The best development businesses that consistently make a profit are the ones with the customer at the centre of their thinking.

 

Your marketing objective should be along the lines of:

 

Attract our target audience through measurable lead generation activity, nurture them using educational and entertaining content, delivered utilising technology and an integrated marketing, sales, customer relations and community experience to convey our brand promise. This will ensure we achieve:

 

  • XX sales by DD/MM/YYYY

  • Profit of $XX

 

Then outline the strategies you will use to deliver on the objective. Some ideas around strategy categories:

 

  • On-site customer journey

  • Digital customer experience

  • Collateral

  • Content

  • Lead generation

  • Events

  • Launch

 

Example: Lead generation

 

Our lead generation target is XX new leads per week (based on a XX% conversion to sale) and will come from the following mediums:

 

  • Social campaigns

  • Digital advertising

  • Strategic signage

  • REA listings and project page

  • Builder referrals

  • Customer referrals

  • Search engine marketing

 

Note: Sales suite visits or your website is not a lead generation method. People don’t just wake up one day and know you have a sales centre or type in your website URL. They are prompted by some type of advertising. Each of these sub-categories should then have action items, responsibility allocation and due dates listed.

 

For more insights on how to ensure your new project is set up for success, download our free Project Marketer’s Handbook.

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Project Marketing, Strategy, Workshops

Creating the vision: the format to a successful project

By on

3 September, 2020

- Project Marketing, Strategy, Workshops

When it comes to initial stages of setting up a new development, you have a blank canvas and a very important role to play in shaping the future of your project. Hosting a vision workshop will not only provide an opportunity to set up the project collaboratively, it will also help to inform your value proposition.

 

Here’s a vision workshop format you can follow to help set up your project for success:


1. About the site: 

  • Number of lots

  • Design aesthetics

  • Access to existing transport, education and retail

  • Proposed transport, education, retail, parks and recreation opportunities

  • Road layout

  • Landscaping opportunities e.g. wetlands 

 

2. Competitive context:

  • Who are your key competitors?

  • What are they doing well?

  • What can you do better?

 

3. Personas:

  • Who is your audience?

  • What are their likes and interests?

  • Where do they currently live?

  • What needs do you need to satisfy?

 

4. Focus Group Findings:

  • What learnings can you incorporate into the project?

 

5. Sustainability:

  • What sustainability features resonated with your focus groups?

  • What could your project implement to make it stand out from its competitors?

  • Are you aiming to achieve any accreditations eg Six Star, Green Star?

 

6. Innovation:

Brainstorm ideas during the session such as:

  • What innovative building techniques or materials could be used?

  • How could you incorporate new technology?

  • What learnings have we taken from the Covid-19 experience that can be incorporated into this project?

 

7. Community and Amenity:

  • What do we imagine for this community?

  • Will there be young families and therefore a need for childcare and parenting groups, communal garden or exercise groups?

 

At the end of the session, you’ll have a wealth of information to collate and the outcomes will help inform the next stage of the process, building your Value Proposition.

 

To discover everything you need to know about setting up your project successfully, download our free Project Marketer’s Handbook.

 

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Project Marketing, Strategy

Why you need a community consultation before setting up a new project

By on

2 September, 2020

- Project Marketing, Strategy

When planning a project, you’ve got one opportunity to get it right from the very start. To help build the foundations of a successful project, it’s important to engage the local community and key stakeholders from project conception and this can be achieved in many ways.

 

By hosting community consultations, you’ll not only be able to share your aspirations for the project, you’ll also open up a two-way dialogue with people who have a vested interest. It’s an opportunity for you to gain insights, learn from those at the forefront and incorporate the needs of the local community into your project. By opening the dialogue, you will likely improve community perceptions and they may even become paying customers one day!

 

Another important exercise is to conduct smaller focus group sessions with members of the local community. By interviewing a range of audiences (First Home Buyers, Families, Downsizers), you’ll gain valuable insights to help shape several aspects of your project such as design, amenity, community requirements and aesthetic.

 

We also recommend establishing a community portal to display information about the development as it comes to hand. Make sure this is closely monitored so you can respond in a timely manner.

 

To discover more must-know information when setting up a new project, download our free Project Marketer’s Handbook.

 

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Content Marketing, Strategy

Using Instagram Reels in Property

By on

14 August, 2020

- Content Marketing, Strategy

What is it?

Instagram’s newest feature, reels, allows users record, edit, and share 15-second multi-clip videos with audio, effects and new, in-app creative tools.

 

How property businesses can use reels

Since videos are such an effective content type, incorporating reels into your Instagram strategy can enhance your social media activity, offering a new way to entertain and educate your community. Some ways you can use reels to engage your audience include:

 

  • Display home walk-throughs

  • Working from home clips

  • Showcase amenities within the community

  • Client testimonials

  • Fun meet and greets with sales representatives and important figures in your community

  • Development and community updates

  • Behind-the-scenes footage from events

  • Ask homeowners to showcase their home in their Reels and tag your brand

 

Also consider how you can repurpose and reimagine your current assets. If you’ve got a suite of videos you’ve been using for social posts and stories, why not use these existing assets to create new reels? Or, if you currently post 5 Instagram stories a week, why not try posting 3 stories and 2 reels each week?

 

If you’re still unsure if using reels is right for your property business and need some advice, this blog might help you decide.

 

How to create your reels

Reels can be recorded one at a time, simultaneously, or through video uploads from a phone’s gallery. Users have the option to save the reel as a draft, change its cover image, add a caption and hashtags, and tag friends. 

 

Reels can be found at the bottom of Instagram camera. There are available tools on the left side of the screen to create the reel, including:

 

  • Audio: Search for a song from the Instagram music library. You can also use your own original audio by simply recording a reel with it.

  • AR Effects: Select one of the many effects in the effect gallery, created both by Instagram and creators all over the world, to record multiple clips with different effects. 

  • Timer and Countdown: Set the timer to record any of your clips hands-free.

  • Align: Line up objects from your previous clip before recording your next to help create seamless transitions.

  • Speed: Speed up or slow down part of the video or audio you selected.

 

How to share your Reels

If you have a Public Account, you can share your reel to a dedicated space in Explore, where it has the chance to be seen and discovered by the wider Instagram community. You can also share your reel with your followers by posting it to your Feed. When you share reels featuring certain songs, hashtags, or effects, your reel may also appear on dedicated pages when someone clicks on that song, hashtag, or effect. 

 

Instagram Reels vs TikTok

Reels can be likened to Instagram’s very own version of TikTok. Only time will tell if TikTok will meet the same fate as Snapchat when Instagram copied its iconic Stories features. 

 

For more information on using TikTok in property, check out our Marketing Clinic Webinar: Engaging with Millennial Platforms.

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Content Marketing, Strategy

To reel, or not to reel?

By on

14 August, 2020

- Content Marketing, Strategy

It’s safe to say that Instagram has social media users reeling to jump on board with their newest feature! (See what we did there?)

 

Reels enables Instagram users to record, edit, and share 15-second multi-clip videos. Integrated within the Instagram app, this feature allows users to customise videos with in-app creative tools to add audio and effects.

While it’s no secret that the Property Republic loves an engaging video and a multi-platform social media plan, we’re also big believers in developing effective strategies.

And so with the emergence of a new, creative and visual means for property businesses to engage with their audience on Instagram, we think it’s important to highlight to key things:

 

  1. If you can effectively integrate reels into your existing Instagram strategy, do it. Property Republic has worked with a range of developers and builders who consider video an important part of their social media activity, and have access to the resources and experts required to successfully integrate new video trends into their existing strategy. If you’re currently dominating video content and looking for fresh ways to engage, then adding reels into the mix is a great idea. You have nothing to lose by enhancing your current Instagram activity and entertaining your community by harnessing this new feature.

  1. If reels doesn’t fit into your existing Instagram strategy, don’t include it for the sake of it. When establishing your content and social media strategy it’s generally a good idea to pick one or two channels and master them first before expanding your online presence. Perhaps you’re still finding the rhythm of your social media schedule, or maybe you’re questioning if Instagram is a relevant platform for your audience. If integrating reels into your strategy won’t help you reach your social media marketing goals, then don’t feel obliged to use it. Reels might be something you explore later down the track, or something your team agrees isn’t aligned with your brand and its objectives. Don’t feel like you need to jump on the reels bandwagon just because everyone else is.

 

If you’d like to learn more about how Reels works and how you can use it for your property business, read our blog.

 

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Strategy

The top 3 marketing challenges you’re facing in 2020

By on

6 August, 2020

- Strategy

We recently conducted an industry wide Marketing and Sales survey to better understand the relationship between the Development, Sales and Marketing functions. The aim of the survey was to explore what pain-points exist around sales certainty and forecasting and where the industry’s strategic focus lies heading into FY21 and beyond.

 

According to the results, the top three MARKETING CHALLENGES faced by respondents include:

  1. Customer Conversion (32%)

  2. Customer Education (28%)

  3. Achieving Cut Through (28%)

If you’re struggling to enhance your conversions, education and cut-through, here’s some food for thought:

 

Customer Conversion

  • Increased conversion rates can be achieved by providing a number of meaningful touchpoints early on, ensuring your sales team is serious about data integrity and by making sure that follow-up is structured to address your customers’ needs, not just ticking a box. 

  • Having your customer’s lifecycle journey mapped will help improve their experience which will naturally lead to increased conversion and sales.

 

Customer Education

  • The customer lifecycle is a journey. Not all customers are ready to buy now. Educate first, sell second.

  • Consistently publish educational and entertaining content in a variety of formats – blogs, socials, videos, infographics, images.

 

Achieving Cut Through

  • A well-executed customer journey will help you achieve cut-through and stand out from your competitors.

  • Understanding your customer segments will help you create relevant, valuable content that solves your customers problems/pain points.

  • Knowing your customers interests will help you create content that turns heads. Do they appreciate Design? Community? Gardening? Cooking? Local night life?

 

We’d love to work with you to deliver customer experience, social media and content marketing strategies that will increase conversions, educate your audience and achieve cut-through. Talk to us if you’d like to start enhancing your property marketing customer experience efforts.

 

Discover more findings, insights and observations in our 2020 Marketing and Sales survey.

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