CRE Marketers Chart a Different Course

Port Aransas, TX, is one of America’s last authentic beach towns. Two years ago, it was almost washed away by Hurricane Harvey, but it has been recovering and remains determined to get back to business. Fortunately, it has at its disposal all of the elements of a good marketing plan.

“Port A’s story has human drama, civic action and business leadership from the Chamber of Commerce and property investors,” says Brian Sweeney, director of New York City-based SweeneyVesty Strategic Communications. “Add to this a well-coordinated, personalized outreach program to local, regional and national media that demonstrated understanding of reporters’ needs and an appreciation of the news cycle.”

Last but definitely not least, Sweeney says, Port A also has a spokesperson, Jeff Hentz, who is president and CEO of Port Aransas Chamber of Commerce and Tourism Board. “He is highly accessible and makes for good copy, whether it’s broadcast, print or social.”

MARKETING IN CRE Marketing is a discipline that is as much an art as it is a science. Campaigns must be carefully crafted, messages refined and target audiences identified. The channel through which these campaigns are delivered are equally as important and must be chosen with care. Volumes have been written about these various strategies, which have provided tremendous value to marketers. But when the industry in question is commercial real estate there are added considerations.

CRE campaigns, for instance, require much greater input on the message, says Harvey Mireles, senior manager of public relations and communications for JLL.

“As communications professionals in such a fast-paced industry, we share why a topic is important to our partners in the media and, of course, position clients and stakeholders in the best possible position for success,” he says. “Engaging colleagues will help you gain a greater understanding of what’s important to them, their clients and prospects. Target those who can help you identify the most important audiences and prioritize the stories that will have the greatest impact for the business. They are more likely to be more engaged if they can provide their input and help shape the message.”

Also, perhaps because the target audience is smaller and knowledgeable about their particular sphere, it is essential to create campaigns that are truly authentic, Sweeney says. This is, in other words, a crowd with an acute ‘BS’ meter, able to spot hype a mile away.

“Think WeWork’s initial public offering,” Sweeney says. “Let’s call it as it is: WeWork rents short-term office space. It’s not a tech company. And it’s not an ashram, despite the claim in their prospectus that ‘Our mission is to elevate the world’s consciousness’. That’s BS, and it was called out as BS. About $30 billion of BS by the time their high-end valuation cratered.”

However authenticity and industry input are just the start. Like any marketing or PR campaign, one that is dedicated to a CRE project requires both a grand vision and the expertise to execute on this vision.

For instance, the Port Aransas Chamber and Tourism Bureau formerly used a small local agency to provide outreach efforts that comprised less than half of the bureau’s budget in 2017, according to Martin Elder, media relations director with SweeneyVesty. And prior to that, there was very little collaboration between the bureau and Port A’s three vacation communities (Cinnamon Shore, Palmilla Beach and Sunflower Beach) to promote it on a national scale or to a wealthier clientele, he says.

The organization was lacking an aggressive approach for a destination that was about to emerge with upgraded and more upscale lodging options, as well as plans for its first conference center. That center is now slated to open in 2021 with a 225-room conference center hotel scheduled to break ground in February 2020. Prior to this, Port A had a limited number of quality rooms; now it has three times the number of lodging options (presently 3,300 out of 4,200 units are available, compared to 2,200 last year), along with a higher level of collaboration between it and the three upscale communities.

“In essence, Port A needed a bigger picture vision, led by a tourism director with strong national and international tourism marketing and economic development experience, working with high-profile brands and destinations,” Elder says. “They needed a professional with the skills to create and build new marketing, advertising and branding partnerships, both with statewide Texas and national travel/lifestyle media including print, online, TV, radio and social media to compete with other beach destinations.”

Finding such a professional can be difficult. One common mistake people make, says Lindsay Pedersen, author of Forging an Ironclad Brand: A Leader’s Guide, is trying to reach all customers with one-size-fits-all messaging. Generally speaking, there are five stages of a customer’s journey: unaware, aware, consider, purchase and loyalty. She says the goal should be to craft a messaging hierarchy for customers at every stage of the journey. Mistakenly, people are often tempted to develop an all-encompassing sentence or paragraph to serve each purpose and stage of the journey. Pedersen advises to resist the temptation, suggesting that there is no one magic message that will advance all customers at all journey phases.

SweeneyVesty’s strategic communications campaign avoided this error, in part by leveraging Hentz’s many years of tourism marketing experience. He has worked with major national and international destinations, cruise lines and hotels to lead efforts in international marketing, branding and product development.

In the end, the various pieces of Port A’s marketing strategy came together and delivered results: year-to-date 2019 visitor arrivals have exceeded last year’s numbers by 40%. Those arrivals are expected to increase as a result of fall events such as Beachtoberfest, according to Hentz’s office.

BEYOND THE BIG PICTURE Port A is an ideal example of how a marketing campaign can come together for a project. But, at the same time, focusing on this big picture exclusively can mean missing important lessons about more specific and one-off marketing tools that also serve developers and real estate owners well.

Beyond the traditional methods of communication, Sweeney notes that social media is an essential element of the communications mix. Reporters look at a client’s online presence for “social proof”. If the client doesn’t have a social media presence or has a slim one, it shows that they are less engaged with target audiences than they should be, he says.

“Your social media platform is invaluable in enabling your audiences to share content and exponentially increasing the value of an earned media story,” Sweeney observes. “And today, reporters are often best reached through their Twitter and Instagram accounts.”

He also mentions the visually driven medium of Instagram as a hot communications tool that is increasingly part of the communications mix.

“MIT has found the human brain can process entire images in as little as 13 milliseconds,” Sweeney muses. “So before you start the first word of a press release, think about how to tell your story visually, in pictures and video. Everyone has an iPhone in their pocket with a video camera. Be your own studio. Instagram and real estate are well matched. Both Facebook and Instagram enable highly-targeted, low-cost advertising programs, i.e., ‘sponsored content’ that complement earned media efforts.”

Blogging is another highly ranked communications method, which the Northern California region of Newmark Knight Frank has perfected to an art form.

“The heart and soul of social media is an active, vibrant and constantly updated blog,” according to Michael Kirner, director of PR and communications for the Northwestern region of Newmark Knight Frank. “In my experience, it is the undisputed content centerpiece of the online universe.”

The NKF NorCal Spotlight Blog covers news, thought leadership and CRE stories relevant to NKF Northern California. But this is no ordinary CRE blog. It is a different read in several ways, Kirner says.

“We mix things up a little bit by not just featuring predictable CRE blog stories. We try to combine serious CRE stories with industry keywords, and more light-hearted stories and commentary to showcase the personalities of some of our people,” he says. “This strategy makes our blog and its content appeal to a broader base of site visitors and helps increase time spent on the site.”

Indeed, while always professionally appropriate, some of the NKF NorCal Spotlight stories have a bit of an edge. Kirner points out that adding personality to some of the posts encourages more frequent social sharing, interaction and simply makes the content portal more fun and interesting.

For instance, “3 Points by Poser” is a quarterly guest blogger article by a broker and former basketball player who comments on life, CRE business and sports. Another regular feature is “Words by Wiser”—Wiser being Chip Wiser, a seasoned broker who writes restaurant reviews of hundreds of local restaurants that he and his wife visit each year. Wiser also tries to relate CRE stories to personal experiences whenever possible.

As a serial blogger for many years, NKF’s lead contributor, Kirner, has been a real estate writer, PR and communications director, creative director and copywriter for decades. He updates and rotates the blog’s “In the News” section to reflect the plethora of news coverage that NKF receives every day.

“To improve search engine optimization, we update the blog daily, sometimes numerous times,” Kirner says. “Stories and images are edited and revised. Headlines and subheads are changed and sometimes older content is reworked and improved by newer, more current content. The design and formatting of the blog features bold graphics and an easy-to-scroll interface that is enjoyable to navigate and not a copycat of another CRE blog.”

Another NKF blog with cross-media consumable content has proven to be a notable success for its Global Corporate Services division. The blog was included in the GCS content ecosystem phase 2 effort and includes contributions from NKF experts in the field.

“For more than three years now, we successfully systematized a production ecosystem that generates new industry-specific content, often authored by GCS team members, near weekly,” says Joseph Buechel, digital marketing manager of Global Corporate Services at Newmark Knight Frank. “Since then, more than 50% of the site’s traffic and engagement numbers are directly attributed to the blog, transforming an otherwise standard website into a content repository worthy of ‘favoriting’ in your browser or subscribing to the RSS feed.”

Moreover, the GCS blog provides thought-provoking, relevant content, designed to serve as a quick read for today’s fast-paced and on-the-go CRE professional, a conversation starter or purpose for broker follow up, Buechel says. But up until now, the blog had largely been perceived as just words on a screen. The next phase in the evolution of the GCS content ecosystem involves expanding into a cross-media strategy, where podcasts and videos are regularly incorporated into the content mix to please subscribers and to encourage new visitors to join the site.

“We knew we could do more and wanted to reach a wider audience,” Buechel says. “To expand nimbly, we knew we had to take an innovative approach, so we put much of the power in the hands of our experts in the field. We equipped them with microphones and tripods, and trained them on DIY cell phone video best practices so they could capture impromptu real-world experiences in the moment and upload their footage directly for me to review and incorporate into the GCS narrative. Though still in the developmental phase, GCS considers this strategy a differentiator, where our experts tell the story themselves in real time, and in unique and unexpected ways.”

HOW TO GET ALONG WITH REPORTERS With all of the other means of communication available today via social media and blogs, Sweeney points out that press releases are used much less frequently to communicate with reporters. His firm uses press releases via a paid newswire service when there is a formal announcement that needs to get into news traffic.

“This guarantees inclusion in search engines,” he says. “It is much more effective to send a well-angled media pitch that shows good understanding of a reporter’s interests. Earned media articles are really important as they bestow legitimacy on the product you are selling, provided of course, your product is high quality. If it’s not, media can quickly depreciate the value of your asset.”

JLL’s Mireles echoes that sentiment, saying that offering perspectives, story angles or sources that a reporter may not have considered, and delivering everything he or she needs to complete a story on or before a deadline, can be a huge bonus.

“Every minute you can save them helps, and if you can deliver a story from beginning to end on a silver platter, they’ll probably want to work with you again,” Mireles says. “The more you understand what they’re interested in, the more you can efficiently deliver valuable insights in a timely manner. Knowing the reporter is also key. What is the reporter writing about these days? If you don’t know them personally, most of them have active profiles on Twitter.”

Before approaching a reporter, he says it is important to think through a plan: the pitch, the talking points and the supporting data or background information to determine if there are any potential pitfalls.

“If so, how can you avoid them? Is the risk worth the reward?  It’s never just the brand’s reputation on the line: it’s your teammates’, potentially their clients’ and yours.”

3 Media Relations Points

Harvey Mireles, senior manager of public relations and communications for JLL, offers three media relations/pitch pointers to keep in mind:

• Educate your people. Some stakeholders are natural speakers, while others will require more assistance. Inform your experts about the process and its value for their prospects, clients and themselves.
• Never stop learning. Seek out new perspectives and be informed on the latest news and research, the latter of which is “your greatest friend,” Mireles says.
• Keep pushing. By adapting to new situations outside a familiar comfort zone, the greater the collective impact will be.