Tools of the trade: Marketing tool kit for real-estate managers

• 
• 

Details

 

Category: Properties

28 Jan 2014

 

Written by Amor Maclang

NOWADAYS, real-estate developers are facing a dilemma on how to correctly employ marketing strategies to help them develop brands that will suit the continuously changing preferences of different markets.

Truth is, the biggest mistake made by real-estate companies is their failure to invest in real-estate branding. Why? Because all of the money developers throw out are usually tied to merely selling a project. They will usually come up with arguments like, “There is no guaranteed return of investment in marketing a brand, so might as well spend on initiatives that will benefit our brand in the long run.”

Sadly, training your sights away from real-estate branding will likely hurt your brand more. The problem comes in when developers think that branding is all just for exposure. Yes, exposure is important but it does not always lead to creating a unique differentiator that will favor your brand.

Learning the value of ‘trust’

One of the psychological precursors to someone purchasing a property from you is trust. Interestingly, one of the psychological precursors of somebody selling for a real-estate developer (a.k.a. the sales force) is also trust.

Making the huge mistake of disregarding the value of establishing a culture of brand trust and confidence within your team through brand building will only do more harm than good. Worse, you will likely end up having a bunch of sleazy sales people who sell your brand without even believing in what they are actually talking about.

Some of the marketing tactics that property developers employ include coming up with billboards and other advertising collaterals, staging road shows overseas as well as project launches for VIPs and members of the media, AVP walk-throughs, scale models of buildings, and of course, redesigning and updating of web sites. All of these efforts are used to achieve different results, and real-estate managers should be able to distinguish what tools to use for specific marketing needs that they are asked to respond to.

Philippines Property Listing, Marco Polo Hotel & Residences

Advertising, for example, is a good tool to tap if you want to generate awareness about your brand and help people find your property. It is also used by developers to drive inquiries, generate sales, and urge potential buyers to make an action in favor of the brand—whether it is to visit a web site, pick up their phones and call a number to inquire about an actual property, or schedule a meeting with the sales/marketing team.

Public relations, on the other hand, works best if you want to build credibility and reputation for your brand. Are you planning to go public and encourage investors to partner with you? You can go ahead and use a wide variety of PR tools to help generate buzz for your brand.

Digital efforts (web-site management and development, social-media visibility, for example), meanwhile, work very well for catching the interest of people who are curious about your project and converting them to potential leads who would like to schedule appointments. It allows people to compare options before they actually make a decision. Before, people used to physically visit actual sites to evaluate properties, but with property developers slowly mastering the powers of the Internet to their advantage, buyers are now able to narrow down their choices before settling for a particular property of their choice. However, if you don’t have digital presence, then you are basically missing out a huge chunk of the market that are using the Internet to make informed choices.

Marketing with a battle plan

Whenever you engage in marketing, you should always have a crisis preparation plan in mind. Remember, the rain falls on the just and the unjust, alike.

Contingency and risk-mitigation measures should rank high on every developer’s list. Sudden mishaps occur without warning. And this is why every developer should be armed with the necessary information regarding risk mitigation and crisis management. What usually destroys a developer’s reputation is not the crisis itself but the way they respond to the situation.

Being unprepared is not an excuse; you need to nurture a proactive attitude to preserve the integrity of your company and your brand, which you have built and invested over for a long period of time. Master the science behind stakeholder mapping, plot crisis situations in advance, and craft strategic communications for each. Doing this exercise on a regular basis will help you prepare for any risk that might hamper your growth in the future.

Why real-estate selling is like running a marathon

• 
• 

Details

 

Category: Properties

04 Mar 2014

 

Written by Amor Maclang

IN the course of my work with the hardworking men and women of GeiserMaclang, I have always been surrounded by young, dynamic professionals who constantly strive to maintain their ideal concept of a work-life balance. I love being in the company of these driven individuals, especially those who pour out their energies and infect others with a dose of positivity while they set out to fulfill their own passions.

Most of these go-getters actually enjoy sustaining a long-term active lifestyle—through running, most of the time—to sweat it out after a long, hard day at work and keep themselves in the best condition to achieve more. I believe that as long as you’ve got goals ahead of you and train your sights toward achieving them—obviously, with the right mix of discipline and dedication—you can definitely nail that much-coveted prize, whatever it may be.

 The same can also be said about how property developers intend to grow their businesses and be on top of everyone else. Developers are constantly up against stiff competition with other firms who are eyeing to outwit and outdo them in every way possible. This is the reason most sales agents feel that they are in a race toward the finish line to deliver. They are under constant pressure to earn the trust of prospective clients in the fastest way possible, engage the interest of buyers with that much rehearsed sales pitch, close the deal and land that elusive commission. With this, I can definitely say that real-estate selling, is indeed, very much similar to running a marathon.

 Here are a few insights to show the close relationship between the two.

Philippines Property Listing, Marco Polo Hotel & Residences

Before you hit the starting line, preparation is always the key.

Months before a marathon, you start preparing by waking up early in the morning, stepping out of the house to break a sweat before the morning sun says hello. It’s the best way to strengthen your stamina and get your body into a competitive shape.

 Similarly, the actual sale of a real-estate property is just a small part of the entire selling story. Begin preparing for several months by strategizing ways on how to achieve your business objectives, long before you launch a project and bid your agents good luck with a sales rally.

Brace yourself for disappointments along the way.

Despite spending long, tiring months whipping your body into its best shape ever, know that disappointments will always, always happen.

Real-estate selling can sometimes be frustrating. Tragic events, disasters, sudden economic downfall, among others, almost always result to business turning a turn for the worse. Prepare for risks and other related issues by crafting the necessary scenarios and communications for your brand. Always make a constant effort to get your brands ready for any uncertainty because, as I’ve said before, the rain falls on the just and the unjust, alike.

Start strong but reserve a little more until the homestretch.

Knowing how to pace yourself gives you a distinct advantage in every competition. It is a good idea to be aggressive in marketing when the project is beginning. But many things can happen along the way and you need to be prepared for a longer battle just in case. Again, you cannot discount the importance of early preparation; it is a crucial part of sustaining good business even in the most trying times.

Make consistency a habit.

Constant progress, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant it is, still takes you one step closer to reaching your goal and that is to bring in profit to your company. Make greater strides by focusing on the good practices you have done and doing away with the wrong ones.

Are regular sales trainings getting you better results? What lessons have you learned from your most successful project so far? Evaluate your efforts and learn how to be your own critic.

Hard work will always get you somewhere.

GO the extra mile by working doubly hard to know and understand the market.

 The buying cycle of the consumer stands as a good example of a particular concept that members of the real-estate sales force often fail to keep in mind.

 When you meet somebody, say for example at an event or during a trip overseas, chances are excellent that they are not yet ready to buy a property. The vast majority will still likely be in the first buying cycle and is not going to be ready customers, and a lot of sales people disregard these individuals. Doing so is bad for their careers in the long term because they (customers) are simply not informed about the gains that they can get out of that purchase, which means they don’t understand what’s in it for them.

Property sellers should be able to know what to do with those people. You need to be seen as a thought leader and expert on real estate; not on selling, but as somebody who knows about, say for example, real-estate trends and the outlook of the market—somebody who’s a reliable source of information and somebody they can talk to.

 Consumers who are classified to fall under the middle buying cycle are people who understand where to move and are actually checking out their options. This is where education comes in; they are not yet ready, and if you try to sell to them, chances are you’re going to be disappointed but you can impact them in terms of options. It is only later when they are already late in the buying cycle when they have narrowed down their options that you can turn them into potential business.

 A salesperson looking at those who are ready to buy will eventually burn their contacts over a short period of time. Somebody who knows how to cultivate people from all cycles will understand that people will be ready to buy a property in due time. What you should know is that the only thing separating these people from being converted from prospect into actual business is time.

How can local developers reach the foreign market better

• 
• 

Details

 

Category: Properties

18 Mar 2014

 

Written by Amor Maclang

PROPERTY sales for a good number of local real-estate developers have continued to sustain an upward trend as of late. This development has helped translate the encouraging outlook that the country has enjoyed over the years into actual business opportunities that continue to fuel the surge of various local industries.

Real-estate experts and analysts have noted that the Philippine property sector will continue to defy odds as it aims to achieve record-breaking growth figures this year.

For one, the foreign market—investors, property buyers and even foreign developers—has had a strong impact on how the local sector has thrived, continually pouring in key investments focused on high-potential areas, such as commercial and office real estate, construction and tourism. In the last three months, foreign institutions eyeing to establish their brands in the region have tapped Filipino developers as partners to projects collectively valued at $10 million to $300 million. This alone stresses the huge interest that the foreign market has in doing business here in the country.

But how exactly can the Philippines take advantage of the economic potential that has caught the eye of the foreign market? How can we sustain this development and lure more investments to support our growing economy. Here are a few insights I want to share with you:

Philippines Property Listing, Marco Polo Hotel & Residences

Make your brand do the talking

Branding is one of the easiest inputs to the value-chain that can unlock more value for the community and our people. It is through nurturing what your brand stands for and communicating the promise of what you can achieve—and subsequently delivering on that promise—that developers can sustain a long-term relationship with the foreign market.

Establish an investor-friendly identity by making your brand speak of your business values. You can bolster your brand’s reputation by championing green initiatives, for example. Understand the needs of the foreign market and create opportunities by sustaining their trust. It won’t be enough that you know everything about sustainable or green development; you should be able to back up all your assertions with actual products that live up to your brand’s unique character.

Create a demand for the ‘unique’

Another way to attract the market is to create products that fulfill the promise of extraordinary living experiences. Brittany Corp., for example, has invested in this concept when it introduced Crosswinds, its Swiss-inspired residential development in Tagaytay. The secluded atmosphere and the calming allure of the place are perfect elements that have the biggest potential to attract discerning buyers.

Understand the market’s potential

There is a huge disparity between the capacity that both the foreign and local property market have, and being able to craft strategies on how to target the two separately already moves you one step ahead of the competition.

The best example to illustrate this point is the massive opportunities that come with the silver market. We’ve mentioned before that this is one of the emerging property markets that is poised to bring long-term growth for real-estate developers here in the Philippines, simply because of the investment and spending capacity that members of this highly specialized segment possess.

As I have mentioned in my previous column, members of the global silver market are continuously on the lookout for homes and investment opportunities overseas, and developers in the Philippines should be able to provide products and services that fit their lifestyle. This can come in the form of developments that promote medical tourism, leisure tourism or luxury properties, among many others.

With the Philippines successfully rising as a global investment hotspot, it is about time that our local developers stepped up their game to be able to sustain and ride the growth long-term. What developers can do is to carefully strategize by evaluating their efforts and redirecting their plans to suit the needs of a highly complex segment like the foreign property market.

Five-star living for Marco Polo

• 
• 

Details

 

Category: Properties

11 Mar 2014

CONSTRUCTION and completion works continue in full swing at Cebu’s latest upscale residential address, Marco Polo Residences. Situated within easy walking distance from Marco Polo Plaza Cebu, the branded and serviced condominium is for families who want to live the luxury-hotel lifestyle every day.

Construction work on the third tower, Marco Polo Parkview, is set to begin. Nestled 800 feet above ground in a prestigious locale in Cebu, Tower 3 is designed to reflect the meticulous taste of its residents and their guests. The high-rise neighborhood looks out over Mactan channel and the stunning cityscape, and is a short drive from downtown Cebu, Ayala Center, AsiaTown IT Park, Mactan Shrine, Magellan’s Cross and Cebu International Airport, among other top destinations in the Queen City of the South.

Philippines Property Listing, Marco Polo Hotel & Residences

This month The Residences, or Tower 1, is scheduled for turnover, while Two Residences, or Tower 2, has reported major construction headway and is set for topping-off. 

Federal Land is setting a track record in the development of internationally branded residences that elevate the standards of high-end condominium communities in the country. Marco Polo Residences is the latest addition to its impressive portfolio as the first project of its kind in the Visayas, comparable to branded residences in the most expensive cities in Asia. So much better than an extended hotel stay, the experience of every occupant will be highlighted by the following features: an opulent grand lobby and drop-off ramp; architectural concept by Arch. Bong Recio; selected amenities designed by The Gettys Group (Chicago); outdoor landscaping by EA Aurelio Landscape Architects; hotel services that include concierge services, apartment cleaning, valet services and room-service-style dining; and a security system that ensures utmost comfort and privacy. Unit owners can expect unprecedented and exclusive access to first-class facilities and privileges associated with a five-star hotel.

 www.marcopoloresidences.com.ph

---

In Photo: Construction of Marco Polo Residences’s Tower 2 is progressing well, with topping-off scheduled in the first quarter of the year. (Right photo) The door of luxury condominium development with international quality services of a five-star hotel opens this year. Marco Polo Residences’s Tower 1 is set for turnover this 2014.

---

Of design, planning and good business for Filipino developers

• 
• 

Details

 

Category: Properties

08 Apr 2014

 

Written by Amor Maclang

MUCH has been said about the lack of decent urban planning in Metro Manila that has led to a string of major problems during the recent years. In fact, a few urban planners have described Metro Manila as a poster boy of what a badly planned city is. Sad but it would be hard to disprove this blatant fact.

Experts have repeatedly fired a warning about the huge number of decades-old buildings scattered around the metropolis that have yet to be refitted to withstand any possible earthquake that can strike without warning. Idle lands, too, that could have been used to improve road networks or create green spaces where urban individuals can relax and breathe, have instead been inhabited by informal settlers. Flooding also continues to wreak havoc in the entire Metro Manila, too, and is often attributed to improper waste disposal and management, clogged waterways, or the lack of support facilities and infrastructures.

All of these have painted an unfortunate reality that often goes unnoticed—a sad truth that we Filipinos have come to accept as a normal part of everyday life. However, the question that still hangs over our heads is this: Is there still something we can do to reverse the situation?

Philippines Property Listing, Marco Polo Hotel & Residences

The problem with urban planning

There’s no need to spend millions of pesos on research just to find out what we already know. One only has to look out to see that buses are belching smoke, squatting isn’t addressed, and that crime is everywhere.

This was the insight shared by my good friend, renowned Filipino architect and BluPrint Magazine Editor in Chief Paulo Alcazaren, when he graced the recently concluded Manila Fame 2014 spearheaded by the Center for International Trade Expositions and Missions (Citem), the export marketing arm of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI).

In his talk, Alcazaren described the condition of Metro Manila as a “total mayhem,” and emphasized the critical need to have an overarching authority that will regulate physical development in Metro Manila and other future “megacities.”

“We need to acknowledge the extent of the degradation of our urban and rural environments. Next, we need to institute the change in paradigms of governance. Metro Manila should be governed as a province, rather than individual kingdoms with 17 different kings and queens who never talk to each other.”

“Green ordinances end at its city’s boundaries, but criminals will not. Air pollution affects everyone. It doesn’t matter how many millions of pesos you spend on a condominium at Bonifacio Global City, for example, because when you step out, you breathe the same air. We really need a total paradigm shift. We have to acknowledge that we’re in a total mess,” added Alcazaren.

The goal of proper physical planning, Alcazaren noted in another post, is to “create appropriate and sustainable settings for human activity based on promoting the ideal balance between built environment [structures and infrastructure] and natural environment [green, open spaces].”

Design: Its role and impact

Design plays a crucial role in helping raise the standards of local urban developments, particularly in Metro Manila, where the need for an efficient urban master plan has become increasingly alarming over the last few years.

“The government, through Citem, should expand the coverage of design beyond just furniture, décor and crafts. We need to include architecture and its allied fields. Singapore has done this before, and now Singapore architects are all over the world,” Alcazaren shared. “We could’ve gone ahead of them if we did this back in the 1970s. Now, they’re ahead because their government has been supporting and pushing its architects forward.”

Another thing I learned from him was the glaring need to support Filipino architecture to help elevate its concepts and ideas to the consciousness of the general public. This can be done through consistent partnerships with Filipino architects who have, as he said, greater understanding of the local perspective of urban developments.

“How can you design for Filipinos if you don’t understand Filipino culture? If you’re not married to one? If you don’t eat Filipino food? If you haven’t lived in Manila for at least 10 years? We have to do this ourselves. As Kenneth Cobonpue and his lot have proven, with the help of Citem and the DTI, we can do it, and we must push it beyond furniture and furnishings,” he said.

All of these insights only seek to encourage local real-estate developers to do their part in helping promote home-grown concepts and ideas to address continuously growing problems in the local real-estate development scene. The idea of intelligent design is not only to provide architectures and developments with sound aesthetics but, more important, to lead us toward a more sustainable future.

“Good design is good business. Bad design is when you try to apply a template from overseas here, and you’re left with something unsustainable in terms of public space, in terms of cultural compatibility, and even aesthetics.  Good design is good business, and good business is good design,” concluded Alcazaren.