A visionary marketing campaign is what every project desires and deserves, especially in a market where there are high levels of competition and marketing budgets need to tighten up.

Now where do you start? Well, budgets are obviously tighter and therefore campaigns need to be more focused.

So carefully review who you are trying to reach, who your target markets are, and how you can get to them more directly and efficiently. Monitor and review campaigns regularly, see where incentives are performing or underperforming and react to this quickly. Ensure everything you do has a meaning and substance and delivers focused messages. Don’t risk anything that’s arguably vague or imprecise.

Further, more than ever, the vision of the developer and the project must be reflected in a concise communication strategy that has a clear positioning, that answers the questions, “How we are different?” and, “How we are better?” It will call for a deep and well-considered understanding of your customers, their needs and their motivations.

With these answers we have the starting point for a communications brief that must lead to the development of a compelling, differentiating idea. It must be an idea that is ownable, that can work across all media, new and old. It must be an idea that reflects more than the physical characteristics of the building or development. It must make an emotional connection with potential markets and to do this it must tap into all the senses, connect on a personal level and tell a powerful story.

Today there is a need for real integrated ideas. Above and below-the-line traditions have moved on. We have 360 degrees online and now inline (as consumers increasingly take control and tell us what they think in blogs). In this new world of message distribution, the powerful idea still reigns supreme. It is a poor idea that leads to ineffective communication and inevitably higher costs as more resources and budgets are used to try and pull it together.

So appreciating that we are in the highly unique marketing environment of real estate, where do we go from here?

Firstly, we suggest that you should consider cutting back or stopping traditional ‘Brand’ marketing and advertising and concentrate on ‘Direct Response’ marketing. Indulging in institutional brand marketing ie: ‘This is us, this is what we do and this is our telephone number’ is an excellent way to empty your budget with no appreciable return.

Every marketing campaign must give your audience a reason to respond. You should be conveying one simple message, something that they or their business can relate to and therefore something that will interest them enough to switch on their computer or pick up their phone.

Secondly, embrace the web and expand the communication channels via email and mobile. Your website should be seen as your selling tool, delivering information as well as a virtual experience. Over and beyond that you need to focus on search engine visibility. In this current climate it is estimated as much as 80% of worldwide users are turning to the web when doing their ‘homework’ before making any purchases or decisions.

Online activity can be integrated with your internal sales system and is completely measurable, allowing you to better manage and diversify your market budgets.

Thirdly, when executing collateral measure everything you do. All of your marketing should be trackable down to the specific ad or marketing initiative which generated every enquiry. If you can’t trace an enquiry back to the origin of the lead, it will be difficult to evaluate where your marketing money is going. How can you know what’s effective and what’s not?

And a final word on how to make the money go further. Before creative work starts make sure your sales proposition is clear and concise. We use strategists and writers, as well as designers, in workshop sessions with our clients, agents, and architects, to ensure we’re saying all the right things to maximise interest.

Dissent if you dare, but integrated campaigns must be embraced if we are to build a brave new creative world. A world that delivers results.