You have just received Ministerial approval to proceed. The development project is the largest you have worked on covering many hectares of land in a major growth corridor. It offers residential and some retail with parks and wetlands. You know it’s a once in a generation opportunity, and you have to get it right.

But where do you start? You are a government property developer. You have real project experience but not at this size. You know the development process, and you have progressed a business case ready for implementation.

And then someone says, “How are you going to market it?”. It’s a vexing question because marketing seems simple. We are all experienced at marketing in some way, shape or form. It’s not law or accounting or rocket science – can it be that hard?

You need a greater understanding of what marketing means for large-scale property development. You begin by trying to pull apart the process.

How does it operate? What are the critical components? Who can I get to do various parts? Who do I target? How much money should I spend? How do I reach them? And ultimately, how can I ensure that the campaign enhances corporate and ministerial goals and is successful?

Suddenly it starts to get very complicated, very quickly.

What you do know is that you need to attract some highly professional property development companies to invest in this project. They will develop the land and build the residential and retail components. But, they bring a high-end multi-million-dollar profit game full of reputational risk. One the Minister, Departmental Head and your organisation’s CE do not want to get wrong.

The project needs marketing to be contained, managed, mitigated and optimised to get the best value out of it.

So, you press on.

Estate Master provides you with the project feasibility that allocates 3% of the total spend to the marketing budget. How do you spend it to get the best value and success?

You seek solace in local real estate agents, but you soon realise that their goal is your sales commission budget. They don’t get you or your objectives. Nor do they want to. You are as big a mystery to them as marketing is to you.

You then turn to the internal corporate marketing team, but their focus is on maintaining the corporate website, events and annual reports. They don’t have the experience, expertise, or motivation to strategise the positioning of a multi-layered multi-million-dollar development project let alone roll out a multi-faceted successful marketing campaign.

The first PCG is just around the corner, and CE is going to ask about the marketing program.

The one thing that strikes you now about this project is its complexity. You now know a simple project name and some pretty pictures will not cut the mustard with your target audiences – the major development companies.

You need more. You need experienced marketing people who know how to develop and implement a thoroughly worked project positioning strategy with a highly competent marketing rollout team. But you also need someone who understands your unique world and the pressures placed upon you. Someone who can fit straight into your corporate, governmental thinking. A team of good people who can work seamlessly in a bureaucratic and political environment.

In my experience, your best outcomes derive from unearthing the most valuable areas
of gain (as opposed to gap) in the existing and future competitive residential, retail and commercial markets. When found, we can align your business objectives and refine your property development attributes to a competitive market position that maximises its worth.

To get through all this complexity, you need to exploit your project’s key sustainable competitive advantages and develop a unique master brand positioning story. One that successfully delivers on your bottom-line objectives and your development partners fiscal objectives. From there, you need to create and roll out medium to long term strategic, multi- channel action and creative design campaigns.

It sounds complicated and time-consuming, and it can be so, but it is essential to do this strategic process first to give your project its greatest possible chance of delivering your outcomes. If anyone tells you differently, in my experience, they are wrong.

To assist this process, I created a highly successful 3 Step Marketing Masterplan Process to take care of all the complexities. I achieve this by aligning the three critical marketing elements of clarity, direction and delivery.

THE 3-STEP MARKETING MASTERPLAN PROCESS

In Step 1, I gather quantitative and qualitative information about the project from internal and external sources:

• Site marketing analysis/audit
• Quantitative and qualitative market research of the local housing market
• Buyer personas and segmentation
• Competitive activity analysis and mapping

I review your internal project objectives, processes, personnel and project budget to ensure they are market-focused:

• Reviewing the concept Masterplan
• Suggesting appropriate and obtainable project names from research

I then critically analyse all data to find a competitive market position:

• This 360-degree review produces organic and unique Sustainable Competitive Advantages to maximise your project’s ability to optimise its value

I then determine and weigh up the best strategic options (what will work and why)

This process cumulates in the final Strategic Market Plan that contains:

From this process, the third stage delivers the marketing and advertising campaigns that roll out the new brand.

This delivery process includes:

Creation and delivery of brand marketing collateral:

• Masterbrand creative concepts
• Brand design guidelines
• Project positioning film
• Vision brochures
• Websites
• Project photography
• Project signage

Creation and delivery of graphic design, advertising services and other collateral including:

• Content and digital marketing (SEO, Google Ads (search and Display) and Social: LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram etc.)
• Electrotonic media – TV, film, cinema and radio advertising
• Direct marketing
• Concept Renders
• Advertorials, newsletters, coffee table books
• Masterplan models
• Media planning and buying

Issues and media PR management and control of external media perspective.

Internal Masterbrand and Marketing control management systems, including:

• Private development partner marketing management
• Marketing budget management & reporting to PCG’s
• CRM integration
• Sales materials – sales plans, mood boards, price lists
• EOI and Tender documentation and design
• Sales agent selection and management
• Implementation review, measurement and optimisation processes

What we’ll do on the call is discuss your current situation – where the project is up to, what are the critical issues confronting you, your timing and what help or assistance you may need.

We can then discuss what a framework for a successful project would look like….

The session is free…. there’s absolutely no obligation.

And to be honest, I only make recommendations for projects where I believe I can help. That’s why I only do 8-10 projects a year. So, if it’s not a good fit…I’ll tell you straight up. But if it is….and you like what you hear, I can then discuss the best next steps to match your situation.