If you’re selling a commercial real estate income property, one of the first steps you’ll take is writing an ad for your both online and offline venues.
While every commercial income property is different, a successful ad for every commercial property has these 3 things in common:
Make Sure You Know Your Target Market
While it’s nice to imagine that anyone interested in commercial real estate would want to buy your property, the fact is that buyers of any product can usually be grouped according to certain similar characteristics. For example, if you were selling gym memberships, you’d be unlikely to focus on women over the age of 65. Not that elderly women don’t go to the gym – but elderly women are not your target customer.
The same is true for commercial real estate. Not all investors are interested in every type of commercial property. Some specialize in triple nets, while others stick to multi-family. Before you start writing away, step back and think what type of investor would find your offer interesting: age, yearly income, amount of money to invest in, etc.
Use A Great Headline
Skip the hype type of headline that everyone uses. To make your headline stand out, use this formula:
Benefit + Curiosity = Interesting Headline.
What this formula means is that you want to make sure you name one benefit about your property, written in such a way that potential buyers want to click through ( or stop scanning so they can read your ad).
Here’s an example of a typical ad for a strip mall:
Great opportunity to make a fantastic income!
This is a very common ad, and though it’s enthusiastic- perhaps too much so- it doesn’t say anything about the property, or create interest in a buyer to find out more information.
Now compare the above ad to this one:
Office building in popular area with 97% occupancy and long-term tenant leases- for sale.
While this ad seems like a plain ad, it does exactly what it’s supposed to do. First of all, it subtly targets investors interested in commercial office buildings, since it’s those investors who would be interested in the occupancy rate, and how soon tenants’ leases are due to expire.
Second, because you gave specific details, the ad is more believable. Interested investors will want to read further to find out more details about the property.
Don’t Give Too Much Away
This is advice that might seem contrary to the advice everyone gives. You might ask, “Isn’t it better to give more advice, so that people will know how great the property is? Don’t you want them to have something to base their decision on whether or not to consider your property?”
The truth is the exact opposite.
The purpose of the ad is not to sell your property. If that were so, then people would be killing it by writing ads and doing deals without ever attending a closing.
The real function of the ad is to get people interested enough to contact you to find out more information. If you give too much information, then what’s really happening is you’re giving them more reasons to say no.
The reason is that a person’s natural tendency, especially when they know they’re being sold to, is to say no. So unconsciously they’ll be looking for reasons to justify their automatic decision to say “this won’t work out,” or “this isn’t for me.” If you write a whole long ad about your property, it’s like giving them a checklist so they can tick off all the reasons why they don’t want your property.
The tips above are some of the most powerful techniques for attracting buyers. In fact, they work so well that you might find yourself with more inquiries than you can handle.
But that’s a post for another day.
