Commercial Real Estate Marketing for overseas investors in Australia

In the first quarter of 2021, offshore investment into Australian commercial real estate totaled $2.4billion. While the market slowed in 2020 due to the effects of the global pandemic, the totals for early 2021 show incredible promise for the coming year in foreign offshore investment from overseas clients.

Australia’s efforts to maintain and grow its economy during the last year have paid off, with substantial success. The government acted fast, creating attractive stimulus packages for their citizens, keeping the economy afloat. Because of this, the Australian commercial real estate market is growing, from strength to strength.

For commercial real estate properties like office buildings, hotels, malls, and retail stores, the return on investment is much higher than residential real estate in the long run. Rental contracts are longer and more secure (depending on your rental turnover and the space occupied). As Australia sees a shift towards more service sector industries, office spaces in the capital cities are in higher demand as well as industrial factories. Commercial real estate in Australia is currently seen as a safe and sound investment.

Now is a good time to invest in commercial real estate. In this article, we take a look at digital marketing for commercial real estate for overseas investors.

Commercial real estate digital marketing compared to residential real estate marketing

Both residential real estate agency marketing and commercial real estate marketing use similar tactics such as designing an attractive landing page, creating a social media presence, networking, reporting data, and using email marketing campaigns. The difference between the two is simply the clients.

Residential clients are often first-time buyers, therefore their return customer on average is once every 10 years and their average salary is far less. They are buying homes, but commercial clients are investing. For commercial real estate, buyers are often high net worth individuals or companies that are looking for large returns over a longer period of time. They have a vast amount of experience in buying or selling commercial real estate or have a network of teams that do, and they invest in multiple properties – spreading out risk over different investments.

For example, Sydney’s famous entrepreneur and businessman, Justin Hemmes, who is worth an estimated $1.2 billion according to the Financial Review, invests in commercial real estate properties whilst also creating famous restaurants and clubs within those establishments. He creates profit both from short-term investments from the F&B industry, whilst waiting for long-term investments from its real estate.

Therefore the investment in marketing itself is going to differ considerably between the two.

Commercial real estate marketing plan for new clients and higher revenues

To attract offshore investors coming from the Singaporean and Hong Kong market, there are a few areas where you can’t compromise. You have to remember that competition to obtain these clients is going to be fierce across the whole of Australia. Not only do you need to create a great commercial real estate portfolio, you need to build a relationship based on trust.

Real estate marketing videos and visuals

High-end virtual tours, drone footage, and 3D floor plans are a must-have when it comes to commercial real estate. According to the National Association of Realtors, 93% of real estate buyers will go online first before contacting a company. Being shy with information and visuals is a thing of the past – people want to see a potential investment online or through well-designed packages before viewing it in person, especially for those investors who are overseas.

Digital marketing agency with the right tools and unique real estate marketing ideas

Whether it’s in-house or outsourced, the right digital marketing for your company is going to define success or failure. Digital marketing is more important than ever before, your company needs to be at the forefront of every potential investor’s mind through social media ads and content, Google search, and branding ads. A well-designed website is great, but you need digital marketing driving foot traffic towards that platform.

At Geonet we specialise in real estate digital marketing, both commercial and residential. We cover the basics of digital marketing with precision and efficiency resulting in a vast number of generated sales and leads. Additionally, through Geo-targeting, longitude and latitude, location-based precision targeting, we can market your company and available real estate to buyers or investors in a specific location, such as property seminars and conferences.

Digital content for real estate marketing

In the digital marketing era, content can look like anything from posting your commercial real estate on popular listing sites, to social media and creating online webinar events.

It’s important when posting content that you have professional marketing tools like online flyers with all the information needed on your real estate, a successful broker email marketing campaign, updated listings of your commercial property on your website, and a strong team catching and generating profitable leads. Other relevant content is showing previous success stories through testimonials or reviews, and asking for referrals amongst over clients.

Consistent branding is important across all of your online content. This starts with a successful commercial real estate marketing plan, a great marketing strategy, and a digital, as well as in-person, presence across the industry. If you’re not seen, you’re not heard.

Social media is a great way to brand commercial real estate and get noticed. It can reach 20 million social media users in Australia and attract high-net-worth individuals looking to invest in long-term commercial real estate. They will trust a known company that has followers, looks legitimate online, and can speak for themselves in terms of success in real estate.