Tag Archives for " off-plan sales "

How property developers can use social media to hit off-plan sales goals

Maximum reach, minimum splash, utmost integrity

Recently, I was chatting with a developer who was keen to know how we use social media in our sales process. After all, it is an integral part of our strategy to guarantee sales for developers with whom we partner. It’s also a strategy that forms the backbone of our off-plan sales success.

In this article, I explain how we have developed our Property Launch Formula over the last two decades, and why it works so well.

What do the best salespeople do every day?

Figuring out how to use social media as a sales tool isn’t rocket science, but it does need you to understand what your best people do naturally every day. When we analysed what our best salespeople did so well, we were able to condense their incredible talents into six specific areas:

1. Positioning of company, product, and opportunity
2. Prospecting, and building rapport with new connections
3. Presenting opportunities, and ensuring that those opportunities were relevant to the prospect
4. Following up, ensuring constant contact and maximising the good work done to date
5. Closing a deal, and ensuring the sale runs smoothly
6. Maintaining contact and encouraging repeat purchases

Why social media is so important in the off-plan sales process

As social media apps started to take off, we realised that in the future people would use apps like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Quora as sources to make buying decisions. We also understood that each different social media app has a different audience and different use.

Our Property Launch Formula is designed to maximise the reach of each different social media app, targeting different types of investors and answering different investor needs. Some investors want information. Others want specific solutions. Swathes of investors want to be kept in touch with industry developments and investment opportunities. We mix and match our messages through social media to satisfy these and other needs.

Social media gives us the ability to replicate all six of the sales talents that we identified, but on a scale that human salespeople could never hope to achieve. We have used social media to build a sales funnel that takes investors through a journey from initial contact to purchase. It allows us to start this process with tens of thousands of prospects, before funnelling through to a list of hot, registered prospects.

This scale of contacts would require hundreds of salespeople to perform. Social media has enabled us to act more effectively and target your development at those investors who are most likely to buy at earlier stages of development.

We use 16 social media platforms in our Property Launch Formula, including YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Quora.

Here are a few of the ways in which our social media strategies replicate and enhance what the best salespeople do:

Prospecting

Social media is an exceptional tool for prospecting when it is used correctly. We target keywords and search phrases to attract investors who are considering investment in the UK property market. They are already looking, and social media helps us to leapfrog the cold call phase of prospecting.

We offer these prospects. Why not reach out to them and offer your support and expertise? Establishing yourself as a useful resource is a strong step in the right direction. You can also use Twitter’s search function to search for keywords associated with pains some people have that might bring them to the solution you’re selling.

Familiarisation and building rapport

Through social media, we can begin to familiarise investors with our offering – driving them to our private investor’s arm, Gladfish, where they can access what is probably the largest property investment resource on the web today. This includes videos, podcasts, blogs, books and webinars all designed to introduce investors to new build property. Check it out at www.gladfish.com/academy.

In addition, our social media reach allows us to directly answer investor questions, and post information that serves to get investors familiar with an area before our off-market efforts begin in earnest.

Engagement and relationship building

We have an excellent record of building relationships, breeding investor loyalty, and encouraging repeat investment. Social media is integral to this process. Several social media channels are ideal for sharing content and adding value to a broad spectrum of investment needs. This is soft relationship building at its best.

Relationships are critical in any sales process. We found that social media accounts such as LinkedIn and Facebook are exceptional tools for maintaining these relationships.

Following up with interested investors

With all the preparation work done, we can launch to only those investors who are most interested in your development. This increases our chances of making sales. And allows our salespeople to concentrate on the end game in the sales process. We’ll share useful resources with these investors through our social media accounts, ensuring that our relationship, message, and your development are at the forefront of their investment plans.

Launching your development into the market

Our Property Launch Formula and social media reach is key to maintaining relationships with more than 50,000 active investors on our database. We’re able to segment these investors for specific marketing – for example if we wish to launch to specific countries.

But there is no need to worry about us making a big splash and disrupting price integrity. When we launch, it’s off-market all the way. The only public footprint will be the name of your development. Investors must log in to see everything else. Cash flow projections are only made available to registered investors who speak directly with the team. The only pricing information that will be posted online is the one that says, ‘Prices from’.

Our Property Launch Formula means you get the widest and deepest reach, without making ripples in the market.

Of course, this is only part of how we work with developers to maximise sales. To learn how we can customise our approach for your specific development and sales goals, call the team on 0207 923 5680. Our partnership will get your new build and off-plan development sales to where you need them to be.

Live with passion

Brett Alegre-Wood

How to implement effective off-plan sales strategies

Early phase off-plan property sales strategy

Developing an effective off-plan sales strategy is key to achieving expected return on investment for property developers. It will help reduce the need for equity, help with funding and provide cash flow for the development, increasing buyer confidence and creating a virtuous sales circle going forward.

When developing a off plan sales strategy, you’ll need to gain the trust of end buyers and also be able to trust the partners you select in the process of off-market, off-plan sales.

Build key relationships first

You’ll have some key stakeholders, all of whom dovetail and work with you to take your project off the drawing board through to completion. Your lenders and buyers should be involved early, but you probably won’t want to publicise off-plan sales too soon. Off-market new build apartment sales can enhance your project balance sheet and help structure your pricing strategy going forward. Ensure you select off plan sales partners with a track record that matches your scheme.

Build trust with buyers and investors

Investors are keen to do business with developers who can be trusted. If you can demonstrate a track record of timely completions and working to pre-agreed specifications, that trust will grow more quickly and more freely.

Update your stakeholders regularly

People don’t like to be kept in the dark, so offer regular updates on how you are progressing towards milestones. Even if there’s a little bad news or a slight delay, it’s better letting your investors and funding partners know about them. not every little detail, but often in the absence of any news, investors can assume the worst. The important thing is how variations are handled, and to give plenty of warning if something goes awry. This allows your partners to manage relationships better in their world − in off-plan forward sales this is crucial.

Ensure buyers and investors understand the risks

Working with an experienced partner in off-market, off-plan sales gives you someone who will work with investors and you. Those who are aware that new build apartment sales are not without risk will be able to help you overcome issues as they arise. Usually, their clients are probably be long-term investors, which helps offer stability for your ongoing off-plan sales. Avoid speculative buyers who may be looking to flip their purchase at the most inconvenient time, putting pressure on prices and perceptions. Always choose your off-plan sales partner wisely.

Staging your off-plan sales strategy

Those first off-plan new build apartment sales will probably command a greater discount than later units. This is the nature of risk versus reward, and the earliest purchases are the riskiest from an investor’s point of view. You’ll need to consider how much equity needs to be raised and how many units need to be sold to reduce your financing needs. having a strong set of figures is critical and releasing properties at a regulated rate as part of your off-plan sales strategy will help you to finance your project and stabilise / secure prices.

Off-plan sales strategy reduces your risk and maximises income

By buying off-plan and new build apartments, Castlereach offer valuable and useful ways to reduce your risk. They’ll help your pricing going forward and give lenders greater confidence in your development. Your capacity to fund at competitive rates will probably increase as well as increase your overall profit and reduce the time and effort it’ll take hit your unit sales targets.

Off plan sales partnerships

Our investors understand the nature of risk and trust us to carry out the due diligence necessary to reduce their risk to a minimum per development. The feedback we give provides invaluable evidence of actual demand. This helps execute your sales strategy, and facilitate the build process as your development progresses.

To discuss your off-plan sales strategy and how many units you would like us to buy from you to help your development achieve your unit sales targets, call us on +44 207 923 5680 and chat to the team.

Live with Passion,

Brett Alegre-Wood