Know-How Exchange : Advertising/PR

Your brand awareness campaign will start with facts, stats and stories, and be consistently communicated. Create your message based on the market you serve and meet the needs of those people who need information. Share data about how your company is meeting needs and challenges of industry trends and what you expect those trends to be (establish trends in some cases). Plan each month, with knowledge that shifts in the industry/market could allow them to change.

Of course this is a basic, broad look, but your marketing will be all about information that's easy to understand, and repetition so that your target market remembers your company.

Start thinking in broad brush strokes, and the detail will almost fill itself in. Heres five qustions to help lubricate a rusty marketer:

- who are your audience: what characteristics define them and seperate them from the rest of the population, e.g. income, lifestage, hobbies/interests, favoured retailers/brands, behaviours, values, etc. (there may be more than one group, or sub-groups)

- where are they: geographically, by channel, e.g. internet, mobile (smartphone), etc., and by media, e.g. TV, press, web, etc.

- what message do you have/what is your proposition: brand building might take a number of stages, e.g., make people aware of the name, establish brand values/differentiate, make a brand promise, demostrate advocacy among exsiting customers; direct response will be quicker, e.g. here's an offer, here's why it's good for you, this is what you have to do to get it - direct repsonse can be part of any stage of brand building but don't sacrifice one for the other by confusing the consumer, e.g. Rolls Royce, the world's most prestigeous motor car, buy one get one free

- what media options do you have and the choices you are going to make: a high level media plan demonstrating the geodemographic coverage, inc. overlaps and gaps, frequency, size/duration of slots, concepts/creative (draft), etc., plus any "non advertising" activities such as events, PR, sponsorship, social media, etc.

- how you are going to measure success: objectives, input measures (budget, etc.), output measures (responses, ROI, etc.), and business readiness, e.g. call centre capacity, customer service/product knowledge training, etc.

Hope this helps

Don''t forget your competition. Who are you up against? Identify company, agent(s). What properties do they currently have listings for? What listing(s) have they had in the past? What does their strategy appear to be? Listen to what customers (former and prospective) customers and clients have to say about them. Record everything and anything that you know--and what you''ve heard about them. Check out their personal appearance, do they look ''casual,'' ''upscale,'' etc. What image do they project and how does it fit (or not fit) the customer base. What kind of image do you intend to project? Check our their advertising plan and media mentions (publicity). What industry designations do they tout?Check sold vs listing (for sale/lease) ratio. What can you do different--and better?

Best of luck!