How to Write a  Residential Real Estate Marketing Plan
There is no set protocol or format in developing a good Residential Real Estate Marketing Plan however; a good one will contain solid numbers about the firm, its environment, the market, and target clients. It will be able to define what the next step to take at any point in time should be, and will remain flexible enough to adapt to the market. It should be documented on paper and most will include several topics and sub topics. The most common topics are; Executive Summary, Company Description, Market Analysis, SWOT Analysis, Marketing Strategy, Budget, and Projections.
An Executive Summary and a Company Description act as a basic introduction to the Real Estate Marketing Plan while complimenting each other nicely. Where the Executive Summary will introduce the developers of this plan, its goals, and introduce the company briefly, a Company Description will speak more about the firm, its place in the market, the executives, and give a brief history. These two sets of documents or presentations must be polished and of high quality since this is generally included in a Marketing Plan Presentation to any potential investors. Some firms will have two separate plans. One that will be internal and only for the eyes of those closely related to its implementation and another to be included in business plans and with less confidential or sensitive information regarding the firm’s marketing concepts and procedures.
Where the Executive Summary and the Company Description describe the plan and the firm, a Market Analysis will describe the environment the firm operates in. Generally, each part of a good Marketing Plan will set up and support the preceding part. Here, the Market Analysis should include topics regarding everything which would have to do with residential property and the competing firms. For instance, topics such as tax codes, construction laws, landscaping, crime rates, schools, accessibility, and real estate value are just a few examples. Understanding and documenting the behavior, challenges, victories, and losses of competitors is also a valuable sub topic which should be included in good market analysis.
The ultimate purpose of a marketing plan is to improve the behavior of the firm in the market environment. This usually requires a good SWOT Analysis. SWOT stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. This analysis should be very no-nonsense and straightforward. It should fully describe the firm’s strengths and weaknesses. In addition it must include a brief market analysis, based on solid information, describing existing and potential opportunities the market possesses and the existing and potential threats to the firm’s growth. This is meant to be an analysis and should not include very much conjecture or suppositions if they are not based in solid fact and accurate numbers.
The Marketing Strategy will go into detail on how a firm will reach its target goals described in the Executive Summary. This will be a very specific section will go into everything from advertising to budgeting and will give a timeline of when each step will be taken. This section will also go into what resources are available to the firm at what time and should be supported both by the numbers within its subtopics as well as the previous topics.
The Budgeting and Projections sections will conclude the Residential Real Estate Marketing Plan with solid numbers regarding the present and potential future of the firm. This is usually a must-have section when presenting the Real Estate Marketing Plan to investors.