Other Posts by Jason Honda-Lind

• My Corsican Love Affair
• Welcome to the Property Confessional

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Are you a property marketing genius?

By Jason Honda-Lind

So I'm the proud owner of a beautiful ski-in, ski out apartment in Lapland. Floodlit slopes, husky rides, and winter trips to see Santa - surely an easy sell to tourists, making this an unbeatable investment? And when the countryside defrosts and the snow melts away, the immaculate development overlooks a remarkably picturesque golf course, giving the project the added bonus of a short summer season to bulk up the income.

Admittedly, it may have been a little bit overpriced at the time of purchase. Which, by the way, was right at the very, very top of the market before everything went a bit Lehman Brothers. And the cowboy company that sold it to me has long since disappeared, along with their vapour thin rental guarantee (that's a whole different story). But all the same, it really should be doing well, or at least better than it is. But it is doing badly. Spectacularly badly!

For a winter wonderland such as this, an occupancy rate that barely breaks into double digits for December is an absolute disaster. How could they get it so spectacularly wrong??

There is a very simple answer. Incompetence! Those people responsible for marketing the development to tourists clearly haven't got a clue what they're doing. Now I'm no genius, but surely the key to a successful advertising campaign revolves around having a compelling offer and positioning the right message in the media used by your target market?

Here's a little quiz on the subject to see whether you could do better than the numpties in charge of my investment:

Q1. You are responsible for a sizeable marketing budget to promote a magnificent property development in Finland. At your disposal is a piece of research that says travellers from Finland want to be in the town, whereas overseas tourists are just as happy to be in a self contained hotel/resort on the ski slopes. Do you:

A.    Identify how best to reach overseas tourists and put together a package of activity designed to maximise exposure to and bookings from them.

B.    Spend nearly 50% of your budget on local advertising only available once people are actually in the resort and therefore highly unlikely to want to book accommodation.

Q2. Year on year, your resort is losing market share to other towns in the region. Do you:

A.    Take control of your budget and put together a dedicated marketing plan to attract visitors directly to your resort.

B.       Continue to waste more than half your budget by paying for expensive central marketing by the tourist board, which is clearly proving completely ineffective.

Q3. Booking levels for last season were atrocious compared to industry averages. Do you focus your marketing spend on:

A. Going online, where all the tourists are, using a large scale programme of low cost, efficient online marketing, such as revenue-share distribution partnerships, lead generation and pay per click activity designed to stimulate direct bookings.

B. Focus on a package of low response, print advertising and trade shows, that seems remarkably similar to last year's failed plan.

How did you do?

If you answered A to all questions, you are blessed with a good degree of common sense and though not necessarily a shoe-in, could find yourself on a shortlist of candidates should you apply for work in property marketing.

However, if you answered B to any of the questions above, then it's unlikely that you are a property marketing genius and may want to consider other career opportunities that don't result in a financial loss for the people ultimately paying your salary.

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