We caught up with Nina Clarke, Marketing Executive in our Ray White Commercial Corporate team, to chat about her career with the group so far, and the trends she is seeing across the property marketing space.
How does your usual day look?
Since working from home for the past six months, my daily routine has adjusted quite a lot. After an early gym session, I make myself a coffee and set up for the day on my deck which currently doubles as an office space.
I have a daily morning meeting and check in with the rest of the marketing team, to discuss the different projects we are all working on together. Every other afternoon, I have a similar check in with the commercial team. The rest of the day is spent answering calls and emails assisting the network with marketing budgets and submissions, writing content for the residential network and managing projects.
If I finish all my work at 5pm, I like to go for a quick walk to get some fresh air, which stops all the days from blending into one!
How did you start your career in marketing/real estate?
While I was finishing my Bachelor of Business at QUT, I worked at a full-service marketing and PR agency that specialised in property clients for a couple of years, which I really enjoyed. My dad is a commercial builder and I have always been really interested in real estate, particularly the commercial side.
In early 2016, I applied for a role at Ray White Commercial Corporate as marketing and events coordinator. Over the past four years, I’ve moved my way into the group marketing team across a few different functions, but always maintained a focus on the commercial business.
What do you enjoy most about being a marketing executive at Ray White Commercial? What makes Ray White Commercial different?
The willingness from our leaders to let us follow our own path and bring our own ideas and projects to life. There is a lot of flexibility and enthusiasm from the White family; they give us the reins and support our ideas. I have been able to try out a range of different roles and even relocate to Sydney to work in the NSW head office for a couple of years.
The people in our corporate team and network is what makes me love my job as much as I did five years ago. Everyone I have met in this company genuinely loves what they do, which is inspiring.
What sort of marketing are you recommending for campaigns currently?
Part of my role is obtaining great rates for our agents, which we have been able to do with a lot of the papers, portals and suppliers around the country. We encourage all our agents to maximise their marketing budgets by crossing into multiple platforms and being seen by as many eyeballs as possible.
While an extra $5,000 in marketing funds may be tricky to get across the line with the vendor, it can easily result in an extra $50,000 in the final sale price. You have to cover all bases. By having only a portal listing, you are cutting a huge chunk of the market from seeing your listing. I am particularly noticing a lot of success for agents who are embracing social media and digital marketing at the moment; more and more people are on their phones and our tools allow you to target the exact type of buyers/tenants you are looking for.
Across both residential and commercial, and where circumstances permit, I genuinely believe that auction is the most effective method of sale. It puts a time limit on the campaign instead of having it sitting and going stale on the back page of a portal for six months. It creates the best amount of competition, which achieves the best sale price in the market, and the offer is unconditional.
What is some advice you would give to someone starting out in marketing?
Don’t internally confine yourself to one industry; the less 'glamorous' ones can be much more rewarding! Be open to working in a company or industry that you didn’t have your heart set on while at university.
I also think it is really worthwhile for people to spend time in both an agency setting and in-house.
What is your outlook for the marketing landscape in commercial real estate over the next 12 months?
Newspapers are not disappearing, particularly those sections that have become such an institution like Prime Site in the Courier Mail. There are religious readers of these papers and they are people who you want to be in front of.
However, I do think there is going to be a huge focus on digital and social media marketing over the coming years. Products such as our Ray White Be Seen (targeted Facebook marketing packages) are going to become more and more popular, and they make it really easy for agents who want to get digital, but might not have the expertise themselves.
CONTACT
Email: nclarke@raywhite.com
Phone number: 0448 841 606
