What is a property marketing project plan? It is the process you follow to attract potential buyers and achieve the sale of your property. Whether you have a plan or not, you have a process, and that is your de facto marketing plan. Sticking a sign on the lawn? Putting up posters at work? Placing a free ad on kijiji? Simple plans, but that's what they are.

Real estate is worth a lot of money - for most of us, the real estate we own constitutes the majority of our net worth. The fact that properties are worth a lot of money can be a double-edged sword. If you bought your house 4 years ago for $275,000 and someone offers you $475,000 today, you might get pretty excited. Especially if you heard that the neighbour sold last month for $425,000. You might jump on a deal like that, and perhaps never look back. But what if your property was actually worth $535,000? You didn't realise that the neighbour's basement was unfinished, or the attic contained asbestos, or they sold it to the first buyer on day one, with 7 other showings booked for day two. 

Selling a property is a bit like golfing. There are hundreds of little variables all over the place, and the difference between a great outcome and one that is merely acceptable hinges on taking care of all the small details to minimize the negative and maximize the positive impact of those variables. That's what an excellent marketing plan is all about. And it's not complicated - it's methodical, creative at times, and involves some work. Practice helps a lot. If you sell properties all the time, you can internalize the process and it will flow naturally. If you don't manage the process frequently, you're more likely to make costly mistakes.

Coming from a professional product development and marketing background, I built a property marketing methodology when I launched my real estate business in 2005. I'm always updating and improving it. To this day, I am amazed how few real estate agents, let alone private sellers, follow a bona fide plan to ensure reliably excellent results. While the marketing plan elements are customized for each individual property and your circumstances and specific objectives, the plan must be built on a consistent and comprehensive methodology.

I call my methodology, "The 5 P's of Property Marketing".

Expand the boxes below for a quick overview of each "P" in the methodology, and click on the link above for a detailed outline. The article includes links to real world examples of how each step in the methodology has saved clients tens of thousands of dollars and will yield the same for you when you sell.