Sales and marketing
Bring high awareness to your high-performance building
For years, consumer demand has pushed the commercial real estate market to focus on energy-efficient, high-performance buildings. In turn, real estate professionals must be able to successfully market energy-efficient properties to potential investors and occupants. Marketing your high-performance building can help maximize the potential value of your investment and increase your competitive advantage. To market effectively, you need to understand who your audience is, where to reach them, and how to position the benefits of your high-performance building.
For example, consider which of the building renewal benefits would most effectively drive your potential investors and tenants:
- The financial benefits of a smart, long-term investment
- Enhanced worker productivity
- Improved thermal control and tenant comfort
- The health benefits from cleaner air and lower viral spread
- Better lighting quality
Understanding the specific needs and wants of your target audience, along with related market trends, will help you create tailored messaging that will resonate and attract interested prospects.
Exploring opportunities to engage tenants
As part two of a series on tenant engagement, this toolkit expands on the lessons from the first green leasing toolkit, Leverage Leasing Practices to Reduce Energy and Utility Costs, and also includes strategies for owners to connect with tenants on curbing tenant-specific energy end uses. Read more for strategies and resources appropriate for office and retail property owners/managers with small and/or large tenants.
Every upgrade tells a story
By customizing your messaging to your audience, you’ll meet your future investors and tenants at their level by directly addressing their interests or concerns. For some, energy efficiency upgrades connect with their corporate image and policies, employee benefits, and community relationships. Others may only be interested in reducing operating costs. Regardless of your audience’s needs, you can connect with them on a personal level by delivering your value messaging using stories that incorporate analogies, equivalents, and verifiable numbers. By illustrating to your audience why an upgrade is of particular value to them, you’ll clarify your pitch and speak to the lived benefits of energy efficiency upgrades.
DOE Better Buildings Webinar: How to Tell Your Efficiency Story:
Make the value tangible
In addition to promoting the human and environmental benefits of building renewal, it’s important to clearly communicate the financial benefits as well. It’s important to place a bright spotlight on the specific, tangible numbers representing the expected financial outcomes of your high-performance building, including potential savings and increased market value.
You can further paint the picture of long-term financial value by describing how the incremental costs for a high-performance building can be recouped through savings on energy costs alone. By discussing the potential for better ROI, higher net operating income, and internal rate of return, you can make a compelling case that the financial benefits of a high-performance building should not be judged solely on initial project costs.
