Case Study: GC Garcia

G.C. Garcia, Inc., a Nevada-based land planning and commercial real estate development services firm, is an expert in all areas of developing, redeveloping, acquiring, financing, and building new real estate projects. They specialize in everything from site evaluation, planning and zoning to developing, redeveloping, overseeing, and lobbying for creative projects as well as coordinating with appropriate government oversight committees and entities for the firm’s clients, many of whom are headquartered around the world.

During the last twenty-plus years, the firm diligently earned its stripes as a trusted developer resource for its deal partners and clients. Though, the booming building economy of the last ten years spawned new developer and redeveloper competition. When the competition moved from the sidelines onto the playing field, G.C. Garcia, Inc.’s leadership team focused on the questions:

How does integrated marketing combined with public relations help a professional services company interface with commercial business prospects with international real estate and lobbying interests? How can proactive and reorganized modern forms of marketing augment business-to-business engagement and lay the groundwork for selling professional services?

A decision was reached that a full-service, international public relations firm was in order. Professional services media relations was at the forefront of the company’s future marketing, and an internal review led to interviewing top public relations agencies known for nationwide and worldwide media contacts.

G.C. Garcia, Inc.’s C-suite team chose Eberly & Collard Public Relations (ECPR) to conduct market and industry sector research to conceptualize and document a comprehensive annual marketing communications plan. This led to the ECPR team managing fully integrated marketing and publicity for G.C. Garcia, Inc. on a retainer basis.

The Eberly & Collard Public Relations’ market research and publicity teams decided from the start that our accomplishments for G.C. Garcia, Inc. would be entirely focused upon multiple critical planning functions. Our research, brainstorming and marketing development processes were put to work to help G.C. Garcia, Inc.’s personnel advance strategic and creative approaches to more palpably communicate to and with their target audiences, spanning business-to-business and business-to-community market segments.

We more than welcomed the challenge by creating a solid foundation for corporate image building in public relations, coupled with branding, digital marketing, advertising, and other forms of marketing communications. Since helping our clients address competitive intelligence with robust strategies is what we do, we set to work developing a plan that would time and time again prove to be an integrated marketing and SEO game changer.

How we got there:

Through our public relations expertise and a series of internal and external market studies, our brand planners at Eberly & Collard Public Relations uncovered essential information about the state of the industry concerning Nevada and Southwestern United States Commercial Real Estate Development. One of the critical, unearthed elements included the fact that our client’s lead and clientele base involved a much wider demographic to include commercial developers and investment groups based not only in the U.S., but in key European cities.

From this, the notion was born: Commercial development businesses near and far, some extending to Eastern and Middle Europe, with interests in Southwest U.S. land, building and infrastructure deals, could be actively engaged through vetted research and publicity content.

This determination was followed by a S.W.O.T. Analysis our team managed for our client. Working alongside their leadership staff, our analysis revealed strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats positively and adversely affecting share of voice and market encroachment for the development services firm.

We went from more than five different research formats to three weeks of creative brainstorming and strategy development. This involved a complex goal of developing and executing a stratagem to involve branding, public / media relations, social / digital media, and other forms of results-based marketing.

We developed programs to enhance G.C. Garcia, Inc.’s business-to-business engagements within local and regional real estate and related business marketplaces, combined with applicable interactions with affiliated national and international trade associations. Then, we managed a range of news and thought-leader press kits for our client to enact coverage placements with select media outlets on local, regional, national, and international levels. We also developed, planned and marketed events for our client, including securing keynote and panel speaking opportunities for their personnel as well as managing government relations for them to create new and enhanced connections with coveted local and statewide government dignitaries, city planning committees, chambers of commerce, and key industry organizations with influential overseas reach.

All of this was planned to support augmented brand visibility; expand audience education of the company’s innate value; and help turn lead conversions to new business. The strategy we initiated also took into consideration plans to evoke a distinctive brand presence; communicate a series of unique selling propositions about the company’s service offerings; and generate publicity and editorial campaigns that consistently endeavored to influence the commercial, infill and redevelopment, engineering, office and industrial, land developer, and land speculator market segments, among others.

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Client Sectors Addressed
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Increased Share of Voice
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Increase in Publicity

The Results:

Results included Designated Market Area objectives planned and purposed to deploy marketing messages throughout numerous key regions in Nevada, Arizona and Utah, as well as intensive marketing programs geared toward driving engagement with both national and global business clientele. Creative strategy guided by the ECPR team put the company and its partners in front of key infrastructure, commercial development, dignitary, and media decision-makers, the audiences of most importance.

The marketing and public relations services plan included media relations campaigns to publicize 100 percent of G.C. Garcia, Inc.’s service specializations and practice areas, vast industry knowledge and exceptional client relationships, while conveying the value the firm offers. Our writers, publicists and branding experts concepted specific resources for promoting G.C. Garcia, Inc.’s business entity, service capabilities, brand, website, attributes, priority sectors, select case-studies, and core competencies. The idea was to use branded storytelling about the company to communicate and confirm its expertise to high-level business leaders with investment potential, whether located in the client’s community or as far reaching as Europe.

With the coordination of conceptualized “earned” media (media relations, published articles, publicity); “owned” media (branded content marketing, blogging, social media, and search engine optimization); and “paid” media (advertising and sponsored content), our plan supplied a full prospectus for reaching, informing and persuading new business influencers about G.C. Garcia, Inc. and the firms’ key personnel.

Event marketing, public relations and integrated marketing communications activity prototypes that could be replicated and implemented in select, key regions were theorized to include industry association and sponsorships; Corporate Social Responsibility programs; local and trade-venue client events, activities and interactions; local architect / developer / engineering engagement; ribbon cuttings / grand openings; media tours; community relations and townhall meetings; and government relations to help our client achieve new networking channels.

Idea generation included the need for uncovering, assessing and securing speaking and panel opportunities to position G.C. Garcia, Inc. leadership as a unified industry expert and analyst at important conferences or industry events. An informal type of Speaker’s Bureau was concepted and deployed by or staff to create enthusiasm and marketability among vetted audiences.

Digital marketing, with a social and content management emphasis, was planned with a goal to restructure aspects of marketing for the development services business through implemented digital technologies. This was supported by planning for both trade and local media press campaigns as well as advertising and sponsorship programs.

The outcome of our work outlined a highly comprehensive annual marketing plan, which embraced and guided a new method for reaching and influencing our client’s target audiences with increased share of voice. Though, planning is only part of the outcome. Throughout program plan execution, we were able to publicize the company’s personnel and professional services more than 3 times the expected rate, opening doors and new connections for our client in Las Vegas, the Southwest U.S., North America, and Europe.