NovaLoca Blog

What does it all mean to you and your company? How will the global decisions actually affect you? What about your company or your family?

With companies daily announcing mass redundancies, is the future all doom and gloom?

There are so many questions to be answered with very few answers. However, there is one question which may have an answer: Should we stand in line and wait to see what happens or should we step out of line and take another approach, is now the time to be innovative and start thinking outside the box?

The answer: There has never been a better time.

It is time to embrace the technology available to us all and not let the fear of the unknown be a hindrance to making the most of what it has to offer. You don’t need to be a techno guru to make technology work for you. All you need is the vision of what you want to achieve, techno guru’s are ten to the dozen and are available to help you make the dream become a reality.

A reliance on old methods to reach customers may mean you struggle unnecessarily as you fight to get your business through these challenging financial times. Even if they do manage to see you though there’s a chance that you will have been left behind in your market place. Businesses that are innovative now and find new ways to bring their products and services to market have more channels through which to attract customers which will benefit them now, as well as in the future. Utilising the latest technology, in particular web based technology, is just one medium that will open up a host of new marketing channels.

From the outset Novaloca.com aimed to be a company at the forefront of technology, using it to open the channels to property occupiers and make marketing commercial property easy. The site you see today is the product of that commitment: NovaLoca is a company that has its finger on the button and isn’t afraid to push it again and again.

The latest button to be pressed resulted in NovaLoca taking on the internet giant that is Google and winning! Having released Street View across America, Google have been developing this technology for London for some time, but they have now been beaten to it following the implementation of Street Level View imagery (collected by Seety) in NovaLoca’s maps which allows user to ‘walk’ the streets of central London from their PC.

Companies thinking outside the box and investing in innovation differentiate themselves from their competition and gets them noticed. When companies are noticed in this way the result is more website traffic, more customers seeing the product or service on offer and as a result more leads to deals are generated meaning companies are in a better position to ride out hard economic times. Innovations and new tools like Street Level View stand out from the old.

If NovaLoca had announced it was going to take on the Google you probably would have thought them mad, but with a belief in their innovation and a willingness to push the boundaries of technology they took up the challenge and won. THE END!

In today’s complex property market and economic climate, choosing the right commercial property agent is a crucial decision. With so many agents out there looking for your business property owners are often at a loss about how to select the one that will meet their particular needs. So what needs to be considered?

Business Link is a nationwide organisation offering resources to businesses and they suggest the following points are key:

• Trading history – how successfully have they marketed property in the past?
• Knowledge – how well do they know the property market in your area?
• Financial security – will they still be there next week, next month?
• Reputation – do they come recommended?
• Portfolio – have they found occupiers for similar properties to yours in the past?
• Willingness – are they keen to market your property?

Read their full document here for more information.

Although this is a comprehensive list, one additional point could be added:

• Marketing strategy – how are agents planning to market your property?

Being a commercial property search engine, NovaLoca.com is in contact with many commercial property agents every day and can see the varied levels of effort agents put in to marketing properties for their clients. Therefore it is essential for the property owner to understand exactly what the agent plans to do to find an occupier for their property as quickly and as cost effectively as possible. Do not be afraid to ask them the plan and hold them accountable to it.

Some marketing methods agents may use include:

• Direct mailing/leaflet drops
• Emails
• Fax
• Printed press/ online press
• Agents’ web site
• Online property search engines

So you know what the options for marketing methods are, but how effective are they? Some useful questions to ask include:

• How many people will see the property details?
• How easy is it for an occupier to contact the agent about your property?
• What information is given to the occupier about the property?
• Can they see the property on a map, virtual tour or photograph?
• Which method generates the most leads and is most cost effective?

Our experience has shown that traditional methods of direct mailing property details, sending emails and printed press are becoming less effective when marketing commercial property as occupiers increasingly begin their property search online. Therefore make sure the agent you choose to market your property is using the latest available technology to find an occupier.

For more information about what NovaLoca can do to help market commercial property contact us.

NovaLoca once again stay well ahead of the game in using web technology to market commercial property online. We have now launched Street Level View in our maps of central London; not only is this a first for us but it is also a first for the UK as we have beaten Google to it! Our thanks goes to the developers at Earthware for their latest property mapping solution and Seety the imagery providers.

To try out street level views for yourself, try the links below to some famous London landmarks:

• Piccadilly Circus
• Buckingham Palace
• Tower Bridge

It has always been our belief here at NovaLoca that being able to see a property makes choosing deciding to view it much easier for the occupier and as a result providing this information makes marketing commercial property easy for agents. Photographs can do this although often can not show the entire property. This is why we have invested in the latest in mapping technology on NovaLoca.com; the Aerial and Bird Eye imagery used as standard in the maps is the best available from Microsoft Virtual Earth and means occupiers can not only see what the property looks like, but they can also see what is around it – parking spaces and transport links for example. This added information makes the decision even easier.

But we knew we could go further in the quality and details of information that could be provided to occupiers and that is exactly what we have now done. The addition of Street Level View for central London in the maps allows occupiers to not just see a location from above but also fully experience it as they ‘walk’ the streets around a property they are interested in and find the local shop, nearest tube station or park where employers can take a break and eat their lunch. And all these added advantages for occupiers means commercial property agents jobs are made easier too.

If you want to find out more about finding your next commercial property on NovaLoca or if you have a commercial office, industrial unit or retail space to market or simply want to discover more about Street Level View then please contact us.

Calling all those interested in innovative ideals! NovaLoca, the UK’s best commercial property search engine will, in the next few days, become the site of the UK’s first implementation of Street Level View images and all before Google^© release Street View images in their UK maps.

To bring Street Level View to the commercial market, NovaLoca teamed up with the small innovative Italian company Seety, specialists in taking, processing and mapping images of city streets. Having already mapped many Italian cities in this way, Seety added central London to the list earlier this year and it is this latest imagery that is to be added to NovaLoca’s existing mapping feature.

Commercial property occupiers will now have the option to search for their ideal property using the existing map features of in-map searching and aerial, hybrid and Bird’s Eye imagery but now with Street Level View they will also be able to ‘stand’ in front of the property, see the one next door and take a ‘walk’ to the nearest tube station or shop. To put it simply, NovaLoca will be making it even easier for occupiers to find property and best of all, this new technology means less time will be wasted, for both occupier and agent, on site visits which do not result in a sale or let.

For those of you concerned about privacy, as standard practise Seety are careful about the resolution the images are taken in, to ensure a high quality picture to the user but one which does not make people easily identifiable. In addition to this they review each of the thousands of images they collect and blur out all faces and car registration plates that may have still been visible.

At NovaLoca we are really excited about how this latest development will make marketing commercial property even easier for agents as well as being the first company to be doing this. Keep an eye on this blog for the announcement of the release of Street Level View in our maps and in the mean time if you want to find out more about this exciting development or about marketing your commercial property with NovaLoca please do contact a member of the team on 0844 3575 260 or email info@novaloca.com.