Skye Marketing

To date, Skye Marketing is best known for their work with Mortise Group, an acclaimed developer of multi-family communities in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia. Together, the two companies have collaborated on numerous sold-out projects, with many more in the pipeline. Their collaboration was also celebrated at 2021 Georgie Awards, where Skye Marketing was named a finalist for ‘Best Corporate / Project Website’ for their work on mortisegroup.com.

“That recognition means a lot to us,” says Navjeet Singh, Principal. “The George Awards are pretty big here in BC. It’s great to get that accolade and that logo on our website. More than that, it’s something we can take a lot of personal pride in. We can be proud that we accomplished that for Mortise as well as ourselves.”

Navjeet, along with the rest of the founders of Skye Marketing, comes from a background in building and development. The idea for ‘Skye’ originated when they looked around and realized there were only a handful of real estate marketing specialists in BC, and they were mostly big names that focused on Vancouver. Navjeet and his team believed that developers in the Fraser Valley & Lower Mainland could benefit from a real estate marketing company with local expertise, and they decided to fill that void in the market and form Skye Marketing.

For the first few years, Skye Marketing mainly worked on Mortise Group projects, where they repeatedly proven the depth of their knowledge, and the value of their service. In recent years, other developers have started to take notice of that value, and Skye Marketing’s client base has expanded.

According to Surjan Pahal, Marketing Manager, developers today are drawn to Skye Marketing for the reasons they anticipated. One of those reasons is their complete service offering – they can do everything from market analysis, to creative design development and branding, all the way through to managing project sales. All those services are performed in-house by the company’s direct team of experienced experts. From the conceptual development phase to the final possession date, Skye can handle all of their client’s marketing needs in one place.

That depth of service is one of the main reasons clients choose them, Surjan reiterates. The other main reason, he believes, is their in-depth knowledge of local markets.

“We understand development intrinsically,” he says. “We know it from start to finish. From when plans go in for their first readings at city hall, all the way to closing down a project – we’re able to provide our expertise and give our clients the best advice possible.”

Early on, Surjan says that Skye Marketing can answer questions such as ‘What unit mixes will the community absorb best?’, ‘What style of unit is popular in the area?’ and ‘What square footage will maximize the amount of units and achieve the most profit?’ He doesn’t believe that there are many other real estate marketers that can provide that depth of know-how and experience.  

“We come from a background in development,” he explains. “We have a lot of expertise in the industry and we know how to shape a building in order to earn the most revenue for the developer.”

As an example, Navjeet cites a recent client, who came to Skye Marketing early in the process, pushing to build 24 townhouse units of about 1,500 square feet each. Skye Marketing did some research and concluded that it was actually better for them to build 18 townhouse units, with each unit between 2,400 and 2,500 square feet, because there was a niche market out there that wanted that extra space. Navjeet says the client went with their suggestion, and they ended up making roughly $1.3 million more on the project than they would have if they went with their original plan.

Again, Navjeet says, that ability to maximize value is one of Skye Marketing’s main draws. Another important draw, however, is their sincerity. According to Navjeet, they want the best for their clients, even if that sometimes means not getting their business. 

“We actually advise our clients to see what else is on the market,” he explains. “A lot of companies want an exclusive relationship. They want to have a tight grip on the client and the client’s projects. We’re not like that. We always want what’s best for the client and are confident that we will prevail on top.”

“I always tell clients, ‘This is what we can provide for you on this project, and this is our price. I would actually encourage you to speak to other companies and see if they can come close to the service and success they would see with Skye Marketing.’ We have yet to see another company be able to confidently market and sell a development more efficiently than ourselves.”

By taking that approach, Skye Marketing’s goal is to build trust with their clients, and they hope that trust leads to long-term relationships.

“We’re not a company that’s looking to just get in and out, get the sales done, make our money, and walk away,” Surjan says. “I think clients see that. They see our past success, our experience, our honesty – and I think that helps cement our relationships.” 

Taking pride in their work

As previously mentioned, Skye Marketing recently earned acclaim from the 2021 Georgie Awards for their work on Mortise Group’s website. Surjan credits that recognition, at least partly, to the extent of the website’s transformation. He says when their team started working on it, the site was woefully out of date, and he believes they have more than corrected that.

“We were able to refresh it, take it to the next level, and make it into a one-stop-shop for anyone who jumps on,” he explains.

“There’s a mortgage calculator on the side – you can take the price of our units, get in there, and see if you qualify. It gives you full information on strata. It gives you full information on warranties – which a lot of people don’t really understand when it comes to new builds and multi-family developments. Our main goal was to make this a ‘one-stop’ shop for clients researching a home”

“We also wanted to showcase the history of Mortise and the experience they have,” he adds. “I think we’ve done that. I think we’ve created a tool that can build trust.” 

“And we’re not done,” he says. “We’ll never be done. We’re going to continue adding to it. We’re going to keep it up to date. We’re going to make sure that it keeps standing out when people visit.” 

Surjan reiterates that their team is proud of the award recognition, but he says they take even more pride in the satisfaction of their clients. In this case, he says Mortise was “definitely impressed.”

“We recently got a story back from them,” he says. “The developer was visiting with some investors in Alberta. All he had to do was show them the website and their jaws dropped. That makes us feel even better. That’s something we take a lot of pride in.”

The Skye Marketing team takes pride in all projects that they have the opportunity to work on.

Recently, for example, the company had the opportunity to work on one of the most sought-after communities in Surrey ‘Nova,’ a new multi-family development in Fleetwood, Surrey. The first phase comprised a collection of 31 affordably priced townhomes and was sold out last year. Phase two will include 93 condos in a six-storey wood-frame building, and that building is now also sold out. 

“The thing we’re most proud about is that we just set the record in Surrey for the highest price per square foot for a wood-framed condo,” Surjan says. “In some of those units, we even beat some concrete buildings.”

“We were able to make sure these units were affordable for the purchasers,” he adds, “but we were also able to make it the most profitable for the developer. That’s what we’re trying to achieve every time.”  

Over this summer, Skye Marketing brought to market ‘Orenda,’ a new community of 39 stacked townhomes in the sought-after neighborhood of Clayton Heights, which is on the border of Surrey and Langley. Once again, those units all sold out – in that case, almost all the units were sold out within three weeks, with the last couple units going by week six.

Marketing that project was an interesting challenge, Surjan says, because the stacked townhome concept was relatively new to Surrey.  It’s a popular concept in Vancouver, but the last similar project type in Surrey was developed all the way back in 2008. 

“So there wasn’t a lot of data on this type of project in the city,” he explains. “We initially didn’t know how people were going to react to it. We had to start from ground up. Fortunately, we had some great success. We can predict we’re going to be seeing a lot more projects like it as time goes on.” 

Moving forward, Skye Marketing also predicts that they will see higher-density projects, as that’s the current trend in the Fraser Valley & Lower Mainland. According to Surjan, they have recently seen a lot of townhome proposals transition to condo projects with 100-to-200 units. 

“The market is definitely shifting more towards condos, smaller spaces, and affordability,” Surjan explains. “Our job is to make sure that our developers, and the units they’re developing, will suit that market – and within that market, we want to make sure they stand out.”  

As for whom those developers will be, Surjan says that Skye Marketing will continue to service “cornerstone developers” like Mortise Group – but they are also excited to take on up-and-comers and help them establish their own reputations. 

“We’re here for those companies,” he says. “We’d love to give them our expertise and help them get started.” 

“Our goal is to grow,” Navjeet concludes. “We’re looking to get larger, looking to take on more clients, and we’re looking to spread our wings as much as we can. We want to help every kind of developer. We want to be amongst the top companies they think of when they’re starting up a project.” 

For more on Skye Marketing, their recent work, and to get in touch with Navjeet, Surjan, and the rest of their team, visit https://www.skyemarketing.ca/

For more on the company’s full service offering and everything they can do in-house, visit https://www.skyemarketing.ca/services

And to view Mortise Group’s award-winning website – and for more information on Mortise’s past, present and future communities, including Nova and Orenda – visit https://mortisegroup.com/