Want more listings or tenants?
It’s not enough to know all about your market. Today’s commercial real estate agent or broker has to be a personality of sorts. Where do you start? Should you do a podcast? Start a YouTube channel? Keep a blog? It’s pretty overwhelming when you consider you have a “day job,” and it’s not to be stuck creating all this content.
I’ve got some shortcuts for you. Pick a couple of approaches from this list and get those leads coming.
Fast and easy commercial real estate marketing
Look. I can go on and on about building a plan, creating a strategy, and evaluating software tools. Yes, you should do those things, but in this TLDR world, let’s just cut to the chase and talk about the fastest and easiest things you can do.
Also, this is on a digital marketing blog…. so I’ll focus here first because doing this well can provide a constant funnel of potential new clients, while tactics like in-person networking or developing partnerships can help you focus on building deeper relationships.
Digital marketing to grow your brand
I found my first commercial real estate broker by simply Googling “commercial real estate broker Phoenix”. Their website was convincing enough for me to book a meeting and get started. Within two years, I bought three properties.
I didn’t call my friends for a recommendation. I did 100% of this online and formed my opinion based on that website.
My experience makes me convinced that your online presence should be a key focus of your real estate marketing plan.
The only challenge with this content marketing strategy is that you can set it up fast, but the results take time and can sometimes feel like you’re not making progress. But I encourage you to be patient – you’ll see results as potential clients find you online.
So what does it take?
1) Company website
You don’t need to go all crazy and spend a ton of money, but you should have a presence that helps potential clients understand the markets you serve and why they should choose you.
This is your billboard. What do you want potential clients to learn about you? Here’s what I recommend:
Core pages
At a minimum, you need a home, about, properties, and blog page.
Home: Your home page should immediately explain what commercial real estate market you are in. This means location and your specialty. Are you in self-storage, industrial, retail, etc. Make that clear from the get-go so your target market knows they are in the right place.
About: This is the ideal place for headshots, bios, certifications like CCIM, SOIR, and industry awards.
Property listings: You can set up an IDX feed to automatically add your latest listings. You can also create customized “flyer-type” images with investment opportunities that open up to a PDF for the property data sheet.
Blog: The whole purpose of a blog is to demonstrate thought leadership and generate interest and traffic to your site. You create (or hire someone like me!) blog posts sharing relevant information and market trends for your niche. From here, you can promote this content on social feeds, email marketing lists, or even individual client follow-ups. Blogging is so important that I’ll get that in more detail below.
I also want to point out here that every single page should have easy ways for clients to get in touch with you. It can be by phone, email, or a form they fill out. The point is don’t make it hard for people.
What do you blog about?
If you work with a content marketing company like REI Words, you won’t have to worry about what to blog about, how to write it, and what to say so it supports your marketing efforts. We take care of all of that.
But let’s say you want to do this on your own or are just curious about how we approach it. Here’s a sample content plan for an agent focused on multi-family housing.
Let’s start with 12 blog posts of up to 1500 words each. Here are a few examples that could support multi-family real estate marketing activities:
Key 2024 trends and insights
Emerging locations and local market reports
Humorous landlord stories
Interest rate updates
Maximizing ROI
Tenant retention
Smart buildings
Class B vs. Class C data
Current value-add strategy trends
Evaluating investments
Client case study
Government incentives and programs
You can then take each of these and repurpose them over a month in this way:
Oh, and if you want a template for a content calendar, you can get it here.
2) Social media
Yes, you need to be on social media. But where? The number of platforms is overwhelming, and trying to build an audience everywhere means you build an audience nowhere. For most areas of the commercial real estate sector, you’ll want to at least be on LinkedIn. If you are open to doing or creating videos, YouTube is a good second option.
Wondering what you should post about? For LinkedIn, you can repurpose your blog posts with a short snippet about the content and a link to your site to learn more. For YouTube, you can take the blog posts and turn them into a short script and expand on the concepts in more detail.
3) Email marketing
In digital marketing spaces, email marketing is king since you “own” your audience. If you’ve given people enough of a value proposition that they join your list, you have an engaged group of folks interested in the CRE market you are in. But don’t blow it. Keep giving them value on whatever frequency you email them.
This is also where you can provide a short summary of your blog articles and links for readers to access more of the content.
4) Digital PR
Digital PR is a great way to build brand awareness and can mean a couple of different things, including:
Authority quotes: Sites like Apartment Therapy or Yahoo Finance might have a quote from you about an industry trend. This brings awareness to you as an agent or broker plus it can include a link back to your website.
Articles: Digital PR can also include articles or guest posts that you submit to other high-traffic websites relevant to your commercial real estate niche.
5) Paid lead generation
This is paying for ads. You can do this on social media sites or on Google. What you’ll want to consider here is how your audience interacts with these platforms and finding a good fit so you aren’t wasting money. Consider:
Why is your audience on that platform? Take Facebook. They aren’t there to learn things. They are there to see what friends and family are doing, what events are happening, and perhaps engage in a community. Certain kinds of advertising can be annoying and a distraction here.
But YouTube? People go there to learn, so ads might make more sense.
My favorite is Google paid ads. People go to Google to find things, so it makes sense to advertise here so they can more easily find you.
6) Podcasts
In 2023, 31% of people aged 12 and older listened to a podcast in the past week. You can easily be a guest on podcasts, you can start your own, or you can do both.
Be a guest: You’ll need to create a one-sheet PDF about your value proposition for the show host. It should be your unique angle on your specific topic and why you are the most qualified person to discuss that topic. From there, you can reach out to podcast owners to ask if you can be a guest. If you want some help, contact our team for help with podcast bookings.
Start a podcast: You can do so many things with your own podcast. You could record episodes where you provide market updates and thought leadership. Or, you can have guests share their experiences. Your guests could actually be from your target market which gives you a chance to develop relationships. If you want to help to start a podcast, we know about that, too!
7) Newsletter
Newsletters can be different from standard email marketing. They’re a way to build an audience beyond your local market. You could create a newsletter focused on a specific sector, like self-storage. Collect and share stories about industry developments across the country. Add your commentary and analysis to these updates.
This approach demonstrates your industry knowledge and helps establish credibility with readers.
In-person marketing activities
Besides digital marketing, there’s plenty of in-person things you can do to drive business. Let us handle your digital marketing, which frees you up to spend more time on in-person activities like these:
8) Networking events
Consider getting active in local networking events. The best ones depend on your commercial property niche, but a few examples include:
Startup events can lead to new tenants for commercial office space.
Real estate investing events where people are looking for new ideas on investment opportunities.
Chamber of commerce type of events where you might get leads on new businesses needing industrial space.
9) Industry conferences
If you go to industry conferences, you’ll get a chance to meet other agents across the country with whom you can work on future deals. You might also meet real estate investors looking for their next deal and have an opportunity to position your specific market.
10) Sponsor local events
I can see this being very effective for commercial office and industrial leasing. You could sponsor the Chamber of Commerce, economic development, tech incubator, and other emerging business events. You could even get creative and host technology hack-a-thon events to generate interest in office space for new startups.
11) Strategic partnerships
Here’s a quick list of ideas for partnerships that can help with commercial real estate marketing:
Lenders: You might find potential clients through business bank relationships.
Construction firms: Since these firms work on various projects with investors, they might be a good partnership for future business.
Economic development organizations: These groups can help connect you with businesses looking to expand or relocate.
Real estate lawyers: They can provide legal expertise for your clients and send potential business your way.
12) Guest speaking
One way to effectively market yourself is to be a guest speaker at events or clubs. Let’s say you are in the office space, reach out to local organizations for business leaders and ask if you can speak. You could cover things like the latest office trends, employee engagement or statistics on office space across the country.
Brainstorm a list of relevant groups you could speak to for your niche market and then come up with topic ideas that provide value to that audience. All you are trying to do is build brand awareness and get your name out there.
13) Property showcase events
In some areas, you can create events for your target audience at the specific property. This can work well for tenant agents who want to showcase a new office building or industrial space. You might have a launch party for the property or an open house where potential tenants can walk around and view the property.
For example, a cocktail hour in a new office space can help clients envision their business there. It helps create an experience rather than just showing four walls.
Commercial property marketing to close deals
Once you have properties, here are some of the best strategies to market the property itself:
14) Direct mail campaigns
During my time as an apartment complex owner, I would get fliers from a local commercial real estate agent focused on multi-family properties. These fliers always shared information on recent sales, such as the selling cap rate and price per unit.
These fliers were effective because they made me:
Take notice of how active he was.
Consider the selling price per unit and what I might be able to do with my properties.
They provided a brand identity for that agent.
If I had wanted to sell my properties, this agent would have been my first choice to contact. As it turns out, each opportunity to sell came from an unsolicited offer from a buyer under a 1031 exchange. I’ve never forgotten this agent’s name and that he’s a powerhouse in our local multi-family market.
15) Virtual tours
Virtual tours are a great way to get more buyers or renters interested in a property. Give buyers or renters details like:
Office space: Help prospective tenants to visualize how the office layout can support their business operations with options like open-plan workspaces, private offices, or meeting rooms. This also allows them to see the amenities of the space – one of the key metrics tenants use to decide where to lease.
Multi-family: If you are marketing to fill residential units, virtual tours help renters see the layout of individual units, amenities, and key features of the property. All of the same information can be helpful for an investor looking to buy multi-family housing.
Industrial: Tours allow tenants or buyers to view ceiling heights, loading docks, storage areas, and the ease of access for large vehicles.
Self-storage: For buyers or renters, show the different unit sizes available, including climate-controlled options, plus ease of access like wide aisles and drive-up units.
16) Drone footage and aerial photography
One of my retail broker friends uses drone footage as part of his social media engagement and shares why a certain property is more popular than others. He’s a do-it-yourselfer and has his own drone, but you can hire companies to do this for you.
Besides social media, you can post the footage with your property listings and include it in your email marketing regular updates.
17) Property brochures and flyers
These marketing materials are table stakes. Most everyone is doing this anyway, so I’m just mentioning it’s still important to have brochures and fliers you can send out to prospective clients. There are a bunch of marketing tools you can use to create these, including do-it-yourself solutions like Canva or a SaaS solution that builds brochures for you.
Marketing for commercial real estate
There you have it – 17 marketing strategies you can use right now. We’ve covered digital tactics to drive brand awareness and leads online. Plus, don’t forget old-school approaches like networking events and direct mail.
Pick a few that fit your style and get moving. You don’t have to do it all at once. Start small, be consistent, and watch the leads roll in. The commercial real estate world is changing fast. Are you ready to change with it?
Need help putting these strategies into action? Get in touch today to learn how to put your marketing strategy on auto-pilot and grow your business.
Commercial real estate marketing: FAQs
How to market yourself as a commercial real estate agent?
Choose a niche and develop expertise in that niche for your local market. It might be tempting to stay broad, but investors want to work with someone who knows their space well. Trust me – I know!
How do you stand out in commercial real estate?
Create a name and a brand identity for yourself. This isn’t a quick thing – it’s going to take time, and you’ll need to focus on multiple approaches like digital marketing in person and creative ideas like partnerships.
How to create a commercial real estate marketing plan?
Create a commercial real estate marketing plan by defining your target audience, setting clear goals, outlining key strategies like online advertising, content marketing, and networking, and tracking performance metrics. Adjust your plan based on results.
