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We want to get your wheels turning and make an impact on your commercial real estate marketing. If any of the below articles stand out and you would like to discuss, please e-mail us and we would be more than happy to discuss!

5 Commercial Real Estate Marketing Ideas to Increase Traffic to your Website
27 Jun

5 Commercial Real Estate Marketing Ideas to Increase Traffic to your Website

The commercial real estate industry is not immune to the many evolving digital marketing trends. Specially since 2020, businesses and brands have been forced to rely more on a multi-channel advertising approach that includes online and offline marketing strategies to stay ahead of the competition.

As commercial real estate marketing experts, we have taken into consideration the last 2 years of best practices as well as our experience with clients (big and small) across the country to round up the top 5 marketing ideas you can implement to increase website leads. As a commercial realtor, you need more than LoopNet listings to get a continuous flux of leads every month, so let’s dive into these tips:

#1: Invest in video marketing

As mobile video consumption steadily increases, businesses are beginning to use video as a marketing tool. However, only 50% of CRE businesses have added video into their marketing strategy, which means they’re losing out on new leads.

Using video as a part of your marketing strategy creates curiosity, builds appeal, adds a great impression, and helps improve brand recall. While you can certainly incorporate traditional video snippets into social media and email marketing, an upcoming trend many national CRE brands are investing in are Video Offering Memorandums.

Traditional Video Marketing

It may seem daunting, but all you need is a topic you are comfortable with and anything from a smartphone or Zoom subscription. Speak to what you know: we all have a topic we can easily break into conversation on and that is our number one recommendation when it comes to traditional video. Take a 1-minute-long segment on your top tips on how to market a multi-family property and repost that on your LinkedIn or Facebook. No time to learn video editing. Read about the benefits of outsourcing your CRE marketing here.

Video Offering Memorandums

If you haven’t already, make sure you hop on this bandwagon. We have put together a blog outlining the benefits and process of putting together a video OM. However, what you need to know is you simply have to provide the same information you would for a regular OM and have the experts handle the rest.

#2: Email Marketing

According to Hubspot’s 2021 email marketing report, commercial realtors, like their residential counterparts, also prefer email marketing, as it helps build a connection with their prospects through targeted messages for different audience groups.

While social media allows you to reach a large target audience in a few clicks, it doesn’t allow you to segment messages and achieve a higher level of personalization as email does. That’s why email marketing is more effective at acquiring customers and retaining them compared to other social media channels.

But unfortunately, a lot of commercial real estate email marketing campaigns don’t show the best results because they spam prospects with listings without trying to stand out and form a connection with them. The best way to avoid such a mishap is to create a real estate email marketing strategy to share high-value content with your prospects.

You can also get great results from emails by segmenting your list and sending crisp and relevant emails with short subject lines.

Since most prospects will not open your email the first time as emails tend to get lost in the inbox, setting up an automated sequence to (politely) follow up with them improves your chances of conversion.

Apart from sharing useful listings with your prospects, you can also send company newsletters with your take on commercial real estate news and trends to build a connection with your prospects and improve response rates.

#3: Incorporate Testimonials

Testimonials are the best way to build trust with potential clients while pitching your services without active selling because testimonials showcase how you helped solve your customer’s pain points.

So, make a dedicated testimonial page on your website, display your testimonials across multiple platforms (on websites, videos, emails, social media, etc.) or create detailed case studies on why customers should hire you over your competitors.

To create a testimonial that positions you as your prospect’s obvious solution, ask your client to include the exact problem, how you helped them solve it, and highlight a few things they liked about working with you.

Also, make sure to include the name and the photograph of the reviewer (if you can) to add more credibility to your testimonials.

If you don’t have any testimonials yet, reach out to past clients, remind them of the value you’ve provided, and give them an incentive for taking the time to write a great testimonial for you.

#4: Social Media

A social media strategy is a document outlining your social media goals, the tactics you will use to achieve them and the metrics you will track to measure your progress.

Your social media marketing strategy should also list all of your existing and planned social media accounts along with goals specific to each platform you’re active on. These goals should align with your business’s larger digital marketing strategy.

Finally, a good social media plan should define the roles and responsibilities within your team and outline your reporting cadence.

Social media content can come from any source available to you and that includes your subject matter expertise. One of the most common outlines to social media strategy is to theme your day. For example: on Monday’s you post about your available properties, on Tuesdays you share a testimonial, on Wednesdays you post a quote from Leadership and on Thursday you share a relevant piece of data from an industry source.

Similar to what we have said on our topics above, it is not about reinventing the wheel, but more about creating a parent content (a video or a blog) and using that to drive the other channels (making snippets or social media posts).

#5: Advertise in traditional media outlets

Although digital marketing is taking over the commercial real estate space, offline advertising is still effective when used in tandem with the former.

So, advertising in print media like journals, flyers, signages, etc., is great for building brand awareness and making sure local prospects remember your commercial real estate business.

For instance, JLL puts out regular press releases to various news agencies to build their brand awareness and showcase their expertise in the CRE space.

And although it might not be possible to send out press releases frequently, you can still build a strong media presence by getting in touch with editors from popular news agencies and contributing a piece to establish yourself as an expert in the area.

If you’re turning to paid advertisements in local newspapers, add a QR code that takes users to your website or add a number that prospects can give a missed call to, so someone from your company can get in touch with them. This way, you can also measure the results of your offline campaigns and tweak them to get the best results.

You can also reach out to local radio stations and pitch your ideas or invest in a radio commercial to get more inquiries.

The commercial real estate space is evolving, and commercial realtors are taking to digital and offline advertising to promote their services. But many commercial realtors don’t know how to get started with marketing and the activities they should invest in to see returns.

We pride ourselves in guiding our clients in creating strategic and tailored marketing content. Let’s connect to see how we can help you achieve your goals.

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