With the rapid and mass shift towards digitalization, the number of virtual tours and other technological innovations like drones have increased. This has made it easier for commercial real estate businesses to navigate through the market reasonably, despite it being unchartered territory. Real estate professionals have been hoping for an upturn of events, and while the renewed hope is good, you need to be prepared for what might be in store.
Let’s look at 3 marketing strategies you need to incorporate as a commercial real estate business in 2022.
1. Boost Your Digital Presence
The days of magazine and newspaper advertisements and word-of-mouth reach when it comes to real estate are long gone. Who even buys newspapers anymore, now that it’s all available online? This makes it important that your business is heavily present online - not just online listings, but also article blogging, video content, and podcasts among others. Sharing your knowledge, be it about real estate or your local market, with your leads and audience is highly important.
Making use of analytics to enhance the reach of your content surely helps. Analytics help you find out when your traffic is highest, which post was most liked, which page was most visited, etc. This will guide you in improving your content creation as a whole and help you fine-tune your content according to your audience needs. Keep a check on analytics and increase follower engagement on your websites.
Analyse which social media platforms are famous and get on them. Close those old accounts that you barely use anymore. The number of people using social media and the amount of time they spend on it is highly alarming. As a commercial real estate business, you can make use of this and increase follower engagement there too. You can also use social media to advertise your property listings.
None of the aforementioned tips will work if you don’t have an optimized website, to begin with. Analyze website performance and make sure you enhance it if it feels choppy. How fast do the pages load? How clustered or neat is the information on the screen? Your leads need to find information readily if they are looking for it. Don’t hide information behind unnecessary time-consuming popups. This might make or lose you a potential lead. Analyzing how your competitor’s website is working can give you a rough idea as to which aspect you need to work on.
2. Enhance Your Online Listings
Since we have established the importance of digital marketing in the real estate industry, let’s look at what it has to offer. Digital marketing for real estate does not necessarily mean sticking to the realtor’s websites to promote listings. Most businesses are listing properties on social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram too, and it’s time you made the change as well. To prove this fact, reports suggest that up to 60% of real estate agents say that social media marketing brings them more business than their own websites. This is because social media hashtags provide far more reach to audiences that are unlikely to visit your website.
One important thing to keep in mind that most real estate agents overlook is updating the listings with repairs too. Before a property is listed for sale, it must be inspected. If you include the results of the inspection in your listing, it increases the authenticity of it and is more likely to land a lead. No commercial real estate business wants to be held liable for an injury caused by undisclosed property damage.
Mentioning details of new equipment in the property listings can attract some attention of its own. The new generation is not looking to splurge on living, but experiences and travel instead, so any new equipment like a new water heater would look good on a listing.
3. Invest In CRM
Sales and marketing alignment is highly important for a commercial real estate business to thrive. When both teams work together, every aspect of marketing strategies - content creation, SEO (search engine optimization), advertising, lead generation etc. - falls into place. Having good relationships with your customers - showing them that you care through small gestures - can go a long way in helping your business succeed. This is called Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and it helps you keep low quality leads at bay.
There is software designed to implement CRM in real estate that carries out efficient sales process management, property management, automation for real estate agents, and brokerage firms, etc. CRM technology is highly popular now that the meaning of the abbreviation has shifted from the process to the technology itself. So, if someone says CRM, they mean software that implements Customer Relationship Management.
Investing in a good CRM can help you go a long way. They have countless advantages like:
- High-quality lead generation
- Digital marketing integration
- Automation in marketing
- Reporting
All the marketing tools necessary to stay on top of the business are included in such software, and what makes them interesting is the fact that they cater to both potential and existing leads.
Final Word
Summing it up, marketing strategies for commercial real estate businesses in 2022 is purely digital. Market trends come and go, but adapting to them is crucial to stay relevant amongst your competitors. Give the aforementioned marketing techniques a try and let us know how it worked for you!
Author Bio
Parth Shah
Co-Founder, COO
DevX accelerator
With 10 years of experience in operations and training, Parth is a go-to person for his team and even a multitude of growing start-ups. His knack lies at spotting and supporting start-ups, helping them streamline their processes and even take their ventures to the next level. After successfully establishing two start-ups and exploring the start-up landscape up-close Parth has learnt the nitty-gritty of the industry, which he now shares with fellow entrepreneurs.
