5 Steps to an Inquiry Generation System for Brokers and Agents

Like it or not, every agent or broker must have an enquiry generation system that opens up the potential of a listing with many inspections, offers, and property conversions. 

I say it’s a system because it’s a personal way of approaching the market and the issues that are going on locally. Without such a system, commercial real estate brokerage can be a bit of a struggle.

Every property market is different and will have unique pressures. The enquiry system that you create should be adjusted and shaped to the current market conditions and the particular property type. Over time, you can improve the system and then optimise the enquiries that you are getting. Ideally, that leads to more inspections and more offers.

What’s in your system?

So here are some ideas to help you establish a system that can work for you as a commercial real estate agent or broker:

1. Assess your listings for specific target markets – particular target markets will be more active than others. When you understand the priorities of certain target markets, you can lift the levels of inquiry and convert more inspections. Every advertisement and every listing should be tuned to a particular set of target markets. The words of the advertisement should be shaped accordingly.
2. Identify the strengths within each listing – inspect the property comprehensively before the marketing campaign commences. Look for the strengths of the listing, and understand how you can feature the property in its fullest configuration as part of every inspection. The strengths of the listing should be featured in your marketing, inspections, and negotiations. To take that matter further, you can do a strengths analysis of the listing with the client before all other promotion matters commence. You can show the client exactly how you will take people through the property and how you will talk to the advantages and opportunities of the asset. The strengths that you identify will be biased towards occupancy, investment, or future development.
3. Dedicate your marketing focus to exclusive listings only – when you work in the main with exclusive listings, you can control the inquiry and the inspections. On that basis you can optimize the potential of the property promotion for the client. Don’t spend too much time on your open listings. Concentrate your promotional efforts into your exclusive listings and the separate campaigns in each case.
4. Re-frame your promotional material every three weeks – it can take some weeks if not months to sell or lease a particular property. During that time the advertising and the promotional campaign should be shaped and changed; in simple terms, it should be refreshed. In that way you are positioning the advertising for better levels of inquiry and local area messages.
5. Comprehensively cover online and offline promotional strategies – in most locations today, you will have plenty of competition regarding property marketing. Every promotional message needs to be carefully crafted for the location and the factors of the asset. Look at the property’s strengths and design the advertising message for both online and off-line media channels. The advertising spend should be optimized for the current online and offline market conditions. Understand how you can reach the target audience across all their media channels. I also go back to the point that the advertising should be refreshed every three weeks or so. Keep the property and its promotion active in the eyes and the readership of the target audience.

So, there are some definite things that you can do here to establish and optimize the inquiry generation system for your commercial real estate listings.

Look at every listing, understand every client, and frequently review the current market conditions. In those three factors, you will find the opportunities in the market that can help you take the property to finality and success in negotiation.