Basic Marketing Strategies for Commercial Real Estate Brokers and Agents

Every commercial real estate agent and broker should have a specific marketing process to help build their personal brand.  Each day and each week the process should be followed to allow the compounding effect to occur.

It should be said that the agency or brokerage that you work for will only have minimal impact on the market share that you generate.  So a professional approach is required to personal marketing.  Here are some ideas to help you at that level:

1. Determine the type of property that should be at the centre of your marketing efforts.  You can then build your knowledge, research, and market share around the property type.  You can make contact with the property owners, tenants, and business proprietors involved with that property type.
2. Understand the changes that will occur in the market during the calendar or financial year.  Seasonal holidays, business changes, and economic circumstances will put some factors of change into the marketplace.  In any period of 12 months, there is only likely to be 10 months of potential activity available.  Monitor the changes and the activities and the market so that you can optimise your prospecting and commission efforts at the best times of year.
3. At a personal level, you will need a simple prospecting process of cold calling and direct contact.  That will normally involve a certain number of outbound telephone calls every day, direct mail, and door knocking.  It is essential that you reach out to the business and property investor community.  Over time the contacts that you make will need to be compounded through relevant and real repeat contact.
4. Establish some social media strategies to implement and build around your contact and client base.  Whilst the matrix of social media can vary from person to person, use the tools that work for you and that you understand.  In most cases you should be using Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and the WordPress or the Blogger platforms.  The basic strategy here will be to write some Blogs relative to your market and location.  When they are published, they can automatically be linked back to your social media sites.  This then becomes an automatic process of promotion and marketing from a personal point of view.  The articles and the blogs that you write should be specific to the area and useful for people to read.
5. All of your listings should be featured on the industry portal for your precinct or area.  They should also be featured on the web site relative to your agency or brokerage.
6. Keep an eye on the competitors in your local area so that you can see when they put a signboard on a property, use that signboard as an excuse to talk to other businesses and property owners in the immediate vicinity.  The factors of competition can create another listing opportunity for you.

It is not hard to be successful as a commercial real estate agent or broker.  It simply takes diligence and focus.  To a certain degree, you need to become obsessive when it comes to the key issues that will have an impact on your market share, listings and commissions.  Each and every day those things will need to be actioned and compounded.  That is how you grow your business as a top agent.