How to Reinforce Your Commercial Brokerage Successes with New Listings and Clients
When you get something right, or when you have converted a ‘win’ as a commercial real estate broker with a listing or client, talk about it and spread the word. One good listing or a transaction is a reason to talk to other local people in a relevant and specific way.
The people that we serve and interact with like to choose the local brokers that are attracting the business and the enquiry. It’s a simple formula that should be remembered as you seek to grow market share. You are your own ‘marketing machine’ and every good transaction should be fed into your personal promotional efforts.
So how would you do that? Consider some of these for starters:
- Editorials – any new listings of quality, or a sale or leasing result of interest can be converted into an editorial for the local newspapers and particularly the ‘property pages’. Get to know the editors of those publications so you can feed in the stories that they are looking for. If your property listing has a ‘local flavor’ or identity, you can build a message around it. Local people like local stories. Some properties have a history that can also be written about.
- Website messages – your brokerage website should have a facility for loading stories and property updates. Don’t just load listings to your website; that’s what every brokerage does, with little other bias towards information and local property updates. Get some ‘meaty’ local property information into the online postings that you put up on the internet site. The search engines are attracted to information that is posted regularly. Over time that can boost your website presence on the major search engines.
- Database people – within your client list and database you should have a group of well qualified investors, business people, and industry professionals. Use the telephone on a daily basis to talk to your contacts about recent deals, listings, and property market trends. It’s a simple process and only takes an hour or two.
- Email newsletters and auto-responders – you can lift the email process to the next level so your messages are getting out with all relevant local property issues. Use an auto-responder to keep up the contact with all the people that join your database. It makes things easier for you in the online marketing world. The email delivery tools are cheap and easy to use in conjunction with your database and client list.
- Blog websites and social media – every good agent or broker should have a blog site where they talk about local property happenings. If you know your local area comprehensively, then there will be lots to talk about and write about. Mix up your property messages with images, photos, illustrations, statistics and stories. Make your blog site a very interesting place. The search engines will see regular postings and then give you a better ranking for the location if you feed the key words for the area into your postings.
So you can take your brokerage successes and tell stories locally in many ways. Be prepared to ‘spread the word’ about the good things that you are seeing and doing. Make your marketing messages positive, regular, and strong. Rise above the competition in a positive way.