Traditional advertising methods can be a huge expense, especially if they don’t align with your marketing strategy and effectively reach your target audience interested in an investment property or lease. Newspaper ads, magazines, mailers, radio, and billboards can take a massive chunk out of your budget. While they were the only way to “get the word out” ten years ago, times have changed drastically!
I’ve outlined a few ways to advertise your commercial real estate business on the cheap, focusing on innovative commercial real estate marketing strategies aimed at reaching your target audience.
1. Social Media.
It’s free, it’s easy. But it’s time consuming.
If you’re interested in doing your own social media, don’t bother spreading the content throughout multiple platforms. Instead, focus on one platform and give it your all. Whether it’s LinkedIn, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, etc., you’ll make a bigger impact if you specialize in one.
If you’re planning on hiring this out, Fiverr.com has some great options for around $60/month.
2. Guest Blogging.
Write up a great industry related blog article and send it to industry websites, pitching it as a “guest blog”. They will usually post your photo, contact information, and short biography at the bottom of each guest blog you provide, making it an excellent way to attract potential investors, landlords and tenants.
Guest blogging is is also great for SEO. Guest blogs create a link to your website. The more websites that link to your site, the better your “authority score” gets and the higher your commercial real estate website will be ranked.
3. Email Blast Services.
You don’t need a list of emails to do mass email blasts. Services like Big Boys Blast and Property Campaign offer to email your message or listing to their database of 100K+ commercial real estate professionals across the United States and Canada. Starting at around $100 per email, it’s an inexpensive and easy way to get leads and turn around listings.
4. E-Newsletter.
In commercial real estate, we have long lag times between when we meet a client and when they start a transaction. This is because the larger the dollar amount, the longer it takes for someone to make a decisions.
A weekly, bi-weekly or monthly e-newsletter can be a lifesaver when it comes to keeping up with your list on a larger scale. Let’s face it, you could give a personal call, email or text when your contact list was 100 people. Any list larger than 100 will require e a scalable approach to follow-up.
No idea what to write in a newsletter? Newsletter Hero gives you 100+ prompts specifically for commercial real estate to keep your ideas fresh!
5. Press Releases.
This sounds harder than it is. Go to your local NAIOP, CCIM, Better Business Bureau, and RedBook (sometimes they at a commercial real estate version along with residential) and see if they accept press releases.
Once you collect an email list of their publishers, you can send them your recent deals, listings, and details about the new tenants you signed! Getting published is a gamble that doesn’t cost anything but an email, so give it a try! That article might attract your next set of investors, landlords or tenants.
Listing Hero shows you how to promote yourself and your listings in major publications like Google News, Fox News, Market Watch, Yahoo! Finance, etc. at a small fee. It’s easier than you think.
6. Website.
In today’s world, a website is a requirement. Potential clients will do a Google search on your name and see what you show up on before they decide to go into business with you.
A website not only builds trust, it shows you’re serious about the industry and your business. Websites bring legitimacy. If your looking for a website package that comes with everything you need to build a working sales funnel, check out my website designs. Purchase of a website comes with the Sales Funnel Masterclasses, that will walk you through step-by-step to create a commercial real estate sales funnel.
7. Search Engine Optimization.
If you have a website, you need to optimize it so Google and other search engines can read it easily. The easier it is for a search engine to understand your website, the higher rankings you’ll have. On most platforms, you can download a free SEO plugin that will guide you through this process. Steal my Chat GPT SEO Prompts to make this fast work of your SEO marketing plan.
8. Google Ads.
If your domain and website are brand new, all the SEO work in the world won’t get you top rankings for at least a year. (You need to establish longevity for page #1 results.) Until then, you can bypass the SEO system with Google Ads. The flexible system allows you to choose the most money you’re willing to pay per day, keeping your budget in check.
I, personally, don’t care for Google Search Ads (keywords). Instead I suggest the Google Display Network Ads (shows ads on websites of your choosing). Google Display Network can be highly targeted to only show your ads on commercial real estate listing sites and targeted to specific locations, states, or cities. It will lower the your waste better than trying your hand at Google Search Ads (keywords), which, in my personal opinion, can be quite wasteful, especially if you’re new at ads.
9. Facebook Ads.
A great way to get in touch with local industry professionals is Facebook. You can target by job title and /or only advertise to people who have already checked out your website. You can set Facebook with a certain budget and let it run until you’re ready to add more money.
I, personally, only suggest doing Facebook Ads if you’ve been successful at Google Display Network ads. With huge audiences, you can watch your budget dwindle quickly with little results if you’re not using an ad campaign that’s been proven at getting clients.
10. LinkedIn Ads.
The best way to gather those business-to-business leads is LinkedIn. Share your marketing materials, set your own budget, and filter by industry, job title, interests and more.
While I, personally, would rather you test commercial real estate marketing ad campaigns on Google Display Network first, LinkedIn is pretty cost efficient. If you’re looking to test ads, it’s one of the better social media ad platforms that won’t kill your wallet for testing.
Marketing is easy with a website built like a sales funnel.
I build lead generating websites for commercial real estate brokers and agents. The websites work as sales funnels.
Any Joe Common Man can build a pretty website, slap some buttons on it and call it “lead generating”.
I give you access to my Sales Funnel Masterclasses, giving you strategies to drive traffic to your site, bringing you more leads, and making you more money.
A website without the ability to generate leads is just jewelry. Pretty, but not useful.
Without a sales funnel, you won’t get long lasting results, period.
If you agree with me, let’s get started! Schedule a call or zoom.
I’m out to take the “broke” out of commercial real estate brokerage.
I want to start with you.
You ready? Schedule a call or zoom.
