In commercial real estate brokerage, the best way to structure and implement a marketing program is to comprehensively cover a geographic location in many different ways. Don’t make the error of working with too many properties over a large location.
(N.B. these ideas are also sent out to regularly to our friends in Commercial Real Estate Online Snapshot to help amplify brokerage results…. Get your access here)
Drill down into smaller location with a greater level of coverage and connection. Get to know all of the property owners within a small location; the same principles apply when it comes to.
What Can You Do?
So there are two directions to consider when it comes to establishing a specific marketing program to help you win listings and client opportunities. You will always need to know plenty of clients and prospects as part of your database coverage. You also need to know the property owners by location, Street, and building type.
The research that you undertake will help you find the right people to make those very important connections. That research can take time given that some people are harder to locate and connect with.
Diligence and drive will get you through the research process. Remain on task and highly organized as you question the property ownership records and the businesses locally.
Its all Geographical
So the geographic marketing process has a valuable role to play in commercial real estate brokerage in every town or city.
Here are some ideas to help you establish the system and find the opportunities:
- Understand the property activities in your location. Some precincts will be more desirable than others for business occupancy and investment property. Determine where those locations are, and then drill down into the ownership and occupancy factors. The property precincts will also have trends that are essential to know when it comes to prices and rentals. Look at how the transaction results have been changing over time. Local market information and intelligence will always help you as part of your prospecting model.
- Set specific criteria when it comes to targeted properties and targeted clients. Try to focus on the best clients and the best properties so that the level of quality that you create with your listings is always desirable to the market generally. When you have a good quality property to work with from sales or leasing perspective, take the property listing personally to the location and talk to plenty of property owners and local business owners. Every property listing can give you plenty of reasons to talk to people in the location.
- Look at a map for your location and the positioning of roads and freeways. Understand how people move in and around the city when it comes to business activities. You can set a primary zone of prospecting where most of your business will be identified and created. Outside of that zone will be the secondary zone of prospecting where you may still be comfortable in taking listings, although you may not be highly active in prospecting through that region. When you compare the two zones, you will need about 2000 or 3000 properties in the primary zone to generate plenty of property churn and opportunity. That number can also be varied based on the number of businesses and also the property types that you focus on for the region. When you set the primary zone of prospecting activity, consider those specific elements.
- Undertake an assessment of other listings and competitors in your primary zone of prospecting. When considering the competing brokers and agents, look at why they are currently active and what property types they specialize on. Are there segments of the market that you can service more successfully? Can you do things more comprehensively than your competitors locally?
- When it comes to property marketing you really do need to stand out in a relevant and real way to the local business owners and the property investors. Your marketing has to be of the highest quality to be seen and to activate the levels of inquiry that you need. Every high-quality property should be the subject of a well-staged marketing campaign. Every exclusive listing should be taken through that process.
So there are some valuable ideas here to implement when it comes to geographic marketing. As the local commercial real estate broker or agent, it is your job to connect with the right people in a comprehensive way. As you focus down into a specific area, you can find those prospects and clients more frequently and successfully.
(N.B. these ideas are also sent out to regularly to our friends in Commercial Real Estate Online Snapshot to help amplify brokerage results…. Get your access here)
