Marketing Plan in 30 Days: Day 28

Back to Day 1

 

One of the most difficult parts of commercial real estate marketing is to decide on a marketing budget.  Should you go high, low, somewhere in-between?  Let’s discuss several commercial real estate marketing tactics that are the best bang for your buck.  It’s one thing to be cost-conscious quite another to be overly cheap.

1. Content is Still King. 

Disney didn’t mop the floor with its competitors by accident.  They know content is money.  In 2017 they began buying every decent character franchise on the market.  Business-to-business marketers have also caught onto this trend.  77% of B2B marketers use content marketing.  Not only is content marketing effective – it’s cheap.

Social Media (FREE to $$).  I know you’re sick of hearing about Social Media marketing, but it’s time to AT LEAST half-ass it.  Get yourself a FREE Hootsuite account.  And easily manage 3 social media profiles with one click.  Spend some time on Monday morning setting up posts for the rest of the week.  This is will cost you about an hour of searching news articles on on the web per week.  It’s not a lot of work to simply stay active.  If you want to enhance your social media message, consider hiring a part-timer or a remote freelancer to comment on posts, like related articles, and post up-to-the-minute information.

Blogging (FREE to $$).  It’s hard to find a real estate writer, but impossible to find a commercial real estate writer.  In the world of commercial real estate writing it’s me and John Highman.  That’s it.  But don’t lose hope!  You can find real estate writers to write your company or personal blog, just be aware that you’ll need to edit.  A residential writer uses different terms:  Mortgage instead of Loan; Rent instead of Lease; MLS instead of literally anything we actually use.  But it can save you a lot of time and effort editing an already created article if writing on a blank page doesn’t suit you.

Email Newsletters (FREE to $$)Mailchimp offers a free account where you can build and send newsletters and announcements to 2,000 or less contacts.  It’s easy to build a nice looking emails – with the drag and drop builder.  And you can integrate your website into a Mailchimp account for 100% automated data entry.

Videos (Free to $$).  Videos are beginning to rank and dominate the world of online content, and it’s time we got onboard.  WeVideo is a cheap video editor that anyone can figure out.  YouTube is free, but can be annoying with bombarding your audience with ads.  To get around that, a Vimeo account is reasonable, if you’re sticking with the bottom rung plans.  Either way, getting you content on video is becoming a huge part of marketing.

eBooks ($$$).  One of the easiest ways to convert a website visitor to a lead is to offer an ebook.  You see these everywhere “10 Reasons to Buy Gold.”  Fill out a simple form and BAM, you get an instantaneous PDF full of useful information.  Getting a writer to create one for you will cost big bucks, but I provide 4 ebooks to choose from with purchase of a website.

 

2.  Website. 

Here’s a hard truth.  If you’re not online, you don’t exist to people 40 and under.  Let’s face it, most clientele in the commercial real estate world are getting ready to retire.  Sure, they’re cashing out their assets, but they’ll eventually move on, leaving you clientless.

Website Design ($$$$).  Yes, you can get a crappy website working on Wix for cheap, but it NEVER looks like the examples!  Here’s where I’m telling you to spend the money A) Because I’m a website designer and I want you to hire me!  Seriously though –  B) You’ll regret that $300 website designer.  Do you know how many calls I get saying “I paid someone X for a website, is it salvageable?!”  The answer is ALWAYS no.  I mean…always.  They use some crazy off-brand template that’s twitchy and lost support back in 2010 – it’s madness.  The internet is dark and full of terrors.  Don’t cheap out.  Please get a good website designer.

SEO ($$$).  SEO is a tricky mistress.  You can get my business partner Peter Mahoney to do a one-shot SEO cleanup of you website.  If you’re not afraid of a little SEO work yourself, SEM Rush is my number one choice for up-to-date and quality performance evaluations.  Personally, I think the lowest plan is adequate for a single company.  The higher plans are for SEO companies that are white labeling reports.

Pay per Click ($$$).  If you think SEO is tricky, try your hand at Google AdWords.  It’s a nightmare!  I suggest reading as much as you can on the subject before you try it out.  Grab a book, or check out PPC Hero’s blog.  You’ll need a lot of information on how this works before you start.  The last thing you want to do is throw your money into a bottomless hole.

 

3. Advertising

LoopNet Ads ($$$$).  If you have the money to spend, a banner ad on the top of their weekly newsletter runs around $2k per week.  It boasts an average of 400 click-thrus, so maybe it’s worth it?  If you’re looking to boost your clientele in a short burst – give LoopNet Ads a try!

News Funnel ($$$).  For quite a bit less money, News Funnel also has many readers but will run you less than $300/week for an ad.  If you’re trying to get rid of a pesky listing, or advertising your eBook, News Funnel would be a great place to do that.

Big Boys Blast ($$).  One of the best bangs for you buck!  Big Boys Blast claims 128,000 emails in their database and it’s less than $100 to email to the entire list.  Advertise your services, or a problem child listing in a one-shot package with Big Boys Blast.

Property Blast ($$$).  A bit more expensive than Big Boys, Property Blast does the same thing – emails to a database of 90,000, starting a little over $100 per email.  Check out Property Blast.

Property Send ($$).  This one starts under $60, but claims a database of 120,000.  Personally, when I have used this, I get half the open rate of the other two email options.  Check out Property Send.