Getting commercial real estate leads doesn’t have to be expensive or even time consuming.  Here are some great options on how to get fresh commercial real estate leads.

 

Purchasing Lists

  1. Reonomy List. Buying a list from Reonomy is simple and easy. Their filtering software makes it easy to pull only the leads you want! Get as targeted as needed, IE “Multifamily owners in zip-code 85215 with 3 to 10-unit complexes.” You can download these into an Excel spreadsheet for easy contact.

 

  1. Lime Leads. Lime Leads makes pulling an Excel spreadsheet fast, cheap and easy. Unlike Reonomy, Lime Leads will not provide real estate owner information, but it would be great for tenant rep. Lookup contact information for retail, office, or industrial in specified areas and pull your contact list.

 

  1. Data Axel. Pricing on lists can be negotiated with a sales rep. These lists will not provide real estate owner information, only business contacts. You can use this information for tenant rep purposes. I recommend working with a sales rep, as they can get you a better deal than on the website.

 

 

Purchasing Email Blasts

  1. Big Boys Blast. Currently, Big Boys Blast is the king of commercial real estate email lists. They claim 100,000 emails in their database including both brokers and investors. Email starts at a low cost of $69 and you can advertise your listings or services to a huge group in one shot.

 

  1. Property Campaign. They claim over 300,000 commercial real estate investors, owners, developers, tenants, and agents. They spend money and time on data acquisition, management, and verification, so you don’t have to.  Emails start around $59, and you can buy monthly packages to save money.

 

  1. Property Blast. They claim over 90,000 emails in their database. You can also choose to do emails by states, which is great for leasing. Emails start at $59 per email.

 

  1. Property Send. Company claims 120,000 in their database comprised of buyers, brokers, agents, owners and developers. Their emails start at $145 per email or you can save money with a monthly plan.

 

 Pro Tip – Combine email blast services for your listings so you can advertise to potential clients, “I blast your property out to 400,000 brokers, agents, investors and developers.”  These numbers can be a great differentiator that can get you hired over a competitor.

 

 

Advertising

  1. News Funnel. This is an online real estate news site with a weekly newsletter of top stories. They have several options to advertise in this newsletter including banner advertisements and sponsorships. Many options are not expensive and easy for agents or small brokerages to afford.

 

  1. Bigger Pockets. Check out their free starter membership to post comments on forums, connect with investors, and more. Their website was a little vague on how to become a featured agent, but I know it’s available.

 

 

Marketing

  1. Internet Presence. I cannot stress this enough – the world is turning digital, YOU NEED TO GET ON THE INTERNET! Shrugging your shoulders and claiming your clients don’t “go online” is ridiculous. Old-fashion clientele may be your majority now, but as they retire, you will need to find new clients. A website is a great way to keep leads rolling in completely hands-free!  Check out my free PDF – 5 Steps to a Killer Lead Generating Website.

 

  1. Social Media. I had doubts about social media’s significance in the commercial real estate industry, but since I began a social media campaign of just 1 post per work day, my website traffic from LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter has doubled. My followers went from 10-25 to over 500. It’s worth the extra time and effort to establish a social media presence.

 

  1. Content Creation. Blogging is a great way to keep visitors coming back to your website. It’s also an easy thing to advertise on social media and place on your newsletter. I won’t get into the technical details, but blogging increases your SEO strength with new, original content.

 

  1. Newsletter. Use your blogs as a main feature and put in a few interesting articles about commercial real estate, money, economics, and business to keep people interested and engaged month-after-month.

 

  1. SEO (Search Engine Optimization). SEO is the art of making your website easy for search engines to read – the result is higher rankings (1st to 2nd page of results). Not many commercial real estate brokerage and agents put a lot of money into SEO, so if you put some effort into it, you’ll see results very quickly.

 

  1. Follow-up. In today’s world, most of your follow-up activities can be automated. Set your website to automatically email people who have filled out a form, so they’re contacted immediately. You can also set this to send a few days apart some educational information like most popular blog posts, news articles and other information potential clients would find interesting.

 

  1. Mailers. Mailers can be either extremely beneficial or enormously wasteful. Get extremely targeted to make mailers effective. For instance, send a sales letter and property brochure to current owners of multifamily properties with buildings of 15-units to sell your 6-unit multifamily building. Reonomy allows you to get extremely targeted with your list.  Thin your list to just 50 to 100 that fit your criteria and save money.

 

 

Sales Techniques

  1. Cold Emails. I won’t lie to you; cold emails are a numbers game. The good news is cold emails can be automated. With inexpensive services like Woodpecker, you can automatically set emails to send over time, including using custom fields like name, company name, and more for customization and to hide the fact that it’s automated.

 

  1. Cold Calls. Your broker probably screams down the hallway “Cold Call!”. And here I am, putting it at the bottom of the list. It’s time to retire your old way of cold calling! There’s no excuse for you not to automate this annoying chore.  With services like Direct-to-Voicemail and Mass Texting, you can get thousands of cold calls done with a click of the mouse.  Record a message, set to send, and it automatically hits voicemails (cell and landline) without a ring.  Potential clients will never know your call was automated.

 

  1. Associations / Networking. Industry conventions are one of the best places to network. NAIOP, CCIM and ICSC has some great events. There also may be some great, local conventions in your area to join.  Also, consider what your target market may attend.

 

If you loved these, I have a Free eBook with 55 Ways to Generate CRE Leads Without Cold Calls! You’ll learn where to download a leads list, how to reach hundreds of thousands of investors emails, tips for your website, webinar basics, and more!

Showing you how to get more leads is another way I’m taking the “broke” out of commercial real estate brokerage.