For the large commercial real estate brokerages with big budgets, magazine advertisements, billboards and huge mailing campaigns is the norm.  But for medium and smaller commercial real estate brokerages, every dollar counts.  Investments need to pay off in a real and immediate way.

Can a marketing strategy can be executed with less than $100?  It can be done!!  Here are a few marketing tricks to kick your commercial real estate marketing plan into gear with less than $100!

 

Direct to Voicemail.  You likely have a huge list of contacts that you haven’t dusted off in years.  With Voice casting, you can pre-record a message (starts at 8-cents per phone number for smaller lists and decreases to 2-cents per call for larger lists).  A little bit of research will save you time and money!  Check websites to be sure the phone numbers are direct lines, and not to the secretary.  If you have a list of 1,000, it’ll be around $80.

Cold Emails.  Services like Woodpecker will cost only $40/month to send unlimited emails per month.  Integrate directly into your Gmail, Outlook, or other mailing service.  It tracks who replied to what emails, allows you to respond in your own inbox, sets up time-zones, personalizes emails, and automates the follow-up process.  Throw out that old Excel spreadsheet you’re using to track your emails, Woodpecker keeps all your records completely automated.

Warm Emails / Newsletters.  These are emails of people who have opted in to something of yours.  For instance, they singed up for your mailing list, they’ve filled out a form on your broker’s website.  These are folks that have agreed to your follow-up system in some way.  Mailchimp allows you to send up to 2,000 contacts for $0!  Unlimited contacts for about $10/month.  They have easy to edit newsletter, advertising, and real estate templates available for use.

Press Releases.  For one afternoon’s worth of research, you can gather emails of all the real estate editors in your area.  It sounds difficult, but it’s not.  Your local newspaper, magazines, CCIM or other will advertise the editor information for each column.  Editors enjoy getting stories and will comb through public emails on a slow news day.  If you want to advertise closed deals with a simple email to editors, PR is a $0 marketing strategy!  Getting started with Press Releases.

Social Media.  A thriving social media page will bring traffic to your website along with potential clients that you may never have met otherwise.  You will likely have a favorite medium – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc., but don’t ignore the others.  HootSuite is $0 to use and will easily post on all your social media accounts in one click.

Contribute to industry blogs.  Most bloggers (me included) love getting guest bloggers to do a post or two.  Is there something you’ve noticed that no one else seems to care about?  Is industrial land getting too hot and you’re afraid it’s in a bubble?  Do a blog and send it to a few commercial real estate websites.  They may review it and think it’s amazing!  Getting major publications to publish your content is a great way to prove that you’re the top-dog.  $0!

Buy your Domain Name.  My favorite episode of Million Dollar Listing is when Greenwell buys his co-stars’ names as a joke.  When they confront him, he asks, “Why would you not buy your name?”  Even if you’re not ready for a website quite yet, consider buying your domain name today.  The last thing you want is someone in your office pulling this prank on you!  $4/month!