Top 12 Ways to Generate Commercial Real Estate Leads
This article is part of a larger series onReal Estate Lead Generation and Marketing。
Learning how to generate commercial real estate leads can be done without spending large amounts of time or money. To be successful, you need the right tools and strategies in place to attract and convert clients effectively. From networking, branding, and niche marketing to running social media ads, using proven strategies will help you become your community’s go-to commercial real estate expert.
Here are the top 12 strategies for commercial real estate lead generation:
1. Use Commercial Real Estate Data Platforms to Find Leads
When learning how to generate commercial real estate leads, the first step is gathering information. This is done by leveraging commercial real estate data platforms that provide available properties, search filters, contact information, listing agents, and other relevant property details.
Each of these platforms works differently. For example, if your priority is learning how to get commercial listings, the predictive analytics within CoStar helps you identify upcoming opportunities. On the other hand, if you want deeper insights into population demographics, LoopNet provides detailed information, like household income, employment, media, vehicles, and household type.
As you check out various commercial real estate databases, you’ll see that some are marketplaces for buyers and sellers, and some are designed to help professionals find leads. Make sure you understand the purpose of each database and choose the right one based on your most important needs. Examples of top commercial real estate database providers include:
Database |
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Best For |
Top choice for salespeople wanting a single platform to prospect, analyze properties, and access ownership data |
Best for agents and investors seeking an accurate and efficient source of finding property owners and contact details |
Ideal for agents and brokers wanting a custom product to find properties, owners, comparables, or other analytics |
Ideal for new or budget-conscious agents wanting to browse properties and gather data |
Key Features |
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Starting Price |
$49 per month |
$119 per user, per month |
$466 per month |
Free to browse |
Learn More |
Read more about commercial database options in our article about the6 Best Commercial Real Estate Databases。
2. Attract Leads With Custom Website & Landing Pages
Having a professional website is important for residential and commercial real estate prospecting. It establishes you as a professional and provides a variety of opportunities for commercialreal estate lead generation。One of the best strategies to attract leads is creating custom landing pages.
Your website can include a landing page for all commercial real estate leads, or a variety of landing pages for:
- Different types of commercial real estate leads:Create individual landing pages for investors, buyers, current owners of commercial properties, or specific types of business owners likerestaurants,retail, and industrial clients
- Leads from different sources:Customize pages for website visitors who click on your website from different sources, like onlinereal estate ads, in-person meetings, or referrals
- Individual property landing pages:Create a property website for each of your listings
On your landing pages, present a highly specific message to each visitor. You can also provide a lead magnet to convert website visitors into leads and capture their contact information. An effective lead magnet may be a freecomparative market analysis(CMA) report or a downloadable e-book on a relevant topic for commercial property leads. Once prospects provide their email address or contact information to receive your offer, you can start building a relationship with them and increase your chances of converting them into a client.
Luckily, you don’t need to spend weeks learning how to codelanding pagesor design a website from scratch—you can use Placester[/fitlink]. Placester is a real estate design service with beautiful, professional, and easily customizable website and landing page templates ready to use. Simply choose a template and customize the pages yourself, or work with a Placester professional to create your website or complete one-off tasks like installing a chatbot or writing your realtor bio.
Placester is the most efficient way to create a custom website for commercial real estate digital marketing. Plus, you can try it free for 30 days.
3. Add Your Profile on Commercial Real Estate Databases
Just like residential agents add theirprofile on Zillow, commercial real estate agents can get exposure through commercial property directory listings. You may not need to pay for services or create a comprehensive advertising campaign on every real estate database, but you should take advantage of every opportunity to get your name in front of potential leads to besuccessful in real estate。
For instance, LoopNet, which is the most-visited commercial real estate network with about13亿年visits per year, displays your profile and contact info prominently on all of your commercial listings. Plus, it allows potential clients to search for commercial real estate brokers. This is a simple and free way to start marketing in commercial real estate―but you must complete a profile.
Within your profile,maximize your real estate bioby including information about the ideal lead types you are looking for. Highlight your expertise, wins, and strengths that best suit commercial clients. Like Zillow does for residential agents, LoopNet offers packages for advertising to further extend your reach as a commercial real estate agent. It ranks number one in Google search for more than136,000 search terms, which means you have more opportunities to get found online by adding your profile to the site.
Developing a memorable brand is key to building an audience and a reputation as an authority figure. Learn more by readingReal Estate Branding: How to Build Your Brand as a Realtor。
4. Market to Niche Commercial Real Estate Clients
Although commercial real estate is in itself a real estate niche, it’s still fairly general. For example, buying and selling restaurant space requires a much different type of expertise thancorporate office space。能力你的营销和广告ef雷竞技appforts on just one type of commercial real estate client type could bring you more success. It allows you to put more resources and time to work to generate specific types of leads instead of spreading them out too thin.
对你的目标奥迪变得非常具体nce can also help you get the best results from your commercial property marketing strategies. For example, the owner of a restaurant may ignore a generic marketing mailer from other agents. However, they are much less likely to ignore a flyer or postcard that specifically provides a solution to their needs, like needing a bigger restaurant space or opening a second location.
One of the most affordable, effective, and versatile methods of learning how to get commercial real estate leads is direct mail. ProspectsPLUS! has the largest library of real estate mailer designs and templates, with thousands of unique, specific, and interesting topics and designs. Choose and customize a mailer that speaks to the exact needs and interests of your prospect. Potential clients will be more likely to notice content-targeted mailers, reach out to you for more information, or hang on to them for future reference.
If you haven’t already determined your ideal customer base, check out our article10 Most Profitable Real Estate Niches & Why They Workand decide which niche is right for you.
5. Buy Commercial Real Estate Leads
Creating an effective real estate funnel doesn’t happen overnight. If you’re looking for a jump-start, buying leads can help you learn how to get clients in commercial real estate. This can help you generate income and increase your sphere of influence and experience while building a funnel and marketing strategy.
If you’re looking to buy real estate leads, take a look through our guide on the8 Best Places to Buy Real Estate Leads in 2023。
6. Generate Commercial Real Estate Leads From Expired Listings
Another effective way to find commercial real estate leads, even in strong competition, is by targeting expired listings. However, clients whose commercial properties didn’t sell or lease during their first attempt have likely had a bad experience with another agent. Although they may require more nurturing and personal connection than other leads, they can be an effective commercial real estate lead generation strategy when done thoughtfully.
Approach clients carefully using anexpired listing scriptfor phone calls or properly wordedexpired listing letter templates。这将帮助你轻松交谈,demonstrate your value as an agent. Additionally, if you wait too long after a listing expires, you’ll likely be competing with a pool of other agents reaching out to the listing owner—many of whom may not be approaching sensitively. Getting to these leads first with the right approach is the key to landing prospects from expired listings.
With a tool like REDX, you can easily find and contact leads before your competitors. REDX provides the most accurate contact information and gives you the opportunity to be the first agent to reach out to an expired lead and make an impression by being kind and strategic. Start using REDX to reach expired listings right away.
7. Be Active in the Community & With Local Businesses
The best way to consistently scale your business and income as a commercial real estate agent is to establish your authority and build name recognition. When you’re known as the go-to source for commercial real estate, you won’t have to spend nearly as much time, money, and effort generating commercial real estate leads. To earn this type of reputation, you need to connect with leads, clients, and other professionals and consistently provide value within your community.
Starting building your network by attending events and joining groups for local businesses. For example, you can find groups with potential commercial real estate clients by searching for “local business groups” or “small business groups” along with towns and cities in your area. You can also use Meetup.com to find groups of business owners near you.
If you have a limited number of in-person opportunities, get active on LinkedIn by connecting with other local professionals. Join groups of other like-minded real estate pros or groups made up of local real estate investors, restaurateurs, retailers, and so on.
Connect and network with local business owners who are interested in leasing or purchasing commercial properties now or who may be down the road. These types of networking activities provide contacts for direct lead generation as well as professional referral networks to gain clients.
8. Post & Advertise on Social Media
To be active in your community, use in-person and online strategies. Social media is an undeniably powerful way to connect with others and get your name, brand, and expertise in front of commercial real estate clients and professionals. In fact,77%of small businesses say they use social media for marketing, which means you can connect and collaborate with them to build partnerships and get more commercial leads in real estate.
To get started online, make sure you develop areal estate social media marketingstrategy. Establishing your brand, goals, and target audiences will help you curate content that attracts the right people and leads to business growth. It will also help you determine which social media platforms to focus on since each has a different audience and content style.
For instance, a few of the top social media platforms for real estate professionals include:
- Facebook:Approximately41%of all Facebook users are between 25 and 44 years old, which is an ideal audience for targeting business owners and commercial real estate professionals.
- Instagram:Photos and videos are the main content shared on Instagram, which makes it an ideal platform in the real estate field. Highlight stunning photos of newly constructed commercial space, beautiful views, commercial listings, and so on, and share video walk-throughs and educational tips.
- LinkedIn:For commercial real estate agents, LinkedIn may be one of the most important social platforms to keep in mind. Since it’s a professional network, connect easily with local business owners and other commercial real estate professionals. Increase your reach by posting educational content your target audience will engage with and use the platform’s messaging tools for prospecting and nurturing.
- TikTok:Successful TikTok videos are typically short and don’t require extensive production or even planning. Many people think it only attracts an extremely young audience, but recent studies show its user base is aging up, with45%of its users between the ages of 20 and 39.
If you’re serious about growing your audience and your authority within your community, choosing the rightsocial media toolswill be key to your success. One of the best social media management tools on the market is Sprout Social because it provides products for strategizing, publishing, evaluating, and growing your social media presence.
Sprout Social uniquely provides a social listening platform that gives you insight into what your audience is currently talking about. Establish important topics and optimize each post within the platform to increase your reach and engagement with maximum efficiency. Plus, you can try Sprout Social for free.
9. Stay in Touch With Past Clients
Nurturing isn’t over when youget a new real estate clientor when you complete a transaction and your clients become owners, tenants, or leaseholders. According to the National Association of Realtors (NAR),36%of sellers found their agent through a referral, and 73% of sellers would choose to use their agent a second time. By simply staying in touch with previous commercial clients, you can get future listings and clients more easily.
With commercial real estate in particular, previous clients will likely have more ongoing questions than residential buyers. For instance, they will regularly wonder about property supply and demand, the cost of relocation, and the value of their property.
Make yourself ready, willing, and available for their questions and concerns by researching their current situation and anticipating what the next move for their business will be. When it’s time for a previous client to upgrade to a larger space, you’ll be able to serve them a second time to find them a new lease. You’ll also have the opportunity to help the listing owner find the right tenant to lease their property.
The best way to stay on top of these communications is by using a relationship manager like LionDesk. It’s an ideal tool for nurturing current and past leads through multiple communication channels, including text, email, phone, social media, and even direct mail. It helps you automate follow-ups and nurture your clients efficiently and authentically. There is even a mobile app to keep you on top of your nurturing tasks while you’re on the go.
10. Nurture Prospects Effectively With a CRM
Using a customer relationship manager (CRM) provides numerous benefits for commercial real estate agents. It makes it easier to stay top of mind with current and past clients by scheduling follow-ups. It also streamlines your lead generation and nurturing tasks for maximum efficiency. CRMs organize your leads and clients into different pipelines, like purchased leads, past clients, or niche audiences like expireds, buyers, or sellers.
Many of the best CRMs enable you to optimize your marketing andadvertisingand build brand awareness through direct mail, social media, websites, and landing pages. They also provide reports that help you better understand your financial picture and return on investment. This, in turn, enables you to allocate funds into and prioritize the lead strategies that generate revenue.
To benefit from the tools provided by your CRM, make sure you choose the tool that best fits your needs. For example, a few of the bestcommercial real estate CRMsinclude:
CRMs |
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Best For |
Best for agents' and teams' streamlined multichannel communication |
Ideal for professionals wanting highly customized email marketing campaigns |
Best for teams and brokerages needing project management tools along customer management |
Top choice for budget-conscious agents needing a CRM with transaction management |
Key Features |
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Starting Price |
$39 per month |
Free for up to 3 users, or $15 per month |
$29 per month |
$10 per month |
Learn More |
11. Use Crowdfunding Sites to Find Startups
Set your business up for future success by targeting new business owners and startups. Use crowdfunding sites like Kickstarter or Indiegogo[/fitlink] to search for startups in your area. Startups will likely need physical space as their businesses grow, so make connections and build relationships with the owners and key employees.
Start by simply introducing yourself and making yourself available as a resource for any real estate-related questions, thoughts, or ideas they have. Consider your real estate elevator pitch and how to tailor it for commercial real estate lead generation by reviewing our PowerPoint video training guide forHow to Create a Successful Real Estate Elevator Pitch。
12. Join Commercial Real Estate Associations & Teams
In addition to being active in your community, joining an association is a simple way to connect with others in your field. Creating these connections is essentially the equivalent of growing your sphere of influence (SOI)—opening up opportunities forreferral lead generation。
A few of the top commercial real estate associations include:
- The Commercial Real Estate Development Association(NAIOP)
- Commercial Real Estate Women(CREW)
- Building Owners and Managers Association(BOMA)
- Certified Commercial Investment Member(CCIM Institute)
- Society of Industrial and Office Realtors(SIOR)
- International Council of Shopping Centers(ICSC)
发展你的技能的另一种方法是通过加入team or brokerage that specializes in commercial real estate. Similar to joining an association, being part of a real estate team puts you in contact with like-minded professionals, and you’ll also get the opportunity to learn from experienced brokers and agents. Strategic partnerships with other commercial agents in or outside your team allow you to build a network where leads can be shared.
Bottom Line
Commercial real estate lead generation often has an initial learning curve, but the right strategies pay off with consistent clients, deals, and income. Make sure to employ multiple lead generation techniques to maximize your efforts and figure out what works best for you as quickly as possible. By growing your network, purchasing commercial real estate leads, and leveraging online marketing tools, you will put yourself in the best position to generate commercial real estate leads both organically and through paid methods.