SMB Marketing Blog

We’re currently working with a local commercial real estate firm and the economic downturn has had a significant impact on the amount of business the brokerage has seen over the past year.  In previous years, the industry was booming and the brokers were experiencing some of their most profitable years.  In today’s market, deals are taking longer to find and commissions are harder to earn.  Along with the usual marketing and lead generation efforts employed, as with many B2B businesses there was a need to reach out to a relatively untouched set of leads.

The source of leads, which is often overlooked in many SMB businesses, is the contact database that the commercial real estate firm had built up over the past 10 years.   Market data tells us that many leads you generate today may not be ready to buy within the next 90 days, but will be ready over the next 12 to 24 months.  And that’s certainly the case today given the economic turmoil we’re experiencing.  So how can you easily reach out to these 15,000+ contacts easily and cost effectively and ensure that as we work through these tough times we take advantage of the opportunities?  The answer is: Marketing Automation through Nurturing.

Fortunately, the contact database maintained by the real estate firm was very well organized, with details about each contact’s business and their requirements for office space.  This made it easy to segment the list and define 8 groups of potential buyers which needed to be “nurtured”.  The groups would be nurtured with important information about the commercial real estate economy and specific opportunities in their area that would be of interest to them.  The 8 sub-groups would also be dynamic and need to be updated on a monthly basis as contacts are added or removed.

Each month, the team would reach out to their different property seeking groups with the automated messaging and would understand who is interested and who they needed to follow up with based on activities captured by the marketing automation tool (ex. click to website, open email, download of brochure, etc).  In addition to being an easy way to market the properties available, this allows the real estate firm to remain ‘top of mind’ for those that might not be looking to make a change.

Stay tuned for Part 2 of this post as we discuss the successes of this campaign and benefits experienced by the commercial real estate broker.