By BTS Brands
The commercial real estate experts from twenty to thirty years ago relied on their Rolodex to encompass all of the information that drove their relationship building activities. During that time, name, phone number, favorite restaurant, and family information was the whole of useful information that would get crammed onto a single 2.25” x 4” card. It was convenient and useful and that was the appeal of the Rolodex. Commercial real estate marketing has evolved with customer relationship management (CRM) systems and makes the old spinning organizer as current as the floppy disk today. More robust client information is available today, but using that information the right way, can mean the difference between the success, or demise, of a business. Commercial real estate CRM success is hindered only by management’s ability to lead in this area. So here are three ways to help you grab the reins and integrate CRM into a more robust marketing program.
Attracting And Collecting Data
Contact collection starts with the basics of gathering as much information as possible about your target audience. Age, gender, geographic focus, investment style, business size and professional affiliations are just some of the information that can help you to better tailor your marketing efforts. The more information that you collect by using attractive marketing tactics like rich content development, blogs and informative real estate newsletters the more information you’ll gather. This helps you pinpoint the needs and interests of your customer base.
Making CRM work for your commercial real estate firm also means finding the right key performance indicators (KPI’s). A dedicated marketing team will understand the importance of this. You can develop your KPI’s by monitoring social media interactions, online activity, and email activity to get a feel for how your clients engage the marketplace, navigate the web and react to your messages. Knowing where your audience dwells in cyberspace, creates insights into how you can best target them and what factors you need to measure in order to understand the performance of your marketing activities.
Harness Your CRM To Segment Your Audience
The data you amass on individual contacts enables you to segment your contacts based on any number of variables. Understanding the regions, business size and specific investment strategies your clients are using will enable you to create plans for a customer’s lifetime value, (CLV). This allows you to determine client potential, and evaluate methods to increase sales and create better leads and deals with CRM.
Segmenting the market, based on the data in your CRM, delivers real value by presenting opportunities to refine your targeting—something that was impossible with a Rolodex. Even if the customer isn’t in the position to spend today, by tailoring your marketing to engage them builds a foundation that encourages future interactions. Ultimately this creates an overall better customer experience, and as real estate professionals know, engaged clients invest more.
Use Your CRM To Engage
By properly engaging your audience you and your marketing team can develop a strategy for your brand that closes deals today, but also plans for future sales. Look for opportunities to market solutions that meet the general and the specific needs for both active clients and those you’re nurturing for future engagement. Today’s customers want to feel catered to. Blogs that use rich content and good SEO principles will capture the attention of your target audiences and develop you as a thought leader.
As you delve into your CRM, your commercial real estate research may identify a segment interested in warehouse space or under-developed retail, these are opportunities to create customized engagements using email, newsletters or even a phone call. Your CRM can help you engage in activities pinpointed to the interests, behaviors and needs of your audience and get regular communications scheduled, so your message is always in front of your audience.
CRM Means Opportunities For CRE
With a successful strategy implemented by a knowledgeable marketing team that is open to working with you to make your brand a success, commercial real estate CRM can become a seamless tool to help you rise to the top. Using the right databases with integrated technology, you can gather data, track activities and ensure that the information is secure. Then the data can be analyzed and used to make the most of every opportunity.
So, ditch the Rolodex that drove your business yesterday, and gear up for a brighter future by taking advantage of what CRM can offer you today, and tomorrow.
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