Brand strength is a primary component of success in commercial real estate, and one of the most powerful tools to enhance brand visibility and authority is strategic content. But to pull it off, you need effective content planning and management that enable you to articulate your unique perspective, showcase expertise, and educate your audience, strengthening your position in the marketplace.

Let’s talk about how you can harness the power of content to participate in and lead conversations in the CRE industry, transforming challenging conditions into opportunities for industry leadership.

Understanding your audience

A granular understanding of your target audience is the cornerstone of any successful content strategy. The most potent content highlights your expertise, core competencies, and market and operating landscape knowledge. In CRE, your stakeholder audiences and interests include:

• Investors and buyers primarily want detailed trend analyses, market forecasts, and actionable intel to power informed decision-making.
• Clients seek content that provides valuable strategies and takeaways to build their businesses and cash flow.
• Employees value content that highlights company culture, career development opportunities, and updates on corporate achievements and milestones.
• Industry Stakeholders, including competitors, regulators, and partners, are interested in industry trends, technological advancements, and regulatory changes impacting the market.
• Community Stakeholders, including members and local government entities, seek content on CRE projects’ impact on local development, sustainability practices, and community engagement initiatives.
• Services and Vendors appreciate content that discusses the CRE market’s future needs, emerging customer trends, and insights into best practices.
• Journalists in the commercial real estate space look for press releases, expert opinions, and significant project announcements that can attract readership and generate public interest.
• Potential Employees are interested in content that conveys your company’s values and shares the benefits of joining your niche and firm, which helps them assess cultural/expertise fit and career prospects.

Creating content that addresses each group’s needs and interests enhances relevance and engagement. Leveraging data analytics tools and social listening platforms will help you gather insights about your audience’s preferences and behaviors, fueling more targeted and effective content strategies.

Strategic content development

Setting clear objectives for each piece of content is mandatory. Whether the goal is to raise awareness, educate the market, or drive conversions, each content piece should align with your firm’s broader business objectives. Effective content types for CRE firms include:

• Video: Adapt all the following to video format to boost impressions and engagement and establish a strong connection with your audience.
• Contributor and Blog Articles: Accessible, easy-to-read, value-packed content that provides high-level tips and takeaways to enable and inspire your audience.
• Whitepapers: Sophisticated insights assembled by your executive team that provide strategies and insights not found elsewhere.
• Market Analysis Reports: Granular insights into current market conditions and future trends.
• Regulatory Updates: Timely content about law changes that could impact stakeholders’ investments or operations.
• Success Stories: Narratives highlighting your firm’s role in transformative projects or lucrative deals.

Storytelling is compelling. It makes abstract figures and concepts relatable and engaging through real-world applications and personal stories. Narratives entertain and educate your audience, generating value and strengthening their connection with your brand.

Content creation: Best practices

Achieving a consistent tone and style that reflects your firm’s brand identity is crucial. Here are some tips for creating high-quality content:

• Define and Stay on Message: Plan what you want to say as an organization and stick to that message in all your content.
• Focus on Value: Each piece should offer something useful or insightful to the reader.
• Maintain Clarity: Use clear, accessible language to ensure your content is understandable to diverse business professionals. Avoid cliches and colloquialisms.
• Use Multimedia: Videos, infographics, and interactive tools can break down complex information and make it more engaging.

Creating a content guideline document or spreadsheet (or utilizing a cloud-based platform) for your team will help maintain consistency across all materials, regardless of the creator.

Leveraging content management systems

Content management systems (CMS) are vital in effectively organizing and deploying your content. Here are some insights into popular CMS choices:

• WordPress: Top-rated due to its user-friendly interface, extensive customization options through themes and plugins, and robust community support (we use it).
• Drupal: Best suited for complex, highly customized sites requiring robust data integration with strong security features.
• Joomla: Offers a middle ground with ease of use coupled with powerful customization options.

When selecting a CMS, consider your firm’s specific needs — such as user-friendliness, customization needs, and scalability — as well as security features and the ability to integrate with other platforms and tools your business uses.

Content distribution strategies

Effectively distributing your content ensures it reaches the intended audience through appropriate, high-yield channels. Here are some of the best distribution strategies:

• Corporate Blog: Central to your content strategy, enhancing SEO and serving as a gateway for new traffic.
• Contributor Articles (PR): Focused, insightful, journalistic articles that appeal to trade media and the industry audience, building an immense presence and credibility.
• LinkedIn Newsletters: Perfect for B2B engagement, allowing you to reach targeted businesses and professionals in the CRE industry.
• Webinars: Engaging and interactive live or pre-recorded group training and education sessions that provide extensive insights directly from executives.
• Opt-in Email Newsletters: Keep your audience engaged with regular updates and drive traffic back to your site.

Utilizing a mix of organic and paid media will significantly increase the reach and impact of your content. Paid ads on platforms like LinkedIn will help you reach a broader or more targeted audience, while SEO optimization ensures your organic content gains visibility in search results — both provide efficiency of ad spend.

Utilizing project and content management tools

Managing content effectively requires robust project management tools. Here’s a look at some popular options:

• Trello: Utilizes a card-based system for tasks and timelines, ideal for visual project management.
• Asana: Features a range of tools for setting milestones, assigning tasks, and tracking progress.
• Monday.com: Offers extensive customization for workflow management, making it suitable for larger teams with complex projects (our preferred tool).

These platforms facilitate collaboration and ensure that every team member is aware of deadlines and expectations, essential for maintaining consistent content output and quality.

Measuring success and ROI

It’s vital to measure the impact of your content strategy to understand its effectiveness and ROI. Metrics to focus on include:

• Engagement Rates: Measures how actively your audience interacts with the content, such as likes, shares, comments, and time spent on the page.
• Website Traffic: Tracks the volume of visitors that content attracts to your site, including unique visits and page views to gauge interest and reach.
• Cost Per Click (CPC): Evaluates the cost-effectiveness of paid advertising campaigns by measuring the cost incurred for each click on an ad linked to your content.
• Cost Per Thousand Impressions (CPM): Measures the cost of gaining 1,000 impressions (views) on an advertisement. This metric helps understand the cost efficiency of brand awareness campaigns.
• Click-Through Rate (CTR): Indicates the percentage of viewers who click on a specific link out of the total viewers who see the ad, email, or other forms of digital marketing. This metric helps gauge the effectiveness of campaign designs and content appeal.
• Conversion Rate: Measures the percentage of visitors who complete a desired action (such as filling out a form to reach out or sign up for a newsletter or webinar) divided by the total number of visitors, providing insight into the effectiveness of the content and user experience.
• Bounce Rate: Analyzes the percentage of visitors who leave the website after viewing only one page, which can indicate the relevancy and engagement of the content on that first page.

These metrics collectively provide a comprehensive view of content’s performance, its impact on business goals, and areas for optimization in your content strategy. Tools like Google Analytics, HubSpot, Salesforce, and Zoho provide comprehensive data on how your content performs, helping you make informed decisions about future strategies.

Strategic imperatives for growth

Content planning and management are strategic imperatives in the value-focused and competition-rife commercial real estate space. As leaders in this industry, it’s crucial to continuously refine our approaches, anticipate market trends, and innovate in our practices. Embracing advanced content strategies will enhance your firm’s visibility and solidify its reputation as an industry leader.