Real estate investment trusts have a lot of competition today. Interested investors want a real estate company they can trust to guide them through the real estate investment process, helping them reach their financial goals. With the increase in popularity of REIT companies, you must learn to stand out to capture a large part of the real estate market.
So, how do you stand out and get your audience to choose your equity and mortgage REITs over other real estate investments? You must showcase yourself as an authority and show investors the benefits of your real estate investment trust. Here’s how to get clients as a REIT company and beat the competition.
How REIT Companies Get Clients
There are many ways to get more investors to choose your real estate investment trusts over others, including narrowing your audience and understanding your target market and their needs. Next, you’ll build your brand, show your authority compared to other real estate investment trusts REITs, and narrow your content strategy to find the ideal investors interested in what your REIT owns.
Use the following ten steps to learn how to get clients as a REIT company.
Define Your Target Market
You must not waste time marketing to just any audience to attract investors. Instead, you must narrow your target market and focus your marketing strategies on the demographics that could help you generate more business for your REIT types, such as residential, commercial, and office REITs. Also, consider whether your REITs are publicly traded or private REITs.
Focus on the type of real estate you offer investors based on your properties owned. Next, think about what clients you serve. Do you only work with accredited investors, or is your REIT open to non-accredited investors, too? Look for investors interested in your REIT sectors and assets in real estate for the greatest results.
The key is to narrow your audience as much as possible to meet your demographics where they spend the most time. For example, if you have a high minimum investment amount, you wouldn’t advertise in areas where everyday investors with only small amounts in their bank account to invest spend time.
Build Your Brand and Presence
Your prospective investors want to know the details about your REIT investments before talking to you. It’s your job to provide relatable content online to get new investors, including tips and tricks for your audience to help them understand how REIT investing works and how REITs are traded.
Most potential investors do their due diligence and look online before deciding which REIT company to consider. To reach your niche client, you must use digital marketing, building a brand identity that prospective investors can identify with and remember when they are ready to invest.
To be a successful REIT company, you must build your brand with the following:
- Have your own REIT website with information about your investment opportunities, as real estate investments widely vary
- Be present and active on the social media platforms your audience uses, answering questions about retail real estate, rental income, and capital markets
- Use proper SEO tactics to get your website and social media sites found at the top of the search results over other companies
Any marketing materials you create should have the same brand presence to help you raise funds. This lets your audience get familiar with you and what you offer, whether it’s an equity or mortgage REIT. They should also be able to recognize you whether they find your website, social media accounts, or a flyer in the mail.
Develop a Content Strategy
A content marketing strategy is the key to learning how to get clients as a REIT company and is what sets you apart from others in the real estate investing industry. As we said earlier, most people use the internet to research before they invest in real estate, so the more information they can find on your company, the better. Remember, you’re trying to get investors to choose REITs over stocks and bonds, which is something there is plenty of content on, making their decision easy.
Here’s the problem. If potential investors can’t find you online, it’s as if you don’t exist. The key is proper search engine optimization to ensure you show up on the first page of Google’s results so you get the most business.
However, this doesn’t mean slapping together a website or making sporadic social media posts, as it won’t help you attract individual investors and isn’t a smart business strategy.
You need a strategy or a method to your madness to raise money for your commercial and residential REITs. Your content marketing should have a strategy with relevant topics so you become the thought leader in the REIT industry. A few ideas to include it in are:
- Create a REIT blog – An up-to-date blog with educational content helps potential investors find you. If your blog post contains valuable information about REITs, utilizes a keyword strategy, and helps current and future clients learn about real estate assets, you may appear on the first page of the search engines. This helps increase awareness of your REIT platform.
- Consider videos or podcasts – Consider implementing video marketing into your content marketing strategy about topics that may be easier to hear and see than read, such as those about equity REITs or the real estate sector. Some people respond better to these materials than written blog posts, mainly to save time giving you another avenue to get more investors.
- Network – Networking for REIT companies means talking to anyone who comes into contact with individuals who could use your services. Connect with potential clients on Facebook and Instagram. You can even network in person by attending networking events to find people interested in different real estate sectors.
Engage With Your Target Audience
Many REIT companies set up a social media page but don’t give it the attention it needs, meaning they don’t nurture leads. They don’t engage with their followers to get new clients. To be a successful mortgage or equity REIT, you want to show that you are the expert your audience needs.
One of the best engagement tips to get more clients is to give your social media pages a personal touch by showing behind-the-scenes footage. Show images of the buying or selling of commercial real estate processes to get qualified leads and have an easier time raising funds.
You can also show pictures of you getting involved with the community. Show your audience you are a real person who cares about your clients and the community, too.
The best way to do this is to interact with your audience. Most platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram make responding to comments or direct messages easy. This is another way to get personal with your audience and let them know you are responsive.
This is important for most people when choosing a REIT company because they want someone they know they can communicate with easily and who provides a cost-effective solution.
Leverage Referrals
Referrals are among the best ways to find future clients. You can get a successful referral from satisfied existing clients and even social media. Never be afraid to ask for referrals.
- From past investors – If you have happy investors, they are likely to refer you to other individuals. Create incentives for your current and past investors to provide referrals to their friends and family for your services, and watch the excitement for your income-producing real estate properties increase.
- Business owners – Let business owners in the community know of your services in real estate investing. Even if they don’t use your services, other professionals may be interested in real estate investments, and they can refer you, or you can trade referrals to increase your client list.
- Social media – Anyone can share social media posts, which will spread the word about your REIT company without you trying. Create meaningful posts that people want to share, whether an existing client or someone who follows you, and you’ll get in front of a much larger audience without much effort and help you find new clients.
Network and Establish Relationships
The key to growing your client base is constantly networking. You can network online and in person. In both areas, you want to create and maintain relationships. The key is to know your audience’s contact expectations and use that to your advantage to fund your real estate projects.
Here are a few ways to generate leads:
- Cold calling – Even today, cold calling is a popular way to build a real estate investing business. If picking up the phone and making a cold call isn’t something you enjoy, focus your efforts on search engine optimization so your blog posts and other content marketing pieces reach the right audience.
- Email marketing – Emails are the equivalent of cold outreach, but electronically. But just like you need a well-thought-out script for phone calls, your email marketing strategies must be strong to ensure your audience opens and engages with your emails. Just sending emails isn’t enough; without a strategy, they’ll likely end up in spam.
- Follow-up – Relationships aren’t built on one phone call or email. After the first contact with a potential investor, you must keep up the relationship by following up. This doesn’t mean following up and asking for the sale. Instead, continue providing value to your leads so you become a natural choice, and they possibly choose you over other REIT companies when they’re ready to invest in things like apartment buildings or income-producing properties.
Utilize Targeted Advertising
The internet and social media make it easy to target your advertisements. It’s different from the old days, when you would create an ad to throw on the radio or TV and hope it eventually reached the ideal client. With online advertising, such as Facebook or Google ads, you can target the right demographics so only the people most interested in commercial and industrial REITs will see the advertisements.
You can also watch the analytics to see how your advertisements do, making changes to ensure the right audience sees your message.
Collaborate With Strategic Partners
Become the leader in a community, company, or anywhere else to become the ‘go-to’ REIT company providing what REIT investors need. For example, create partnerships with other small business owners to collaborate with and help each other market.
The key is to build authority to show your audience you are one of the industry’s most successful REIT companies, which will provide them with the investments they require.
Speak at Business-Focused Seminars and Industry Conferences
Take advantage of opportunities to speak at events and speaking opportunities to get in front of people within your demographic. Use the opportunity to show the value of private REITS offer without selling. Provide sneak peeks of your services while providing valuable tips to your audience. You can also use this strategy online and offer a webinar to reach a larger audience.
Be Active in the Community
Community involvement is one of the best ways to show that you care about the people around you and that you aren’t just in business to make money. Attend as many local events as possible and offer free services, providing advice, getting your hands dirty, helping the community with a common problem or concern, and showing that you have common interests.
You can use the opportunities to volunteer your time or even offer free consultations to build relationships within the community. This works best when you join groups and get active in your community.
FAQS
How Do REIT Companies Prospect New Clients?
REIT companies have many ways to generate clients, including email or content marketing, social media campaigns, and asking for referrals. The key to finding new clients is understanding your audience and who fits your target market best.
How Many Clients Should a REIT Company Have?
The more clients you have, the easier the sales process is. However, some months will be better in the real estate investing industry. Continually marketing to individuals will help you keep a running pipeline that always delivers.
What Type of Feedback Should REIT Companies Seek From Clients?
Ask current clients what they think of your process, timeline, and communication. Take the information they offer and use it to perfect your offering. This will get you new business and help increase customer loyalty for repeat borrowers and your referral business.
What Are the Most Effective Ways to Market a REIT Company’s Services?
There isn’t a one-size-fits-all way to market a real estate broker’s services. The proper method depends on the target audience. However, most companies benefit from online marketing, including a solid content strategy and email and social media marketing.
What Platforms Should REIT Companies Use to Reach Potential Clients?
Most professionals find clients on Facebook and Instagram, but you can also find them on LinkedIn occasionally. Focusing on paid advertising like Google Ads is also important to reach the right audience. The key is to narrow your niche and figure out where your target audience spends their time.
Final Thoughts
Knowing how to get clients as a REIT company is important as the industry grows. The stronger your marketing tactics become, the easier it is to be the authoritative figure in the industry. The key is setting yourself apart from others and showing value to your new clients to help them choose you over other investing platforms.