High-net-worth or accredited investors are vital to those who run a real estate business. It’s critical to create a targeted campaign composed of real estate marketing strategies to attract accredited investors. After all, if they don’t know about the wonderful deals you’re offering, how can they invest in them? A few tried-and-true real estate marketing ideas that work are:
- Targeting consumer and trade media with bylined thought leadership articles
- Forming relationships with financial influencers
- Drawing companies to your website through blog posts, videos, podcasts, and email campaigns
- Learning SEO-optimization techniques and using them on your website
In addition to drawing in the right target audience, a strong strategic real estate marketing plan focuses on bringing that audience the information it needs to take action on the investments you are offering as well as sparking the impetus to do so. This comprehensive approach is extremely successful at delivering the equity needed to drive business forward, which is your ultimate goal.
Business people discussing charts and diagrams of a Real Estate Marketing Plan, view from above
As the founder of a public relations and marketing firm with a clientele that focuses on commercial real estate, I’ll draw on my extensive experience in creating real estate marketing plan that are consistently successful at attracting the attention of accredited investors, generating interest in real estate deals, and encouraging investment in these properties.
Here are some examples of real estate marketing strategies to attract accredited investors that we’ve learned.
1 – Target consumer and trade media with bylined thought leadership articles
This very article is an example of this strategy! Consumer and trade publications are excellent outlets for gaining exposure for business owners, their companies, and the products they offer. Reaching out to accredited investors via these outlets with bylined thought leadership articles that explain what real estate investment is and why it’s advisable is a smart real estate marketing strategy – and it’s a great storytelling vehicle to subtly promote your business.
Targeting consumer media such as the Wall Street Journal, local business journals, and national publications like Entrepreneur and Forbes with thought leadership articles will cast the widest net because their readership is so large, and most high-net-worth investors tend to follow these publications. Keep in mind that thought leadership articles for consumer publications will need to be more general and less technical than articles for real estate trade media – like GlobeSt.com, Connect Media, and National Real Estate Investor – whose readers are generally savvier about the subject matter. While everyone knows about investing in the stock market, many people don’t realize that they can invest in real estate beyond owning a home. What’s more, even if they’re used to investing in stocks, many accredited investors don’t realize that real estate investment is a viable and often safer option. The stock market is notoriously volatile, whereas the real estate market tends to be much steadier, leading to stronger returns over time.
Gain investor trust
The type of publicity that bylined articles in these publications engender helps to establish the author (you) as a thought leader and expert source, which will intrigue accredited investors and incline them to trust you on the investment front.
Begin by sussing out the editors and reporters who cover business, investment, and real estate for each consumer publication – as well as those trade media editors and reporters who cover your geographic or niche area of the industry. Write them a short, direct pitch for a bylined piece on some aspect of investing in real estate. Make the topic relevant to your particular area of expertise and of interest to the publication’s readers. Be sure to elaborate on what your expertise is, how what you have to say is germane to that publication, and how it can help the outlet’s readers. Then, offer to provide the article in the publication’s format, and ask if they are interested.
Another great way to publicize yourself and your company while sparking attention from the accredited investor community in your investment offerings is by writing thought leadership articles for the media about real estate investing. Public relations and marketing professionals with solid expertise in real estate marketing strategies, as well as established relationships with the media, can help spearhead and streamline these efforts for you.
2 – Form relationships with financial influencers
Knowing how to use real estate social media marketing to attract accredited investors can be a huge advantage. Social media influencers can ramp up your business’ social media presence exponentially. Influencers and real estate agents are in great demand for their ability to draw attention to various products and services and increase sales for stakeholders. Think of how having a celebrity tout a new snack food or cosmetic on their Instagram page drives up sales of that product.
The same is true on the financial front. Financial influencers who tout specific investment opportunities on their social media platforms, in their blog posts, and in podcasts can have a big impact on people’s investment decisions. This is why connecting with financial influencers who have a strong following among accredited investors and encouraging them to promote your company and investment opportunities can significantly increase the number of high-net-worth investors who do business with you.
Build a qualified audience
Financial influencers have the ability to help syndication businesses reach a large, qualified audience quickly and easily, without the need to spend a significant amount of advertising dollars. Working with influencers is a smart addition to a targeted real estate marketing strategy that gets businesses noticed by potential clients and customers.
Once you’ve found the right financial influencers – and again, experienced PR real estate agents and marketing professionals can help you do this – reach out to them with a note explaining who you are, what your company does, and how you can help accredited investors increase their return on investment. If you don’t get a response initially, be persistent (and creative!) in your approach. Eventually, through your marketing efforts you are likely to gain their attention, their interest, and hopefully, their public endorsement.
3 – Draw companies to your website through blog posts, videos, podcasts, and email campaigns
Another effective real estate marketing strategy to attract accredited investors is to draw them to your website via blog posts, videos, podcasts, and email campaigns. Blogs are excellent platforms for providing valuable information about a particular topic while also promoting your firm’s expertise. These posts are crucial tools in any real estate marketing plan, and they’re a great way to achieve some storytelling about your business while reaching your target audience, which has proven to be one of the most effective marketing strategies for real estate agents.
Blogs are ideal for attracting accredited investors because these individuals are generally working alone on their investments and will likely want to learn as much as possible about an investment category before placing capital in it. Like the thought leadership pieces we suggested you write, blogs imbue the writer with a certain authority that is hard to match through other marketing methods.
Blog articles
Focus on writing blogs about how real estate is a smart option for accredited investors and how placing capital in your particular area of concentration can yield favorable returns for them. Remember that many accredited investors may be new to real estate, so be sure to explain industry terminology and concepts thoroughly, clearly, and in plain language. And always leave the door open for your readers to contact you for more information.
Blogs should “live” on your website and be easily accessible from your home page. Promote them liberally on your social media platforms and link them to bylined articles when you submit them to publications – or have an experienced marketing professional help you with this often time-consuming task. One great strategy to get started is to simply open up a word or google doc and dictate into it. Choose a topic and speak your heart out. You can then come back to these sources of knowledge and turn them into articles or hand them off to a professional writer to make it into a final article that will be well written and jam-packed with knowledge.
Videos and podcasts
Videos and podcasts also help establish you and your company as a thought leader that understands the market and can help guide investors on the best course of action for achieving their goals. Episodes can feature expert guests or simply be hosted by a key executive at your company. Simply choose a topic that accredited investors might want to know more about, outline what you will cover, and record it. The episodes may run as is or be edited with help of a PR or marketing professional for the most favorable impact.
While videos and podcasts are not commercials for your business – rather, their purpose is to educate investors on the industry so that they can make more informed decisions – subtly weaving in information about your business is a time-tested marketing strategy that can be accomplished briefly in the introduction and throughout each episode. Videos and podcasts should “live” on your website as well as podcast applications and YouTube.
Email campaigns
Email campaigns are another effective way to draw accredited investors to your website. Once you have a critical mass of accredited investor email addresses, you can begin your campaign.
Emails can take the shape of a newsletter with teasers about and links to your website content. However often you disseminate them, send them consistently – for example, on the first Tuesday of the month at 10 a.m. – to establish a regular readership and increase your open rates. The effectiveness of an email campaign can be measured via Google Analytics with the help of a PR or marketing professional.
4 – Learn SEO-optimization techniques and use them on your real estate marketing strategy
Lastly, implementing SEO techniques on your website is a crucial real estate marketing strategy to attract accredited investors. SEO, which stands for search engine optimization, is a great way to boost a company’s online profile and help people who are looking for professionals who specialize in a certain area find them on the internet more easily.
A well-rounded SEO strategy involves “planting” well-searched keywords into blog posts so that these posts will appear in the results of your target audience’s internet searches. The more you use these keywords in your posts, the higher up in the search results your posts will be. Again, the use of public relations professionals can ensure that this is done correctly so that the copy remains interesting and informative.
Some advertising methods such as purchasing Google Ads or boosting LinkedIn posts can increase SEO and place companies more prominently in front of potential customers. Although it costs money, this is a tool to consider as part of your real estate marketing strategy for reaching accredited investors. Marketing professionals are also typically well versed in when and how to utilize this type of advertising for maximum impact.
Complete your Real Estate Marketing Plan
Attracting accredited investors through marketing efforts is critical for real estate syndicators today. A well-crafted real estate marketing strategy is essential for reaching this goal. By crafting thought-leadership articles for consumer and trade media; connecting with financial influencers; drawing investors to your website via blog posts, videos, podcasts, and email campaigns; and utilizing SEO in blog posts, syndication businesses can reach more high-net-worth investors and encourage them to invest in their offerings.
Speaking about real estate marketing ideas, want to know how to make an offering memorandum for a real estate deal? Click here and read this article about elements every OM should include.