It’s Time for CRE to Bridge the Marketing Tech Divide

2020 was the year of the digital transformation. In industry after industry, capital was devoted to digital technologies that would facilitate remote work, while continuing to serve clients, partners and stakeholders in as seamless a way as possible.

Except the commercial real estate industry, in one crucial area. Before we go there, however, it must be noted that our sector of the economy has come a long way in overall technology adoption, with many companies taking advantage of, for example, 3D virtual tools and artificial intelligence. Unfortunately, the adoption of marketing tech still falls flat for too many companies.

More than half of the CRE brokers, for example, in a December Deloitte Outlook 2020 survey admitted their firms lack sufficient digital capabilities to improve the business and tenant experience. At the same time, the leasing demands of a post-pandemic marketplace are becoming much more complex.

“You would think that in today’s world where everybody’s doing everything from their phone that we’d have the capability to do everything from the phone,” says J.C. de Ona, southeast Florida division president of Centennial Bank.

“In my experience, most commercial real estate agencies are far behind the times when it comes to website technology,” says Mike Willman, owner of digital consultancy, Willman Web Services, with experience in creating sites for real estate purposes. “Many do not have a website that works on mobile at all, and those that do tend to use outdated technologies.”

Often Willman finds the sites are not what is called responsive, meaning they adapt to the different devices, operating systems and screen sizes employed by users. Instead, companies might use dedicated mobile sites, which are confusing for people and considered inadequate from technical and design vantages.

“In addition, page speeds tend to be terrible,” Willman says, referring to how quickly a website loads onto a browser. “This decreases time on site and leads to a poor user experience.” It can also negatively affect search results, as Google considers download times when assigning rankings.

That’s the bad news. The good news is that for companies that are willing to invest, there is marketing technology that can meet post-pandemic requirements.

“This environment has created an opening for tech-enabled companies to expand into broker partnership networks, helping local and national firms to bridge this digital divide,” says David O’Rell, chief strategy officer of TenantBase, a marketplace that connects tenants with vacant space.

Brokers have little time to waste, he adds. “The pandemic has sped up the tenant’s demand for a modern marketplace experience to lease space.”

A technology model for marketing is long overdue in the commercial real estate market and being able to transact business digitally and streamline the marketing process has never been more important. Bennett Washabaugh, co-founder and CEO of TenantBase, says that a majority of commercial tenants are using an outdated service delivery model in an industry that has resisted investment in technology and “severely lacks the infrastructure to provide the expected modern experience.”

“Because rent-paying tenants are at the very top of the commercial real estate value chain. It’s the tenants who drive the marketplace value of buildings, the land, the mortgages, and the leasing transaction marketplace,” says Jim Underhill, executive chairman of TenantBase. “It seems only appropriate that solutions be designed and purpose-built to suit them.”

A New Era

Historically, successful CRE firms have relied on their renowned ability to build and maintain strong personal relationships to grow their business. While this traditional way of doing business will remain ever important to our industry, it’s essential that firms also step into the new era of deal-making and investor relations, in which technology plays a larger and larger role, says MLG Capital VP David Binder.

Speed and convenience are also what the CRE marketplace craves and is what is affecting the decision of many tenants, says Mike Zei, co-founder and COO of TenantBase. “Successful brokers will need the infrastructure and tools to deliver quality service in a digital environment. The ideal solutions will speed up deal velocity by aligning the needs of tenants, brokers, and owners in a transparent environment that also respects privacy.”

Must-have technology—made even more apparent during the past year amid COVID-19 challenges—blends marketing, process automation, sales and relationship building into one company source of truth platform, Binder says. “CRE firms can reach more people with their voice and experiences than ever before while still maintaining the entrepreneurial and relationship-driven spirit they pride themselves on.”

What Are the Must Haves?

From Binder’s perspective, must-have technology for CRE marketing professionals comes down to the following essentials: Invest in a solid CRM and marketing stack; integrate back-end processes with the front-end experience; and use data and analytics tools to test assumptions and create personalized user experiences. “A solid foundation gives you the flexibility to layer on new tactics, pivot and try different things. I like to say that if you don’t have a train track, you can’t put any railcars on top. A solid foundation affords you the ability to test new ideas and be creative every day, “Binder says.

He points out that a CRM platform like Salesforce, for example, can be that foundation for CRE marketing professionals, providing general day-to-day management, accountability and KPI tracking.

Another essential is having a strong marketing automation tool, he says. While there are a wide range of choices, MLG uses Pardot because of its integration with Salesforce. “Our approach to marketing automation is to put a heavy focus on sharing expertise and education which puts transparency at the forefront while also providing as many opportunities to speak with a live team member as a client may need,” Binder says. “We know the world of private real estate investing and CRE can feel overwhelming. We aim to be an educational source that investors can trust, which leads to the 1:1 relationship we build upon.”

In terms of integration, MLG completely overhauled its externally facing investor portal last year using the Juniper Square platform, which integrates and connects the firm’s back-end fund administration team with sales, legal and marketing.

That particular move, Binder explains, ties back uniformly with Salesforce and allows the firm to have a single, secure and fully transparent platform. Doing so, “gives our investors access to all the information they could desire through a system that connects directly to our back-end processes and internal teams,” he says. It creates an “improved user experience externally and a streamlined system internally that helps us become more efficient and frees up staff time for other priorities.”

The sky is really the limit when CRE marketing professionals use data smartly, notes Binder. “Visual analytics platforms, like Tableau for example, allow for very granular analysis of data. That data analysis can be used to confirm—or correct—assumptions about your audience and thus adjust, enhance or increase the efficiency of your overall strategies.”

The world of digital media is limitless and data on attributions and characteristics can be used to structure marketing and digital campaigns so that they are completely adaptive to a specific user’s experience, adds Binder. “You can serve website visitors exactly what they would be most interested in, in exactly the way we predict they’d want to experience it, based on data from similar peer groups. Personalizing the user experience and creating the best possible interaction with our organization is a foundational goal.”

Overall, technology⁠—and technology as it pertains to marketing property specifically⁠—is continually evolving, and it’s essential to be future-minded. “Everything we do today is building for tomorrow,” says Binder. “Using marketing and technology in unison with being good, honest, Midwesterners who build 1:1 relationships with our clients and partners creates a seamless, efficient and enhanced experience for everyone.”