DMS and CRE - The Great Balancing Act

Well after a long year, I plan to utilize my DMS channel. Initially what was a SMB, has turned into an information center. But, those who I network with on LinkedIn or within the markets I serve, are still offered my services. The most recent, the Commercial Real Estate Market (CRE).

I have been involved in Real Estate on the Loan Officer side of things in the late 90's, and when rates skyrocketed, I moved on to new avenues...that market is way too volatile. But when recently starting a position for a Retail focused CRE firm in the Inland Empire, Progressive Real Estate Partners, I realized two things: (1) I did not know diddly about Retail CRE and they didn't know diddly about Digital Marketing. Great right?! Not so much, because it was common across the nation in the CRE world, that digital marketing was not prevalent nor a large priority. But as the year progressed, and I attended events, participated in marketing webinars, and analyzed my companies and other companies SEO tactics.....I realized, Marketing has not hit CRE to its fullest. This is a huge opportunity to implement a digital marketing campaign! WRONG! It is in the adoption phase of digital marketing as many do not understand the basis of it nor are they able to because retail CRE is very involved with analysis of retail trends. And I'm not speaking about the lowest price for those shoes you want. I'm talking about the trend of how many stores are in the area you live that have those shoes you want. They call CRE the "18-wheeler" of real estate, and that has to be the best analogy for it. Once it gains momentum, it's hard to stop....whether that momentum is good or bad.

The good news is that from the CRE companies which I have interacted with, they are in the infancy stage of digital marketing tactics. While here at PREP, we are a bit ahead of the game. My goal for 2020 is to increase digital advertising. On the smaller retail scale of the markets, most advertising includes PPC, banner ads and remarketing campaigns. For the CRE markets, there are middle men that host "property listings" on their own site like CREXi and CoStar. Interesting enough, these companies battle for the PPC spots to help clients like us get noticed. The actual firms have no need to get involved. It is rather interesting here and I plan to be here for a while. This year we plan to re-vamp our website which we all know is a daunting task. But I will be sure to try to keep you updated with developments...