Decades into the information era, it has become overwhelmingly apparent just how crucial content can be. Content, whether in real estate syndication or any other industry, will ultimately be what helps your business land on the front page of Google and what helps your enterprise gain the trust of prospective investors. Content will help you attract new leads, close deals, and pursue all of your other long-term goals. Content is something that everybody needs, but the question remains—what makes content genuinely good?
“Good” content, like pretty much every other commodity you can think of, is directly affected by the forces of supply and demand. If a sponsor wants to be well positioned on the Google (and discovered by possible prospects), it will need to supply content that is well written, well structured, enjoyable for readers to consume and unlikely to be found elsewhere. Plenty of companies have already written articles relating to real estate investment basics—“What is the Internal Rate of Return?”, “What is Crowdfunding?”, and “The Most Important Things to Know About Commercial Real Estate,” are all articles that have been published countless times. This is not to say that writing about these topics, whether for beginners or for seasoned investors, are something you’ll need to avoid. In fact, you must write about the most common topics also because if you do not share your angle on these subjects, your competition will and you will lose prospect to them. But if you truly want to distinguish your brand from the many alternatives, you will need to supply something that has at least some degree of ingenuity.
However, just because something is unique doesn’t necessarily mean that it is (at least in an economic sense) good. The content you are supplying will not only need to be original, but also be something that prospective readers and investors will actually want to commit to reading because it brings value to them in some way. Good content, economically, is content that is currently in demand. The real estate syndication industry is one that is constantly perpetuating new questions. These questions demand answers and firms that can effectively answer them will be well-positioned for long-term success. But in order to know how to answer these questions, you will first need to know what these questions actually are.
Adam Gower discusses how using your offline experiences can help build your real estate audience online with attorney Scott Smith of Royal Legal Solutions.
Forever keeping an ear to the ground
In the world of digital marketing, there are countless resources available to help you find the questions that people are asking (or Googling) and the keywords that are frequently being searched. But what is even more beneficial than having access to these tools—which typically generate hot lists using impersonal algorithms—is having direct access to the industry, in the real world.
If your firm is experiencing “digital writer’s block,” think about the last interaction that you had with a current or prospective investor or sponsor. What questions were they asking? What information were they looking for? What were their foremost fears and concerns?
If one person has a question, about anything, then it is extremely likely that other people have that same question as well. If the last time you talked to a prospective investor, they said “I am interested in real estate crowdfunding, but these are my objections…,” then you already have a highly demanded topic to write an article about, ready to go. In the content you are creating, respond to these objections and offer any solutions you might have. Through your own interactions, it will be clear that certain varieties of content are being demanded—now, it remains up to you, the content creator, to actually supply it.
It can be difficult to know whether one specific piece of content actually has a direct impact on your enterprise’s bottom line. But if you can consistently be answering the questions that many industry participants might have, you will continue building a reputation as a thought leader. It might be years from now, but there will be a specific moment in your prospective investor’s mind where they think, “I think it’s time to begin investing in commercial real estate—where should I begin?” If you have already done the leg work and have clearly established yourself as someone who sincerely knows what they are talking about, then you will be significantly more likely to be the first place this investor decides to look.
Ultimately, digital marketing (the modern world’s version of pre-internet direct marketing) involves both the yin and the yang—it is a process of constantly giving and constantly taking. Over time, you will need to learn how to sculpt your content in order to ensure that it is actually unique and has a comfortable home with your target audience. But if you can continue drawing on your own experiences, continue trying to answer important questions, and continue finding ways to distinguish yourself from your competitors, you will be much closer to achieving your long-term goals.
Adam Gower Ph.D., builds digital marketing systems for real estate professionals who want to find more investors so they can raise more money and do more deals. He is known as the creator of the Investor Acquisition System, and combines a lifetime of experience in real estate investment and finance with best-of-class digital marketing tactics, techniques, and strategies to help crowdfund real estate syndications. Find out more in this new book, SYNDICATE or at GowerCrowd.com