A 90-day marketing plan for a commercial real estate brokerage

A tenant, investor, or landlord usually searches regionally, a broker's name plus a city, or a phrase like office space for lease in a specific market, because commercial real estate is won locally even when the capital behind it is national.

Once a name surfaces, the decision runs on credibility rather than price. Current listings, recognizable past deals, and broker bios that show real market knowledge are what get a firm shortlisted for a listing or a tenant representation assignment, and a site that looks thin or outdated quietly disqualifies a brokerage before the first call.

The sales cycle itself stretches over months, sometimes longer, so a single qualified inquiry is worth protecting carefully. A firm that treats every inquiry like a fast transaction, with no follow-up plan for a slow-moving tenant or investor, watches good leads go quiet and sign elsewhere.

The biggest structural risk most brokerages carry is that their pipeline lives inside a handful of senior brokers' personal relationships. That's an asset, but it's not marketing, and it doesn't transfer easily to a new broker or scale past what those few people can personally sustain.

Fix the website's credibility signals first, current listings, real case studies, and broker bios that show actual market expertise, because sending paid traffic to a page that fails the shortlist test wastes every dollar spent reaching it.

High-intent Google Ads come next, targeted at searches like a specific asset class plus city, since that's the fastest way to reach tenants, investors, and landlords who are already looking rather than waiting on a referral to eventually surface.

Local SEO and asset-class or submarket pages build in parallel, compounding slower than ads but eventually producing inquiries the firm isn't paying per click for. AI search visibility, so an assistant names the brokerage when someone asks about a broker in that market, rides on the same case studies and content once they exist.

Email and nurture come last in build order but matter for the entire quarter, since new-listing alerts, market reports, and steady follow-up are what keep a six-month deal from going cold before it closes.

Weeks 1 to 4: rebuild or refresh the website's listings, case studies, and broker bios, set up call and inquiry tracking tied to source, and get the first Google Ads campaigns live for the asset classes with the fastest realistic sales cycle.

Weeks 5 to 8: build dedicated pages for each asset class and submarket the firm actively works, office, retail, industrial, or investment sales, begin local SEO content, and launch new-listing alert and market-report emails to everyone captured so far.

Weeks 9 to 12: with case studies and content now in place, work AI search optimization into the mix, review inquiry-to-deal data by asset class and source, and decide where the next quarter's ad budget and content effort should concentrate.

A brokerage without a site that can carry a shortlist usually needs a rebuild first, running from $1,500 up to $20,000-plus depending on how many asset-class and submarket pages it needs. SEO is billed by the page at $50 each, ten pages the fewest we'll start with, and Google Ads management costs a tenth of the firm's own ad budget, bottoming out at $600 monthly.

Given how much a single closed mandate is worth, many firms find it makes sense to build toward the fuller end of that website range rather than the minimum, though the decision stays scoped to the firm's own markets and asset classes, never an invented industry figure. There's no setup charge anywhere in this, contracts don't extend past a month, and a 30-day guarantee sits underneath it all.

Cost per qualified inquiry matters more than cost per click, since a click that never becomes a real tenant or investor conversation hasn't moved the pipeline. Track it separately by asset class, since office, retail, industrial, and investment sales rarely perform the same.

Watch inquiry-to-signed-deal rate and how long that path typically takes, since a marketing channel that produces inquiries no one converts isn't actually working yet, even if the traffic numbers look good.

Over time, track how much of the pipeline still traces back to a single broker's personal network versus a tracked marketing source. A shift toward marketing-driven inquiries is the clearest sign the firm is becoming less dependent on any one person's rolodex.

If the current site can't support a real shortlist, a rebuild is the one upfront cost, running from $1,500 up to $20,000-plus depending on how many asset-class and submarket pages the firm needs. SEO then recurs at $50 a page across a ten-page minimum, and ad management costs a tenth of the firm's spend with Google, floored at $600 with nothing added on top.

Getting started costs nothing extra, nothing here signs past a single month, and the first 30 days are covered by a guarantee. Share the firm's markets and asset classes, and a proposal with real figures follows inside 48 hours.