How Firms Can Leverage a CRM to Boost Investor Engagement
In today’s largely competitive and heavily crowded commercial real estate market, investor relations can be viewed as the key to a successful commercial real estate transaction. Without the support of investors, many sponsors may not have the necessary amount of capital to complete or even begin a project. Because of this, most sponsors would agree that developing a steady investor base with low turnover and repeat investments is a major goal for their firms.
Although most sponsors desire consistency from their current investors, many seek the support of new investors rather than working to strengthen their existing relationships. With the average CRE transaction being valued at $1.7 million, asking the same investors for capital over and over can be somewhat intimidating. However, building solid relationships with current investors can make this task less daunting.
A CRM, like RealPage IMS, simplifies, centralizes, and scales investor management and engagement. This tool can be leveraged to reduce the stress of managing pre-existing and newly cultivated investor relationships simultaneously and gives firms more time to focus on developing meaningful relationships with current investors. As a result, capital raise opportunities and the probability of generating repeat investments are increased.
Read ahead to learn why having a CRM is important for firms that desire to optimize existing investor relationships and drive increased engagement from current investors.
Utilize Investors’ Transaction History
One of the benefits of a CRM is that the firm’s proprietary historical data is accessible from one convenient location. An investor management platform enables firms to view historical performance records, making it easier to quickly identify investors’ asset type preferences, regional preferences, and investment criteria. Having a thorough understanding of current investors’ portfolios and the type of deals that they seek creates more opportunities to connect with and engage them when a new project matching their investment preferences begins.
Create Personalized Messaging
Although the commercial real estate industry has traditionally been a slow adapter to technological advancements, email is one advancement that the industry has more readily adopted. Email has become one of the most popular forms of staying connected and engaging with important contacts. Because of this, it is a tool that has been successfully integrated across most industries, including commercial real estate.
Today, personalization is the key to fully gaining an investor’s loyalty and keeping them engaged, meaning that the “one-size-fits-all” approach that may have worked a couple of years ago is no longer the best strategy for engaging investors. Unfortunately, firms that handle multiple deals and investors, can easily become overwhelmed in their attempts to effectively and consistently communicate with each investor- even the ones who may not be active in a current deal. A CRM, like IMS, enables firms to automate emails and portal notifications rather than having to manually notify each investor every time that they make an investment. This allows sponsors to be in constant communication with investors without a hassle and also keeps investors engaged.
A CRM makes organizing and managing investors’ contact information significantly easier, which helps firms save time. The amount of time saved by using this type of platform creates additional opportunities for crafting individual, relevant messages for each investor. With 81% of today’s consumers wishing that companies knew them better, firms that leverage technology to craft personalized communications are more likely to receive a higher volume of engagement from investors than those who do not.
Streamline Investor Communications
Investors are busy and often do not have the time to respond to hundreds of messages from different people within the same team. Using a consistent medium, such as IMS, to communicate with investors can help streamline the communication process and increase engagement. By communicating using one consistent channel across the entire firm, investors can begin to expect who, how, and when they will be contacted. If the communication remains consistent, on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis, they will also begin to anticipate these messages. The expectation that they will be receiving some type of regular correspondence from the firm, increases the opportunity for boosted engagement from investors.
Read Leveraging CRE Technology to Build Meaningful Investor Relations to learn more about how technology can be used to develop and strengthen relationships with investors.
