With interest rates starting to decline and momentum around cap rates building, now is the time for real estate companies to ramp up their public relations efforts to connect with new and existing investors.
However, the real estate investment industry remains a crowded sector, with multiple firms often competing for the same attention in the media, making it essential for companies to cast as wide a net as possible. While top-tier media outlets such as Bloomberg, CNBC, and The Wall Street Journal reach a broad audience, a consistent presence in real estate and financial trade publications as well as local business outlets is critical to a successful PR effort. Despite years of consolidation and layoffs, the real estate media industry maintains a broader and deeper ecosystem of reporters and publications than almost any other sector, creating a strong opportunity for real estate companies to reach investors.
Below are three reasons why trade and regional business media should be part of any real estate investment strategy.
1. Reach a High-Value, Segmented Audience
As publications increasingly move behind expensive paywalls, investors are forced to choose which media they want to pay for. This has led to a more segmented audience, with people typically reading only a few outlets regularly.
When looking to fund a company, investors often start with online research. With the adoption of AI-generated summaries across nearly all search engines, earned media coverage has only grown in importance because large language model (LLM) algorithms disproportionately favor news stories when generating results. Trade media are also often at, or near, the top of a Google search, and full articles or summaries of stories can usually be viewed without a subscription. Furthermore, investors often consult trade publications for investment opportunities that mainstream business media may not cover.
For real estate companies seeking to reach a broad range of potential investors, forming relationships with editorial contacts at real estate and finance trade publications is a key strategy. Many reporters and editors at these outlets are open to meeting with executives in person or via video conference to learn more about a company’s investment plans, as well as their outlook for the market as a whole.
These types of media will also write more expansive stories that provide added depth into a company. These articles, which can range from feature profiles to Q&As with executives, allow them to tell their story, differentiate the company’s strategies, and demonstrate their industry experience and expertise.
2. Top Tier Business Reporters Read the Trades
Reporters and editors at top media outlets regularly read trade and regional business publications to learn about and report on trends happening in the real estate sector, as well as to look for sources for their own stories. For example, LoanLogics, a mortgage technology solutions provider, recently prepared a data report on error rates in the mortgage industry that was covered by Mortgage Professional America (MPA). The MPA story was subsequently included in articles published on Axios and Bloomberg, which referenced the data LoanLogics provided.
3. Regional and Local Media Still Have Regular, In-Depth Real Estate Columns
Finally, despite enormous consolidation of regional news and business publications, most still employ reporters dedicated to covering local real estate and connected financial trends. Whether it be the paper of record in a major city, such as the Houston Chronicle, or a regional business journal, these publications offer the opportunity to generate more frequent and in-depth coverage on your selected topic. They also offer the opportunity to discuss new angles, trends or themes you’d eventually like to speak about with national media. Seeding these stories at the regional level will help build credibility for the trend or angle with your key audiences.
Coverage by top-tier media may expose companies to a large audience, but real estate and financial trade media should also be a key part of any company’s media playbook if the goal is to reach as many targeted investors as possible.
Insights by Joshua Greenwald, Senior Vice President