What is a leasing campaign for commercial property and how do you run one?
A leasing campaign is a planned, time-boxed effort to lease one commercial property: the pricing, the marketing pack, the listings and board, a target list of businesses the property suits, personal outreach to the person who decides at each, and a process for viewings and offers. Scayled's Campaign builds the outreach part for you: the businesses most likely to lease the property, around it and across the market, the decision-maker at each, the ones showing signs of needing space, and an email for every one. It costs from US$449 for one property, with no subscription. Agents remain a good option for running the rest.
- What is a leasing campaign?
- What goes into a leasing campaign?
- How do you run a leasing campaign week by week?
- How do you build the target list for a leasing campaign?
- What does a leasing campaign cost?
- How do you know if a leasing campaign is working?
What is a leasing campaign?
A leasing campaign is the full plan for getting one property leased, with a start date, a target list and a way to measure progress. It is different from simply listing a unit. A listing is one channel. A campaign combines several, decides who the property should suit, and goes after those businesses deliberately.
Traditionally, leasing campaigns were mostly about visibility: a brochure, portal listings, a board, an advert, an email to agents. Visibility still matters, but it only reaches businesses that are already searching. A modern leasing campaign adds a direct outreach component that contacts the businesses the property suits whether or not they are searching yet.
Owners, in-house leasing teams and agents all run leasing campaigns. The structure below works for an industrial unit, a warehouse, an office floor or a retail warehouse, scaled to the size of the property.
What goes into a leasing campaign?
Start with the brief: size, specification, permitted use, lease terms, available date and the types of business the property should suit. Add the pricing, set from achieved comparables, with the rent floor and incentive limits agreed in advance. Then the marketing pack: an accurate spec sheet, good photographs, floor and site plans, and a one-page flyer.
Next come the passive channels: listings on the portals for your market, such as LoopNet and Crexi in the US, realcommercial.com.au in Australia, Rightmove Commercial in the UK or Bayut in the UAE, a board on the building, and a notice to local tenant rep brokers offering an introducing fee.
Then the active part: a target list of businesses around the property and across the market whose size, use and type fit it, the person who decides at each with a verified email, the reasons any of them may need space soon, a personal email written for each business, and a follow-up plan. Finish with a viewing process, a heads of terms template and a simple tracker for contacts, replies, viewings and offers.
How do you run a leasing campaign week by week?
Week zero is preparation: brief, pricing, pack, photographs and the target list. Ideally this happens while the outgoing tenant is still in place, so the campaign launches the day the unit is available or earlier.
In week one, go live everywhere at once. Publish the listings, put up the board, notify the tenant rep brokers and send the first batch of around 50 emails to the businesses most likely to need space now. In week two, follow up the first batch once and send the second. From week three onwards, keep sending batches in order of fit, run viewings as they come and keep the tracker current.
At around four to six weeks, review the numbers and adjust. Low replies point to the list or the message. Replies without viewings point to the property facts or the terms. Viewings without offers point to price, condition or specification. A campaign that is reviewed and adjusted on evidence leases faster than one left running unchanged.
How do you build the target list for a leasing campaign?
Build outwards from the property rather than filtering a national database. Around the building, list the businesses nearby that could expand into it or move from older premises. Across the market, list the businesses whose operations fit the building wherever they are now. Fit matters more than distance: a business across the city that suits the asset beats one next door that never could.
In multi-tenanted estates, resolve each listing to the business operating in the unit, not the company that owns the building. For each business, find the person who decides on premises: the owner at a small firm, the operations director or general manager at a mid-size one, the head of property at a national occupier. Discard switchboards and info@ addresses.
Then put the list in order of who has a reason to move. Hiring in volume, a contract win, a new site, fresh funding, an acquisition or a lease event is each a public, dated sign that a business may need space, the same signals that drive direct-to-occupier leasing. Businesses with a recent, sourced reason go to the top, because they are the ones most likely to reply.
What does a leasing campaign cost?
The passive channels have running costs. Premium portal listings are typically charged monthly per listing and can run from hundreds to over a thousand dollars a month at the top tiers. A signboard costs a few hundred dollars to install on top of the sign itself. Print advertising is charged per issue. Professional photography and a flyer are one-off costs. If an agent runs the campaign, their fee is usually paid on success as a share of the rent.
The outreach part costs time if you do it yourself, often days or weeks to build and write to a list of a few hundred businesses. The Campaign from Scayled does it for one property for one payment. Focused covers the strongest 100 to 150 businesses from US$449 and is delivered in about three working days. Full covers 250 to 350 businesses for US$749 in about five working days, and is recommended when you want the whole market around the property.
Both include the person who decides at every business, the movement signals behind the first batch, and an email written for each one in the owner's or agent's voice. You send from your own inbox, or add We Send It For You for US$299: your IT adds one mailbox on your company domain, Scayled sends from it, and replies land with you. Everything stays in your Scayled account afterwards with no subscription.
How do you know if a leasing campaign is working?
Measure the funnel: businesses contacted, replies, viewings, offers and heads of terms. Track how long it takes to reach the first viewing and the first offer. Note where enquiries come from, so you know which channels are earning their cost.
Read the replies as well as counting them. A business that says the unit is too small, the yard too shallow or the rent too high has told you something useful about the property or the price. A business that says not now but maybe next year belongs on the list for your next vacancy.
Agents remain a good option for running or finishing a campaign, especially on large or specialist assets where tenant rep relationships and negotiation experience matter most. Whoever runs it, the campaigns that lease fastest are the ones that go and find the right businesses rather than waiting for them to look.
Find Who Will Lease Or Buy Your Property.
Send the address. Scayled finds the 100 to 350 businesses most likely to take the space, the person who decides at each, the ones already showing signs of needing space, and writes every email. One property, one payment, from US$449.