The world of work has changed. Hybrid work is the new normal. Commercial landlords must cater their tenant engagement strategy to a powerful new stakeholder. That stakeholder... the office worker.
It’s more important than ever that landlords engage every worker. Why? Because they have become major decision-makers. Their choice to attend the office decides how full the workplace will be each day.
Our 2023 Global Tenant Report shows that a sense of community drives workers to the office.
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Providing that sense of community is a must for any commercial site. That's why Equiem pioneered the role of "community manager" over a decade ago.
Read on to learn how tenant engagement strategy can boost tenant loyalty.
What is tenant engagement?
So, what is tenant engagement in the context of commercial real estate? It’s actually simpler than it sounds. It's the activities and strategies that keep your building’s tenants and users excited about the workplace.
Examples of popular tenant engagement ideas include:
The goal of tenant engagement is also simple. The aim should be to create a vibrant, welcoming environment to retain tenants. And that’s where the concept of community building comes in.
One of Equiem’s Community Managers, Laura Stevenson, describes community building as “destinational marketing”. Put simply, it’s a way to pitch your site as “unmissable” to your tenants and their workers.
After two years of remote work, driving workers onsite is a bigger priority than ever for commercial landlords.
Laura Stevenson recognizes the importance of understanding the changing needs of tenants. She says:
Tenant engagement ideas in action
Equiem Community Manager Laura Stevenson helped create some of our client’s most successful community engagement events. Here are two standout examples:
Summer Screen
To celebrate the warmer months, Equiem helped a client stage a three-month outdoor cinema event, showing three films each day. The event leveraged Equiem’s tenant engagement app survey function to find exactly what tenants were looking for.
The event offered:
- Kids films at lunchtime
- Theme nights to celebrate regional events
- A musical night
- A movie chosen via survey every Thursday night
- A bar, and smoothie station supplied by the onsite juice bar
Five-week wellness series
It’s no surprise that wellness events resonate with tenants. We saw that in our Global Tenant Report, where almost half of all workers considered health and fitness amenities vital to their office attendance.
In fact, these types of events are evergreen. When considering potential tenant engagement ideas, it’s a good idea to include health and wellness as a major staple.
This was the reasoning behind a five-week fitness event program Equiem helped a client develop.
This popular program of ticketed events included:
- Yoga sessions
- A running club
- Nutrition workshops from onsite restaurants
- Complimentary juice provided by an onsite juice bar
An event series like this is an excellent opportunity to collaborate with onsite partners.
It is one of the easiest ways to support your tenant engagement strategy and offers excellent promotion for the retailers who participate. And those retailers can capitalize on this with further discounts and offers within the site’s tenant engagement app.
How to boost your tenant engagement strategy
Hosting great events can be an exciting part of your business strategy. But it's only one piece of the puzzle.
To truly measure the success of your events, it's crucial to validate their impact. This is where Equiem's data and analytics tools can help.
Your tenant engagement app will provide insights into event attendance and post-event engagement.
These insights will let you assess the effectiveness of your strategy and make adjustments where needed. It's also important to have a defined goal for each event.
Consider monitoring key indicators such as:
These indicators let you measure the success of your events and optimize your future tenant engagement strategy for maximum impact.
A tenant engagement app is key for communication
To foster a sense of community, landlords must engage in a two-way conversation with their tenants. They must ask questions such as
By doing this, landlords can learn what their tenants need and want, enabling them to create a more engaging workplace.
One way to initiate this conversation is to use a survey to ask tenants what events they want to see. For example, landlords can ask if their tenants prefer lunchtime or after-work events.
By prioritizing tenant engagement, community building programs help increase tenant retention rates. A good strategy will also attract new tenants and ultimately enhance the property's value.
Landlords who listen to their tenants and create a sense of community will create a more positive environment. The result is a move vibrant workplace. And that’s better for everyone.
Tenant engagement is crucial for a successful asset
It's clear that the pandemic's effects are still being felt, particularly in how we approach office work.
Many workers want to spend time in the office but need a good reason to do so. This is where a tenant engagement app like Equiem can make all the difference.
A tenant engagement app will allow you to:
Events like the Summer Screen and Wellness Series demonstrate just how much of a difference a well-planned strategy can make. These events boost worker attendance and generate business for vendors.
Most importantly, they also improve tenant loyalty.
Equiem's powerful suite of tenant engagement tools can help. Use these tools to build an effective tenant engagement strategy that lets your asset thrive.
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