If you're reading this, you probably own or manage a coworking space. Hats off to you, brave entrepreneur! Your work is an integral part of the gig economy's bustling wheelhouse. But, like any other business, you've likely encountered the age-old question: "How can I generate more leads for my coworking space?"
It's like throwing a fabulous party. The drinks are chilled, the decor is Instagram-worthy, the music is top-tier, but where are all the guests?
Don't fret, my fellow party-thrower. Here are five practical, tested, and trusty methods to generate leads for your coworking space. We'll help you change your 'Where is everyone?' to 'Wow, we're fully booked!'
One brilliant way to get people buzzing about your coworking space is to host events. Yes, events. Those physical gatherings of people who share interests, hobbies, or goals. Remember them?
Events serve as a sneak peek into your coworking community. They provide a hands-on, experiential glimpse of what potential members can expect. The energy, the vibe, the dynamic - everything becomes palpable.
Consider hosting workshops, speaker series, or networking nights. Maybe a yoga class or a book club. The point is to attract a diverse range of individuals who can engage with your space and, more importantly, with each other. Create an event worth talking about, and your guests will do the marketing for you.
Local hackathon: Host a day-long event where members of your community can come together to brainstorm, innovate, and share growth hacking ideas for the town or city at large, as well as their respective businesses. This can range from marketing strategies, to product development, tech integration, or other innovative solutions to enhance their business growth. It would foster collaboration and potentially lead to exciting business partnerships.
Pitch-a-pa-looza: Organize a 'Pitch Night' where members of the coworking community can present their business or project ideas to a panel of local entrepreneurs and investors. This event could also include feedback sessions and networking, and it could provide a platform for members to find potential funding and support for their initiatives.
Art and innovation exhibition: Encourage the members of the community to show their creative side by hosting an art and innovation exhibition. This could include paintings, photographs, digital art, prototypes of innovative products, or even a performance art piece. This could also involve local schools or artists, fostering a sense of unity between the coworking community and the wider local community.
Wellness and mindfulness workshops: Promote work-life balance by hosting wellness and mindfulness workshops. These could range from yoga and meditation classes, to workshops on stress management, healthy eating, and maintaining a positive work-life balance. Bringing in local experts in these fields can also help to foster connections between the coworking space and the wider community.
Sustainability challenge: Organize a sustainability challenge where teams within the coworking space have to come up with innovative solutions to make their businesses more environmentally friendly. This could end with a presentation to the whole community, and perhaps even local sustainability experts. The winners could be rewarded with free coworking days, or a feature in the coworking space's newsletter or social media.
Hosting creative and attractive events is the harvest part: the easiest but often them most overlooked part of when you generate leads for coworking spaces is capturing these leads and staying in front of them.
➕ Check out more ideas for events to grow your coworking community.
Put yourself in your prospects' shoes for a moment. Would you commit to a coworking space without experiencing it firsthand? Probably not. So, offer them a taste, a free trial day or week.
Allowing potential leads to spend time in your space, use your amenities, and mingle with current members offers them an unfiltered, genuine perspective. This approach can be a game-changer in turning curious prospects into committed members.
➕ Check out ideas for International Coworking Day on August 9
Can we ignore social media in 2023? Nope. As much as it sometimes annoys us (those countless pinging notifications!), social media is a potent tool for generating leads.
The real beauty of social media marketing for coworking spaces is the ability to target your audience. If your coworking space is catered to creatives, target artists, writers, and graphic designers. If it's more corporate, target startups and small businesses. Use Instagram for aesthetic shots of your space, LinkedIn for professional connections, and Facebook for community building.
Oh, and don't forget to engage. Respond to comments, like posts, and keep your DMs open. Show your audience that there's a real human behind the screen who's just as excited about coworking as they are.
Who said a coworking space can't double as a content powerhouse? Create blogs, infographics, eBooks, or podcasts about the industry, entrepreneurial tips, productivity hacks, and more.
Share your content on your website, social media, newsletters, and other platforms to drive traffic and improve SEO. High-quality content positions you as a knowledgeable leader in the coworking and flex office space, helping to build trust and credibility with your audience. Content is also how people do their own research before checking you. Organic searches for local business are often by high intent buyers who are actively looking for a solution — generate leads for coworking through high-value, high visibility content.
➕ Check out our Guide to Content Marketing for Coworking Spaces
Happy members are the best brand ambassadors. A member referral program incentivizes your current members to bring in their networks. It's a win-win; your members earn rewards, and you get quality leads who are already vouched for by current members.
Lead generation for coworking spaces is not about having a one-size-fits-all strategy. It's about knowing your audience and providing them with meaningful experiences and genuine value. Engage them, make them feel seen, and show them that your coworking space is more than just a place to work — it's a community they'll want to be part of.
As you tackle these lead-generation strategies, remember to do it with passion, a dash of fun, and a massive helping of authenticity. After all, the success of your coworking space lies not in its chic interiors or its snazzy amenities. It's in its people, its community, and you — the host of the party.
You’re doing all this work to attract new people to your coworking space. Don’t let them leave without adding their contact information to your leads database! This can happen in different ways, but it should be something you can do in your coworking space management software.
For example, coworking spaces that use Coworks have a Leads Database or lightweight CRM that has a variety of contact capture methods to use for this:
Foot traffic is an important channel for spaces in dense, urban areas with other businesses and walkable communities. Someone might pass by your space and immediately want to check it out.
Coworks lets you put a Tour Request form on a tablet near your entrance, capturing basic information so your community manager can focus on helping the person see and experience the space, rather than filling out forms.
Coworks lets you embed forms on your web site so prospects can schedule a tour or buy a day pass to explore your space. Those people go into your leads database and can be automatically enrolled into a nurture email sequence with an email marketing platform. These warm leads are perfect for a sequence that leans heavily on the benefits of your community and information and events.
➕ Check out the Email Nurture Sequence Guide for Prospective Members.
Non-members might also book your meeting and event areas of your coworking space. When a non-member purchases an external booking in one of your conference rooms, their contact information will be automatically stored in the Contacts tab with the "External Booking" label. If the person seems like a good lead for your space and has expressed interest in joining, you can manually mark them as a lead which moves them from the Contacts tab to the Leads tab.
➕ Check out our Guide to Maximizing your Meeting Room Rentals.
If your members invite visitors to the space for meetings, they can check in at a tablet near your entrance, which then sends a push notification to the member. This is not only a way to make it easier on your member, but it’s a level of consideration for the larger community that visiting non-members aren’t wandering through offices and hot desks, trying to find the person they are meeting.
Since visitors might not want to be enrolled in a full marketing push, consider a nurture sequence that is customized for their intent. Focus on sharing content with them that is more general about the community, the area, and other resources, invite them to tour or attend upcoming events. Remember, their intent wasn’t to explore the space, so don’t treat them as warm leads yet.
We mentioned referrals above. One way to systematize referrals is to help members invite guests to your events, and track these invites. You can gamify the method or simply use it to thank and reward members who bring in new members through their custom URLs on community events.
No matter how a lead enters into your database, Coworks lets you filter your leads by campus, temperature (cold, warm, or hot), by how the lead was created, or by whether or not the member is active. If you are looking for a specific lead, you can start typing their name or email in the top search bar to search through the CRM.
And when a non-member registers for an event using an External Event Link, they have the option to click the box letting you know they are interested in becoming a member. Their contact information will be automatically stored in the Leads tab with the "Event RSVP" label.
And best of all, when that prospect says YES and becomes a member of your coworking space, you can easily promote them from lead to contact with a press of a button. No need to re-enter any data.
Here's to a full house, coworking superheroes! Your journey to attracting your tribe begins now. And if you'd like to see how Coworks can help, watch a short walkthrough.
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