'The Extra Push': How Marketing Became The New Survival Tactic In U.S. Office Leasing

A great location and long-term reputation aren’t enough to lease an office building anymore. 

In a market still defined by stubborn vacancy and rising distress, landlords in 2025 are realizing that they have to spend before they can earn.

Mike Tewel, managing partner at Buyers Realty Miami, saw it firsthand with a Hollywood, Florida, building that lingered on the market until its owner agreed to fund a cosmetic refresh.

“Now, from the outside, it’s actually very attractive,” Tewel said. “The photographs that we’re putting on our OMs and on our marketing material are getting a lot more interest.”

That kind of reinvestment is quickly becoming a survival tactic.

With office leasing demand only beginning to tick up after years of stagnation, the margin for error is razor-thin. Flyers and online listings have given way to a new playbook: refreshed lobbies, professional staging, slick photography and social media pushes designed to capture tenants before they ever step inside. 

Marketing budgets are doubling, amenities are becoming part of the brand, and brokers say the fight for leases has turned into a fight for attention — and for survival.

“It’s so difficult to get right because it is a hypercompetitive market,” said Jimmie Brennan, founder of Love Mondays Office Space, a London-based brokerage. “We’re advertising and competing for the same clients. It’s just who can get them first and bring it to fruition.”

It is more important than ever to get marketing right, Brennan said. Love Mondays doubled its budget this year and plans to do the same again next year.

As office attendance has stabilized and most companies have already rightsized, the U.S. office market should launch into a new cycle this year, CBRE reported.

That is because with office leasing demand hitting postpandemic highs, landlords and brokers are realizing that it’s more important than ever to market well in a formidable market where opportunities are rare but are finally starting to shake loose. 

Securing a lease means staging and branding space so tenants fall in love before they ever set foot inside, Tewel said.

“It’s important to step out of that, ‘Just let me put it on CoStar and Crexi and wait for calls to come in,’” Tewel said. “You really need to give it the extra push.”

Higher cap rates on office acquisitions are luring investment back to the market and causing lending on office properties to rapidly increase, according to Cushman & Wakefield.

While distressed office sales only began picking up in earnest over the past two years, opportunities for buyers seeking to infuse capital into distressed situations will continue to present themselves for years to come, the firm said in its insights.

A slowdown in the market allows for new entrants and strategy revision, Tewel said.

“It's the newer landlords that are coming in that are thinking outside the box,” he said.

Landlords and brokers are utilizing alternative methods of reaching potential tenants, Tewel said, adding that he recently closed a deal with a client who came to him after being forwarded an Instagram story. 

“Landlords who embrace this approach will capture leases and drive NOI — those who don’t will keep watching vacancy drag,” Tewel said. 

Investment into properties is a major factor in securing new leases and renewals, said Emily Mehra, head of U.S. property marketing for real estate investment firm BGO. 

A multimillion-dollar renovation of its Newport Tower in Jersey City, which added an amenity center and updated the lobby, led to Bank of America’s nearly 550K SF renewal and expansion, she said. That was New Jersey’s biggest office lease in a decade.

Talking to tenants about the amenities and programs they want has been crucial to securing new leases and renewals, Mehra said. 

The firm in recent months has launched its RTO by BGO program. This gives its office tenants access to any BGO office or hotel across the country, offers perks to office tenants who live within BGO communities, and provides annual credit for events at BGO-owned and -affiliated properties, she said.

“A lot of times when people hear marketing, they want to talk about AI and your digital advertising and things of that nature,” Mehra said. “But we think of marketing more holistically. Just at its core, how can we help our customers?” 

Still, much of the postpandemic leasing process is handled online. The residential market was first to offer virtual tours and top-tier staging and photography. The pandemic escalated the trend of making that a necessity in all asset classes, Mehra said.

“It has pushed across all asset classes the need for the best possible imagery and experience, virtually and in person,” since potential tenants are doing due diligence and research before deciding what properties to tour, she said.

Shannon Bedinger, founder of 7 Rivers Marketing, said in recent months she has seen an increase in demand for her fractional chief marketing officer services to help refine strategies and stretch budgets amid a hypercompetitive environment.

Even if firms can’t or don’t want to hire an in-house marketing executive, getting a consumer today is so competitive, companies are looking for strategic leadership, she said.

“It’s all a recipe for getting a consumer to your property versus the next one down the street,” Bedinger said. “It’s a fight for them to come and spend their money and their time.” 

Fractional CMOs can help guide a firm through the implementation of new strategies or tools, like artificial intelligence monitoring, video creation or hiring overseas workers, she said. 

Staffing solutions company BGSF has seen the proportion of marketing positions in its property management listings triple since last year, said Regional Sales Manager Sarah Parsons, who services the national commercial real estate division. 

A desire for marketing skills began popping up in property management job descriptions late last year, she said.

“It's a new skill set. They’re asking it of the new talent,” Parsons said. “They want them proficient in Canva, to be able to create graphics, to understand how to promote them, what channels they need to promote them on.” 

Promotion of property events and amenities has shifted from internal communication to external advertising, she said. The dialogue has changed from prepandemic, making property managers question what they can do to not only make their buildings look good but also make people want to be there, she said. 

Some factors of real estate will continue to trump marketing.

“If you have the most desirable property of the most desirable location, you can get away without doing any marketing and you'll still have a waiting list of tenants that want to come in,” Tewel said. “Nothing is better than keeping tenants happy and building a good reputation for your property.” 

But during downturns, like the one the office market has seen in recent years, people find creative solutions to market their properties and set themselves apart.

“Traditional CRE marketing is broken,” Tewel said. “Flyers, outdated listings and high ‘aspirational’ rents don’t move the needle anymore.”