The number of people working remotely keeps increasing, and while some have their own space at home, others have to look for places nearby where they can have a few hours on their own and a good WiFi speed. Coffee shops are an option but when it comes to quality and a better money value—user-friendly coworking spaces are lifesavers.
But while for people like article writers, blog writers, developers etс. it has become easier to find a coworking space which fits their needs, space owners in turn have to look for more ways to harness growth and win over more clients. Your coworking space will not just burst with new people coming to sign up, you need to know what they are looking for, what things encourage them to select your place, and where they initially come from.
Let’s discover nine efficient methods to boost sales in your coworking space and make sure your members are getting exactly what they came for.
1. Know Where People Come From
If you have been running a coworking space for quite some time, you must have already tried a few strategies to drive more leads. Some of them might have worked, while others seemed useless. The important thing here is to understand where your members come from and focus on a particular channel or two to get more of those interested. It can be advertising in social media, email forms, cold calls, or simple networking in the area. Considering the potential of cold calling services in expanding your member base, it's worth exploring further to capitalize on successful lead generation strategies. Utilizing cold calling software can enhance your efforts by providing a powerful platform for managing leads and optimizing your outreach process, ensuring you maximize your lead conversion rates.
When you focus on campaigns that are proven to drive more customers, you are able to cut costs on those which seem good yet unhelpful for your particular case. If you know people are loving your blog but have zero interest in local events, invest in content creation. Or vice versa, if most of your clients come to you after local networking but do not seem to care about articles you publish, stop sinking your time into writing them.
Each coworking space has its own members, hence strategies that work for others might be a failure for you. Knowing your competitors is good, but learning about your members is better.
2. Experiment With Memberships
If your coworking space has several memberships with fixed services in each of them, you might want to try out new things. There are people who hate online meetings and would love to use your meeting rooms as a zoom alternative on a regular basis. The latter will appreciate a membership plan with access to meeting rooms. On the other hand, not all freelancers need a separate room for conducting meetings and will not want to pay for it when choosing a membership tier.
Services you offer need to come appealing to different clients and cover their often different needs. This is where you can experiment with membership plans and services that come with each of them. There will be people who will appreciate unlimited coffee, while others will go for unlimited printing. You never know. Play with your services bundles, ask people, conduct surveys, make notes, and find out which services are of the highest value and which of them comes in handy only for a certain group of people.
Once you know what people think, you will be able to adjust membership tiers and offer only services which are 100% useful and organize all the others in a list of additional perks which clients can choose whenever there comes a need and pay for them separately.
3. Offer Virtual Services
This might be both a strategy for upselling and a way to get more clients on board. There are people who look for physical spaces to work in and have some privacy. However, there are those who are interested in joining a virtual community only and will appreciate it if you can help them with that. Those could be tech-savvy communities for web developers or ones where marketers can find new co-marketing partners etc.
Services like the use of space postal address, document scanning, receptionist, or meeting room booking are also in demand yet have no need for physical member presence. It is also possible to conduct your customer support operations remotely thanks to live visual assistance tools, thus increasing customer satisfaction and first call resolution rate. Such services have low overhead costs yet prove to be business effective. As more and more companies are moving to manage their teams remotely, with a wide range of appropriate software solutions available like free time tracking apps or timesheet software, to name a few, they will be happy to make use of virtual services and are more likely to spread the word about your space.
4. Use Coworking Space Management Platform
When you take most of the hassle from people, they will stick with you for longer. As almost every service has an application, be it music, food, taxis, or books, your coworking space needs one too.
Some coworking management systems provide your clients with an easy application where they can choose an available room, book it, complete payment and do it with no extra help or the need to explain what they need to a customer service operator. You can use the app to list all the upcoming events happening at your coworking space so people can join them and connect with the local community. Clients can also buy additional services through the app, invite others or just check your space out.
Revolutionize your coworking space with an easy-to-use coworking space management platform designed for both members and staff
Coworking space software enables integration with many other applications to share all the needed data, making the app super user-friendly. Being always on the go, people rarely have spare time and try avoiding unneeded delays. When you provide your clients with a tool to automate many processes related to booking meeting rooms and managing their coworking membership, they will have more reasons to rate you high and advice to others.
5. Use Google My Business
You might have heard that 90% of internet searches in the USA are conducted on Google. Not everyone goes on the internet with a certain place in mind. Sometimes, people just type something related to coworking spaces with the hope to get a decent recommendation from Google and try it.
Verifying your coworking space on Google My Business (if you haven’t done it yet) is a necessity and not a recommendation. Your visibility will be naturally enhanced with no extra charge. Your coworking space will be shown to people who are looking for similar services in the area, driving more traffic to your website and increasing customer demand.
After setting up your Google My Business profile, don’t forget about posting regular updates to keep your customers engaged and to catch their attention in the first 4 seconds. One way to do this easily is to schedule Google My Business posts.
Is there anything better you could think of when it comes to free marketing?
6. List Your Space
Listing your coworking space on Google My Business is a good start, but you can go further. In order to increase your visibility online, you can make use of industry local directories and list your space there. As people are constantly looking for coworking spaces, they will more likely choose a place from a trustworthy directory and might as well give it a try.
There are a number of directories like Yellow Pages, LoopNet, Yelp, Liquid Space, and many others that you can take advantage of and show people what you offer. Such listings do not require much from your side and might become one of those channels where new space members are coming from to check you out.
7. Work on Reputation
How many times have you checked tons of reviews before completing a purchase? As more and more businesses are shifting online, one of the ways to check products' authenticity is through reading reviews and looking at what other people have to say about services they’ve already tried. This is the current reality and coworking spaces are no exception. You’ll have to adjust and make sure people leave their comments about your place as well.
Ask your clients to rate your coworking on social media, in different directories, on Google, your website, and anywhere else where you might be featured. Gaining social proof is like getting a lucky ticket to better visibility and more site traffic. When people see that your place is favored by other clients, they will be confident in trying something that has fit similar needs of others.
8. Organize Events for Your Coworking Space
You can boost sales both online and offline and the latter might become even more effective if you do it properly. As a coworking space owner, your goal is to make sure people in the area know what you offer and what value they can get from it.
There might be people in the area who haven’t yet thought about changing their favorite couch for a coworking space, but you have all the chances to convince them. You can host a networking event for those who are already your members or the potential ones. Not only can you enhance future collaboration but also ensure your space is widely spoken about.
Alternatively, you can organize non-profit evenings to help create a local impact. It can be anything from charities to workshops with industry leaders like CMOs and CROs or local influencers. Go further and cooperate with local businesses to showcase their products and services (coffee, pastries, healthy snacks for participants). There are tons of opportunities not only online but also offline where your coworking space has all the chances to become the community hub, get acknowledged and loved.
9. Partner With Local Influencers
Another great way to boost sales in your space is to look for local icons and give them membership free. You can either reach out to them in person or simply send a sweet letter with an invitation and a free membership ticket for them to come and see your space, check it out and host their meeting there.
They get a space; you get traffic. This is a perfect way to increase your local visibility. If people haven’t checked your website, they will have an opportunity to experience your coworking space and give it a fair rating. If you manage to catch a big influencer who will decide to host a big event, with media and a dozen of other icons, be ready to get fully booked overnight. Well, maybe over 2 nights, but it does not seem a bad idea either.
Conclusion
Boosting sales in your coworking space might be difficult yet totally manageable with a list of handy tools and a few useful advice under the hood. Make sure you know your customers, where they come from, and what they are looking for to address their needs in the right way. And never underestimate your local community. They might become your ambassadors and enhance your visibility.
The article was written by Anastasiia Vlasiuk. Anastasiia is an SEO specialist at A.Z. agency. In addition, she holds a BA in International Security and Area Studies from Jagiellonian University and an MSc in International Public Management and Policy from Erasmus University. Anastasiia loves to discuss different topics and she is fond of traveling. Feel free to drop a line on LinkedIn!
