In today’s real estate industry, many firms that previously had a strictly defined geographical range are looking beyond their traditional areas of operation to leverage their expertise to help close deals in new regions. The competitiveness of northern New Jersey’s industrial market and the area’s position as a focus of e-commerce and logistics operators has meant that real estate professionals from this market have become trusted partners for projects in locations far beyond their traditional areas of operations.

Many of these projects can be quite complex and newsworthy but for a commercial real estate firm that was once strictly geographically defined, it can be difficult to generate news or gain exposure for hard work that was done on a project in a new market or in a new property type. That is unless you have the assistance of a dedicated B2B commercial real estate firm.

Based in the epicenter of New Jersey’s industrial property boom, NAI James E. Hanson is a household name among those in northern New Jersey’s commercial real estate industry. Northern New Jersey real estate professionals know exactly what NAI James E. Hanson does and where they do it.

But what happens when that geographical focus and project type shifts significantly?

Owing to his position as one of the nation’s leading experts on rail-served industrial projects and strategic counsel for some of the nation’s most prominent railroads, NAI James E. Hanson’s Vice President, Global Supply Chain & Ports, Steve Pastor, was tapped by developers to help market a brand new 10,000,000-square-foot Class-A rail-served industrial park in El Campo, TX, a town 80 miles outside of the Port of Houston. The project was unique in both its scope and location as many industrial parks of this size tended to emerge around ports and large highway exits.

R&J’s B2B team recognized a perfect opportunity to help position both their client and one of their most prominent brokers in the center of the conversation surrounding one of the largest and most unique industrial projects in the nation. However, two challenges stood in the way, how would R&J introduce Steve and NAI James E. Hanson to the market? And how could R&J explain this new type of property development?

R&J immediately targeted two of the most influential publications in the logistics business as ideal pitching targets, Inbound Logistics and Site Selection Magazine. The news surrounding cross-border trade and the ongoing national industrial space shortage offered the ideal opportunity for a pitch focused around these two topics that would both introduce Steve and NAI James E. Hanson while explaining why this property type was so unique. R&J was able to quickly arrange interviews between both publications and Steve for their upcoming issues concerning cross-border trade. The interviews resulted in full-page stories concerning the El Campo project and detailing Steve’s deep knowledge of the needs of railroad operators and industrial tenants. The stories also helped expand the reach of NAI James E. Hanson to showcase their capabilities to a much larger audience beyond their traditional geographic range.

R&J was also able to leverage the opportunities through sharing the stories on social media reaching 7,682 people across Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

Through R&J’s media relations tactics, one of R&J’s clients was placed front and center in the conversation regarding one of the nation’s largest industrial projects. The exposure received by Steve at this early stage in the project will also allow him to be included in future stories regarding what will surely be a developing project as time goes on.