By Marketing Team
There are a tremendous number of marketing options available for today’s apartment project.
How do you know which marketing activities lead to the best results for your property?
We find the apartment management industry generally has a one size fits all mentality towards marketing. A better approach is to analyze each activity and implement the ones that have the best results.
When it comes to marketing, the traditional methods of generating leads still exist: referrals, walk-ins, signage, etc. However, the vast majority of leads now come from online advertising. The online options are numerous: property websites, online listing platforms, e-classifieds, and so on.
We find the platform that generates the greatest number of prospect/site staff engagement is a well constructed honest property website. Our data shows us that no matter from which marketing medium a prospect initiates they generally end up going to the property website before choosing to engage. Having a good website that honestly conveys the property’s strengths is essential.
We find 90% or more of leads are generated from ILS advertising platforms. We find they have varied results and the same platform can have vastly different results from one market to the next. As already mentioned, the key is to assess which one’s generate the most leads for your property and allocate marketing dollars accordingly.
How do you do that?
We utilize tracking software that allows us to see how many leads each produces and then determine cost per lead. The options are numerous:
- Apartments.com
- Zumper
- Zillow
- Etc.
The challenge is that all of your competitors use the same sites and a prospective Tenant can quickly reach out to many potential properties in a matter of minutes. It is not just the online platform that makes the difference; the human element is significant. Our data shows if your on-site staff does not respond to leads within 4 hours they are most likely lost.
On-site staff needs to be trained to handle leads and your management company should monitor their performance on translating leads into engaged prospects. We have very specific procedures in place to assess and guide our On-site employees on how to monetize leads.
If you feel your current management is not getting you the most for your marketing spend, your vacancy is consistently too high, or your income loss relative to turnover time is excessive we would love to talk.
