When leasing season rolls around, your already long to-do list may not include your marketing strategy. But you know how important these next few months are to your bottom line, and marketing plays a big role in that.
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Learn MoreRental property marketing is a powerful tool for attracting high-quality potential renters and getting them into your units when competition for their attention is at an all-time high.
Whether you’ve hired a marketing agency or you’re doing it yourself, these are the rental property marketing ideas that every property manager needs this leasing season—and throughout the year.
Audit Your Rental Properties
Before you dive into your property management marketing strategy, there are a few housekeeping items you should take care of. Let’s look at what you’ll need to do before you start posting those listings.
Focus on Your Target Audience
First things first. Review your target tenant profile. Research the rental property features and amenities—as well as the price point—they’re looking for.
Then, look at your own properties to determine if you need to make some changes. There may be amenities you should add or even drop. There may even be the opportunity to make simple upgrades to your properties.
If you have the features renters are looking for, make sure to highlight them in your rental listings to attract potential renters.
Do Some Market Research
Next, look at the rental market in your area. When are most units up for rent? What is the average rent rate for properties like yours?
You should also look at demographic shifts to make sure your properties are still targeting the right kinds of potential tenants.
Build Awareness for Your Properties
Now that you’ve got your properties aligned with your target tenants, how do you get your rental listings in front of them? It’s all about understanding what motivates potential renters to stop scrolling and click on your listing. If you’re looking to stand out from the crowd this leasing season, here’s how to get started.
Cross-Post Rental Listings on Major Sites
Most property management companies have a few go-to sites for posting vacant units, but cross-posting your listings on multiple major sites helps you reach a larger pool of prospective tenants. Take advantage of the many rental listing sites such as Trulia and Zillow, to improve your chances of finding eligible renters.
If you use property management software, see if it offers listing syndication to share vacancies on your behalf. For example, Buildium has one-touch syndication to share your property listings on dozens of our partners’ pages.
Read more rental property marketing ideas for listings.
Harness the Power of Social Media for Property Management
What role does social media play in your marketing strategy? Social media marketing is more than blasting your followers with links to your rental listings. Social media is a powerful tool for building your brand, finding new business, and cultivating relationships with current tenants and owners.
Each social media platform presents different opportunities for your business. On Instagram, focus on visuals and sharing the unique features of your different properties. Share videos that show the type of community your tenants enjoy. On Twitter, focus on cultivating conversations with potential tenants, property owners, local businesses, and stakeholders. On Facebook, use tools such as Marketplace to advertise your listings and attract new applicants. Your brand should be visible across all social media channels, with a consistent, coherent message.
Read more tips on social media for property managers.
Market Offline, Too
Social and digital marketing are key, but don’t lose touch with the human side of your marketing efforts, either. With your social strategy in place, come out from behind the screen and get into the community. Your property management marketing strategy should include building relationships through local business associations or real estate groups that can help you reach new potential tenants and owners.
More importantly, generate word-of-mouth referrals by reaching out to current tenants, leveraging affiliate relationships, and doing something positive for your community, such as sponsoring a charity event or even an education session with local business owners covering real estate investing basics.
No matter your target market, there’s no replacing quality face time with local stakeholders who can help you generate quality leads for your business. And by getting out there, you’ll create the opportunity for even more content for your website that resonates and shows what your brand is all about.
Keep reading about marketing tips for property managers.
Make It Easy for Renters to Find You Online
We’ve covered where to find prospective renters and how to get their attention. But what if they’re looking for you, or your listings.
Leasing season calls for a refresh on how you’re using your website to market to owners and renters. Let’s say a prospective tenant is searching for homes in one of your target neighborhoods. How likely is it that your property management website will show up in the relevant search results?
It’s hard work to get new customers and retain the ones you have, but a strong acquisition strategy will get you started in the right direction. From cleaning up your website to crafting click-worthy listings that include relevant search terms and highlight rental trends, here are a couple of steps to refresh your approach.
Align Your Website with Your Marketing Goals
Is your website helping you achieve your marketing goals? Now’s a great time to revisit it and make improvements to the user experience. Start by evaluating your website through the lens of your ideal visitor (both owners and tenants).
Let’s say a prospective renter finds your website. How easy is it for them to navigate your site and find what they need? Do you have the right calls-to-action in place to collect their contact information to get in touch?
You might think that social media has rendered a good, old-fashioned website obsolete, but in fact, our research in the 2023 Renters’ Report from Buildium and Propertyware, we found that, along with Zillow and social media, renters are still turning to local property management business websites to browse listings.
A strong website increases brand awareness, helps prospects find you, and converts them into leads.
And don’t forget to keep your website updated with new vacancies. You’ve worked hard to create an optimized, easy-to-use website, and more visitors means a higher ranking in search results.
Read more about aligning your website with your marketing goals.
Craft Rental Listings that Sell Themselves
Take a quick inventory of your rental listings for units that tend to turn over every year. When was the last time you reviewed and updated them? Even if your units haven’t changed much, the world around them has. For example, prospective tenants expect mobile-friendly listings. (In fact, Google rewards mobile-friendly sites by moving them up in search rankings.)
And then there are photos. If you’re using the same images from 2010, it’s likely they look grainy and outdated on today’s devices. Take the time to polish up your listings, update your photos, and add any new amenities.
Write listings with a descriptive headline, detailed property information, and a few highlights about what sets your property apart. Is parking included? Is it steps from the beach? Is there a washer and dryer? Don’t be shy about sharing the features that potential tenants will pay more for.
Learn more about writing high-quality listings.
Develop a Content Strategy
Do you know which keywords (or search terms) to use on your website to boost organic traffic? You can leverage keywords to increase how often your website shows up on Google and in local search results. Before your eyes glaze over, hear us out: search engine optimization (SEO) isn’t as complicated as you think. It all starts with understanding what kinds of keywords your target audience is typing into search engines.
It takes a lot of time and resources to rank on Google, but taking a hyper-local approach can help you focus your efforts for the most impact. Look to similar-sized competitors in your market and what they’re ranking for on their sites. You might find that people are using search terms like student housing in Detroit or month-to-month apartments near Wayne State. From there, use a tool like Google Adwords, Hubspot, or Moz to help you identify and finalize the keywords that are most relevant to your business.
Use your keyword research to spark creative marketing ideas for leasing apartments. Once you know the keywords you want to rank for, it’s time to develop your content marketing strategy. Consider creating blog posts, landing pages, guides, and even podcasts. And don’t forget about online review sites, such as your Google My Business page and Yelp, that show up in search results, too. Positive reviews have the potential to significantly impact your bottom line. Keep up with managing your online presence and stay in control of your online reputation.
How are you adapting your approach to attracting and retaining renters? Check out Buildium’s 2023 Industry Report to learn the best strategies for your portfolio.
Leverage the Latest Technology
Around this time of year, you’re likely making upgrades to freshen up your properties. But this is also a great time to investigate business upgrades to make the rental process more seamless for you and your tenants. Technology is changing the landscape of the rental market, and it’s important to understand how it impacts your business. Here are three ways to get ahead of the curve and embrace new technology.
Rental Self-Showings and Virtual Tours
According to a 2020 survey by Zumper and Matterport, 72 percent of renters said they would rent a place without ever setting foot inside if there was a 3D tour available.
And self-showings make it more convenient for prospective renters to view properties on their own time. You can use smart lock boxes and keyless smart locks to give prospects easy access to properties without sacrificing safety. Some services even offer security screening to confirm the prospect is who they say they are. A straightforward showing process makes for a seamless experience for your prospects and could help you shorten the leasing cycle.
Learn more about self-showings for rental properties.
Optimize for Voice Search and AI
If Alexa, Siri, and Google aren’t part of your marketing strategy just yet, you’re not alone. We’re only beginning to understand the implications voice search and AI will have on our businesses, but it’s important to take the time to understand how renters might be using voice search to find listings, especially for property managers that market multifamily buildings.
Voice search technology isn’t too different from traditional search engines. Keep in mind that digital assistants respond to questions with only the top result, so you’ll want to make sure you’re using your website to answer key questions for your target market. Luckily, your SEO strategy overlaps with voice search, especially if you’ve chosen keywords that are conversational, like “the best condos in Austin.”
Learn more about how property managers can use AI assistants.
Track the Right Property Management Marketing Analytics
You’ve captured renters’ attention, made it easy to find your listings, and improved the showing experience. The last step is to analyze your marketing activities and see what you can learn. Tracking and measuring metrics with tools such as Google Analytics, helps you understand how your website and content are doing and how you can improve.
The back end of your website tells you where your traffic is coming from and what your visitors are doing once they’re on your site. You can also track metrics like pageviews, pages per visit, and bounce rate (how often people leave your site in less than 30 seconds) to understand how people are interacting with your website.
Keep learning about the most important marketing analytics for property managers.
Putting time into your rental property marketing can actually make your day-to-day activities easier and more impactful. These tips also present new opportunities to attract quality potential tenants and owners to help you achieve more meaningful growth for your business. With leasing season in full swing, trying out new rental property marketing ideas can help you not only survive the season, but thrive.
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