11 Property Management Marketing Ideas

No matter how good your local rental market happens to be, your property management needs to stand out from the rest of the pack. That’s where an effective marketing plan can be a tremendous advantage for you. Your margins are likely quite tight, however, so you’ve also got to be able to market in an effective, affordable way. That’s how these ideas could give you a tremendous advantage when it comes to your marketing needs. You’ll be able to stand out, fill your rentals, and be the property management expert in your community.

With property management, as you likely know, the quality of service that you give to your tenants is the best place to begin any marketing effort. It’s a difficult business to manage properties because the only people who tend to talk about you are those that have been problem tenants in the first place. If you can get to know households individually, develop relationships, and even throw a discount or two their way when you can, you’ll begin to stand out in the minds of everyone.

Affordable Property Management Marketing Ideas

1. Put On Your Thinking Cap
Creative invitations are the best way to bring people to see a new property or encourage property owners to utilize your services. Anyone can throw out a Facebook invitation to try to gain a market share. Not everyone will hand-deliver a custom invitation that will get someone’s attention. If you put in some extra time for your next marketing push by developing unique invitations, then you’ll be able to have higher attendance rates for your upcoming property management meetings.

2. Show the Complete Picture
Having access to all of the information about a property is what today’s consumer wants. They could go through all of the efforts on their own to access the local property assessor website, or you could provide them a binder with all of the statistics of your property so they can make a decision right then.

3. Be Professional
If it looks like you’re trying to save money by printing your own graphics and marketing materials, then the image you’ll communicate is that you’re also stingy when it comes to things like maintenance. Or worse, people may feel like you’re going to try to steal their deposit when it is time to move out of the property. Professional graphics, on the other hand, communicates a competent organization that cares about the properties that they manage.

4. Have a Good User Experience
The design of your website will make you or break you. If your properties are easy to access, view, and you’ve got a number of good pictures that show the condition of the property, then you’ll be more likely to encourage applications to filter in through your website because your visitors had a quality user experience. A good website will also sell your services around the clock, which means you don’t have to be in the office in order to get applications and increase your occupation rates.

5. Happy Tenants?
The customer isn’t always right, but that doesn’t mean the customer is wrong either. If you work to keep your tenants happy, then you’ll be keeping your property occupation rates much higher. You’re obviously not going to have happy tenants if they are breaking the rules and you’re forced to evict them, but if you work to resolve issues proactively and respond to them in a timely manner, then you’ll create a better foundation for success.

6. How Is Your Social Media Presence?
Having no social media presence is better than having one that isn’t up to date. If you’re going to use social media as a marketing tool [and you should because you engage with people effectively by doing so], then commit to the effort and keep up with it. If you allow comments to sit or you don’t update your page for months, then you’re communicating that you don’t care to those who do follow you on social media.

7. Network, Network, Network
You really don’t know where your next client or tenant will come from, do you? Property owners that need management assistance can come from all walks of life and so can your tenants. In order to reach these people, you’ll need to network with local businesses, trade associations, unions, and other local organizations so that you can connect with owners and tenants to increase your exposure.

8. Offer Upgrades
How do you retain tenants when their 12 month lease is up for renewal? An effective way is to offer them an upgrade for their property. It doesn’t have to be high cost items for an upgrade either. Replacing old faucets, allowing them to customize a room color, or replacing a countertop can all bring forth higher levels of loyalty that will increase your retention rates.

9. A Small Bonus Will Go a Long Way
Saving money is what many people today are looking to do. If you can help them save money when they need to move through a credit or some other offer, even if it is only $100, you’ll provide more value than your competitors may be able to provide. Another way to add a small bonus is to reduce the amount of a security deposit that is needed.

10. Communicate, Communicate, Communicate
Nothing irks tenants or owners more than a property manager that doesn’t stay in contact with them or worse, not follow state laws regarding visitation. If you need to give two days written notice for an inspection, then don’t call tenants on the phone. Send them the written notice. If you need to do regular inspections of a property for an owner, then don’t put off that inspection. Complete it on time and you’ll create respect for the job you do.

11. Improve Upon the Best
Your competition is doing some things right and it might be an idea that you can improve upon. Don’t copy a good idea – improve upon it. That way you’ll be able to connect with your local community and add some new, proven methods of marketing to your portfolio.