Today, we are going to talk about measuring the effectiveness of your property management marketing, whether it’s online or offline. Our question to you is this: How do you know the money you’re spending on marketing is actually working, bringing in new management contracts?
The main – even only – reason a property manager should be spending money on marketing is clear – growing your business. There are two things to know before making any decisions about the marketing budget:
1. Who is your client?
2. How does your client find you?
We’re actually going to start with the second question. The easiest way to get the answer is to train your employees to ask, at least, one simple question whenever a new property comes on board with your company: “How did you hear about us?”
For tracking purposes, we recommend a simple spreadsheet with a customer’s name, address and lead source; fancy CRM tracking is not required. Keeping track of this information and asking that important question about how your customers heard about you will help you determine the lead source, which should then guide your marketing strategy.
Now, let’s talk about who your client is. When we start working with our customers at Fourandhalf, one of the first things we ask is: Who is your ideal client? We ask for a profile of that client, and often find that some our customers don’t really know. They know more about the house they’re going to put on the market than they do the owner of that property. For a property manager, this may be fine – but for the owner of a property management company, it should be the other way around. You have to know your clients to market to them effectively.
We suggest that as the business owner, you make a phone call. Welcome a new client on and ask some questions. For example, you might ask a new client how he or she came to be an investment property owner. Maybe they didn’t decide to be a rental property owner, but instead are being transferred out of the area. Over time, you will be able to see changes and trends in investment property buyers before you read about them in the news.
For example, if you ask us at Fourandhalf where a client comes from, we can tell you what size the company is, how they found us, how they came to be our customer, how long it took them – the whole sales process is retained. We have all that data, and you should too. The best way to get this information is to pick up the phone and call your new clients. We know you’re busy, but if you have five or ten new accounts in a month, is that really too much effort?
Also – Marketing data is valuable – Personally welcoming a new client onboard? Priceless!
By inserting the above steps into your sales process, you’ll get to know your ideal client and figure out how your clients are finding you. It will be easier to decide how your property management marketing dollars are being spent and know where they are most effective.
If you have any questions about this, please give us a call at Fourandhalf.
