As a property manager, how do you know when it’s time for your company to seek marketing help? There are four key indicators that you must recognize, but they’re not as obvious as you might think. We’ll go over each of the signs, and the instances in which they come up for your property management company. These are problems we have alleviated for our most successful clients, and if you are not reaching your growth goals, pay attention. If you are affected by at least one of these, you are not hitting your potential.
Sign 1: You Don’t Have Time to Do Marketing
Marketing is probably on your to-do list. However, in property management, you are going to be dealing with interruptions throughout your day. The typical day for a property manager involves managing time, processes, and tasks – making sure that your vendors show up for maintenance requests, dealing with an unhappy tenant, checking in to see if your owners are happy, etc.
Since marketing involves more long-term strategy planning, it simply gets pushed back into the next day, and then the next day, and so on. Working on your marketing objectives “whenever you can” prevents you from building momentum in your efforts. We totally understand, you need to fight those daily fires just so your business can stay afloat.
Sign 2: You Don’t Enjoy Marketing
Marketing sounds flashy and fun, but it also involves tedious work that can wear you down. This shows up in the form of:
- Uninspired blog posts
- Social media pages that aren’t being updated
- Reviews that are not being captured
As much as you might not want to admit, your website, social media, and reviews demonstrate just how much you care about property management and in turn, an owner’s property. Think of your online assets as your physical storefront, no one will want to work with someone who’s office is their garage. So, whatever you’re doing for marketing, make sure you are able to convey that passion.
We understand that dedicating creative energy is an effort, even for something as simple as making sure that marketing email has the right, intuitive call to action. Add that to the fact that there will be many days where you are distracted with issues like a new maintenance emergency or finding reliable employees – it can be very draining.
Sign 3: You Don’t Have a Clear Sense of Purpose
It’s great when you find a new way to get a few leads and two weeks later you find another way to get a couple more. But are they sustainable solutions in the long run? The goal is to work less in the future; that is why it’s important to have a set property management marketing plan, and also have the discipline to follow through on that plan. The most important thing is to make sure you do it right, or you may sabotage your own success.
For example, you may know you need to create great blog articles, but do you know how to title those blogs correctly so most people find them? You know you need to get reviews, how will you go about getting reviews for your business? You can’t pay people to review your company, because it’s against Google and Yelp guidelines.
You need to be strategic. Make sure you have a plan in place and have the foresight to see through the obstacles, or your marketing won’t work.
Sign 4: You Don’t Know What’s Working
Say you are running ads, are you able to track your return on investment for those ads? It’s 2017 now, and you should be able to have a good idea of all of the marketing initiatives you have in place, including traditional marketing methods like direct mail. A good marketing person can analyze where you need to be allocating your budget, set up ways to track success, and determine what is working for your business – whether it’s time to scale things back or scale up on those objectives.
These are four signs your property management company may need marketing help. If you made it through this article without any of these applying to you, congratulations! However, if any of them apply to you, feel free to give us a call at Fourandhalf and we can discuss how we can help you reach your goals with a no-obligation property management marketing consultation.
