When it comes to Property Management Marketing costs, we at Fourandhalf are aware that there are a number of crucial factors that our customers must consider when making their marketing budget. Firstly, we would put a value on a contract. For most of our customers, the monthly commission, an average two and a half years of service and extra fees result in a total of $4,000 value per management contract.
There are two kinds of major ways to market through the Internet; both related to search, but using different techniques.
a) Pay-per-lead – This includes investing in leads through avenues like Google Ads, allpropertymanagement.com, and other Property Management Lead sources. This strategy starts producing results more quickly, and is excellent at targeting leads who are directly searching for property management. However, as the industry category gets more competitive over time, the cost per lead increases as more companies bid for those same leads. Also, as you do not control the sites that the leads come in to, as soon as you stop paying, the leads dry up.
b) Inbound Marketing – building a sustainable Online Business Development Platform through content marketing, social media and reputation management to attract your own leads. This means people are coming directly to your site, compared to the previous strategy, where people go to some other company’s site and you then buy the leads from that company. This strategy will have initial higher costs as you are still building your content, but with time, deliver good inbound marketing results and dramatic reduction in per-lead costs. Also, as the traffic is coming to your sites, you get a bump in search position, delivering more leads, in turn. Also, this strategy is excellent at marketing to self-managers, who are then exposed to your brand while they search for solutions to their problems as landlords.
The best and easiest way to understand the cost over time of both is to view it on a graph:
The left column on the graph represents the money you would pay per contract, and the bottom row represents the duration of the marketing effort. The main difference between the two strategies is the effect on the customer acquisition cost. You want to find a healthy combination between these two strategies and you will have to look at your marketing budget, and how much you’re willing to spend for results.
Finally and probably the most important thing to remember, is that doing nothing is not an option!
In property management like every other business, you are either growing or shrinking. An average portfolio turnover can be as high as 30% per year. You have to keep renewing your client base, meaning you have to spend the money in the right places and invest in marketing to grow your business.
For any questions or further information you can contact us at Fourandhalf.
