Even the best property managers may need help marketing their business. So, today we look at the five most common marketing mistakes that people make when they are trying to build a property management company.
Websites that Don’t Attract Owner Leads
Websites are a big and complex topic and there are many factors to consider, but let’s start simple. When it comes to your company’s website, ask yourself two questions: who, and where?
As a property management company, along with everything else, you need your website to attract new owners. If you want prospective owners that come to your website to call you for property management services, your website should reflect that. Take a look at your site. If you realize that it’s mainly targeting tenants and it’s hard for prospective owner clients to find what they’re looking for, you need to fix that immediately.
The “where” question concerns location. If you want to grow your property management business in Denver, for example, make sure your website has the right keywords in place. Your website content should include the keywords property management, property manager/managers, and the name of the town that you want to target. You have to use the names of the towns that you want to target in plain text on your website to make sure Google knows what keywords to show you for, as well as making your service area immediately clear to site visitors.
One extra hint: if you service an area around a major metropolitan city, it isn’t always a best practice to use the name of that large city. There will be much more businesses fighting to get noticed for the name of the large city, like Denver. You may actually get more leads targeting the specific town and suburbs that you service (Aurora, Lakewood, Westminster) rather than trying to fight dozens of companies for that major metropolitan area.
Wasting Property Management Leads
You and your company have gone through tremendous effort to generate leads and bring inquiries into the company. But where are those leads going to and what do you do with them? If they are going to a cell phone that doesn’t get answered, an answering service where people don’t know your business, or anyone who won’t return the call right away, you’re making a huge mistake. Another extra hint, ask yourself how many times you follow up with each lead (it should be more than 6) and how often you follow up a phone call with an email (every time, people). Maybe you want to consider hiring a salesperson for your property management business.
Bad Review Responses
In our blog a few weeks ago we talked about how easy it is to get emotionally involved when you’re responding to online reviews. This is a huge mistake because those online reviews often give people their first impression of your company. If you get emotionally involved in your review responses, it will have a negative impact on viewers’ opinions of your company. Remain detached and professional when you’re responding to those reviews.
Wasting Your Marketing Budget
Don’t put all your focus and all your money in places that won’t effectively bring you more business. For example, social media pages are great, but they are not necessarily going to bring you business. A Facebook “like” is nice to have, but a “like” does not equal a management contract. Allocate your marketing dollars where they will have the greatest impact; don’t fall for the latest and greatest and coolest.
Falling for Spam Offers
As soon as you establish an online presence, you’ll start to get emails and phone calls from people who want to capitalize on your success and get money out of your pocket. You don’t have to respond to every email and call. You don’t want to waste time on spam calls from companies that may not even exist. Don’t respond to any spam and avoid people and companies who can jeopardize all the good work you’re doing. Research the company before making a response, and remember if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Also, if you don’t understand what that company does, get advice from someone you trust that knows the subject.
These five mistakes need to be avoided by companies who are developing sound property management marketing strategies. If you’d like to hear more about what does work when you’re marketing your property management business, please contact us at Fourandhalf.
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