Today at Fourandhalf we wanted to discuss a marketing company called Yodle and how it may impact your Property Management business if you choose to employ their services. As Internet marketing providers for property management companies, we have a tiny bit of domain expertise, while its important to note, we are not a direct competitor with Yodle in any form, in fact, we co-exist quite nicely. We have however in recent years heard from a number of our clients who have used Yodle’s services and as a result, we were left with a lot of problem solving and cleaning up to do.
As our clients are our main focus, we feel it is our responsibility to inform when an issue such as this appears, discuss it openly, and see what your feedback will be. For those who use Yodle, we would like to hear your opinion in the comment section below.
Why Yodle may not be the best fit for a property management company…
1) Social pages control – The partial service of Yodle is to claim your social pages such as Google and Yelp. The way this happens is either Yodle has an automatic way (API) of updating the system or possibly have people who key in your data and update it manually. The main issue with this is that there is no continuity, simply meaning you have no control or ownership over your passwords for these specific pages and you are tied in to a service for any kind of updates that in some cases are slow to take place. Another issue relates directly to Google+, an extremely important tool for your business. The system requires specific items to be handled properly to connect tools such as Google local, Google +, and Youtube, something that is currently not done with today’s Yodle service.
2) Website ownership – When joining Yodle, the company builds you a website. Unfortunately, the website is expensive and low quality with the content on it only consisting of keywords, unless you, the consumer, rewrites everything. The website functions through Yodle, bringing potential prospects in to that page so calls that are received can be tracked through the website. The biggest issue here is that Yodle owns the website, meaning that as soon as you stop paying or working with Yodle, all that information is not accessible.
3) Pay-per-click – The last if not the biggest issue with Yodle is the pay per click, where the company advertises on your behalf. Unfortunately, Yodle does not understand the difference between owner prospects and tenant prospects, so if you’re looking for management contracts, you are likely to spend more than half of the ‘pay-per-click dollars’ answering tenant phone calls, simply because the Yodle system can not tell the difference.
Our advice
We find it crucial to study the proposal carefully and compare it to what it will cost you to get a single client. You may find great value in discussing this with other property managers who currently use Yodle. Hearing their opinion and advice may help you with your decision.
For those property managers who find Yodle as a great solution, we would love to hear your thoughts and the benefits it has for your company. For any further questions or information feel free to contact us at Fourandhalf.
