With the constant demands put upon property managers, marketing can sometimes take a back seat to more urgent needs. But, marketing is crucial to maintaining high occupancy rates. Spending a couple hours developing a roadmap to success will help keep you organized and on track to meet your goals. Here’s a basic template to follow:
1) Identify your goal. This should be a concrete, measurable goal such as reduce vacancy to 2%.
2) Identify your customer. Is there a specific type of tenant you cater to? Are you looking to attract a certain demographic? There can be multiple customer types.
3) Develop your messaging. What makes your property unique or particularly attractive? The best messages are developed from the customer point-of-view. Put yourself in your tenant/prospective tenant’s shoes. Any deals or special offers are important messages to circulate as well.
4) Choose your communications channels. Are you utilizing social media? Did you know that Pinterest can increase your SEO ranking significantly or that YouTube is the 2nd most widely used search engine after Google? Does your Website need an overhaul? What events are you planning/participating in? How often are you refreshing your Zillow ads?
5) Develop marketing materials. These would include brochures, flyers, mailers, etc. These materials should incorporate the messaging you developed earlier.
6) Establish links with business partners. Have you reached out to local businesses to ask to be in their new hire packets? Are you a member of your local chamber? What local businesses can you co-market with?
7) Implement. You don’t need to do everything at once, but if you set aside some time each week to cross something off your list, you will get there eventually. Social media sites should updated fairly regularly (at least once/week).
8) Evaluate. How have your marketing efforts paid off? Have you seen an uptick in applications? Has your web traffic increased? What worked best and what didn’t?
Once you have a marketing plan in place, marketing should be a quick and easy process. Re-evaluating your strategies once a quarter will keep you ahead of the curve.
