Do You Make it Easy For Rental Prospects to Contact You?

When you advertise your rental property online, do you make it as easy as possible for prospects to contact you? And by “as easy as possible”, that doesn’t mean as easy for you as possible, it means easy for them. Even if you’d rather potential renters call you instead of send an email, or vice versa, that shouldn’t be the only line of communication you leave open. In fact, you should provide multiple ways for people to get in contact with you so they can reach out the way they feel most comfortable doing so. Here are a few examples to look at for comparison:

Example #1:

Duluth, GA – Home for Rent
3 Bedroom, 2.5 Bath
$1050 per month

15 email leads
1 phone lead
1 click-to-call lead

Example #2:

Bentonville, Arkansas – Home for Rent
3 Bedroom, 2 Bath
$800 per month

5 email leads
13 phone leads

As you can see from the amount and types of leads each property received, there is no “one way” that prospects will contact you. The first rental property even made click-to-call available, giving their ad maximum accessibility. Of course, if you are going to allow people to contact you via phone, email, or text message, you should also make sure to have an efficient lead follow-up process for each method of contact. A lead left hanging is a lost lead!

30 Renter Leads in 30 Days

With the rental market growing increasingly competitive, it is essential to have a “Wow” offering to attract renters to your property. A nice apartment with comparable monthly rents just isn’t enough (in most markets) to draw in leads.

So, how do you get your property noticed in the midst of all the competition? Here’s what one rental marketer did that earned him more than 30 quality leads in 30 days in the competitive Washington, D.C. area:

• Beautiful (and plenty of) photos – This ad displays six beautiful and effective photos of the unit. The photos are not just a close-up of the bathroom sink and empty bedrooms, rather, they show off the interior, views, and amenities (such as stainless steel appliances). Our stats show that ads with 5 or more photos perform considerably better than those with only a few (or no) photos. Potential renters can fall in love with your unit before they ever set foot in the door.
• Desirable description – Using language that draws the renter in to learn more, this ad makes great use of the unit description. Phrases such as, “Large condominium unit straddling the hot neighborhoods of U Street and Columbia Heights”, and “Short distance to two Metro stations, Starbucks, Target…”, make this ad stand out from the competition. The description also details the unit’s many desirable features, such as hardwood floors and in-suite full baths.
• Price that renters can’t refuse – In this economy, price is more important to most renters than many other factors; just having a comparable price may not be enough. This 2 bedroom, 2 bath unit is renting for $950 per month. In the Washington D.C. area, you’d be hard pressed to find a comparable unit for less than $1100 per month. This ad’s price isn’t comparable… it is much better. That’s an offer that few renters can refuse.

There are other aspects that make this ad successful (such as distribution to several online portals, helpful links to local information, desirable location, etc.), but the three tips outlined above are the reason that renters not only viewed the ad, but took the next step to email or call the property owner.

How To Use RentShout’s Rental Marketing Services To Maximize Profits

There are three main pricing models for apartment marketing to generate leads and successfully acquire tenants: Pay-Per-Lead, Pay-Per-Lease and Flat Fee.

Through market research and feedback from our loyal customers, RentShout has concluded that a reliable flat fee pricing model is the best way to maximize profits from apartment advertising. Let’s take a deeper look at the three pricing models:

Pay-Per-Lead

Paying for every lead you generate can be very expensive for apartment marketers, and oftentimes, it was cheaper using the Pay-Per-Lease model. One problem with Pay-Per-Lead is the conversion rate. If it takes 20 leads to generate a lease, then, depending on how much you pay for each lead, it can become a very expensive marketing strategy.

Many marketers who use the Pay-Per-Lead model have complained that the leads generated are often unresponsive or not valid. It is difficult to track whether or not the lead is genuine, and paying per lead may cause you to purchase many invalid or unresponsive leads.

Leads that have expressed an interest in your property, have most likely also expressed an interest with many other properties as well. If the lead has already made a connection with a different property by the time you contact them, you end up paying for a dead lead.

This is why the pay per lead model can be very expensive.

Pay-Per-Lease

Some apartment marketers who are new to online marketing may prefer the Pay-Per-Lease model, where they only pay if the lead signs the lease.

Most Pay-Per-Lease models cost $300+ per lease, and oftentimes it is difficult to track if the lead actually came from that source. This can result in paying for leases where the lead actually found out about the apartment from another source entirely.

If you have a competitive property with high lead conversion, you will most likely be able to close a lease with only a few leads. In this case, using the Pay-Per-Lease model would be a bad investment compared to a low, flat fee. If your rental property isn’t offering anything competitive and there are several other similar rentals on the market in your area, the Pay-Per-Lease model may be better, since it will likely take longer to lease your property.

Flat Fee Model

The flat fee pricing method has proven to be the most effective for helping our customers market their apartments. This model requires you to pay a fixed monthly fee to market a property. Our prices range from $29.99 to $89.99 per property and, on average, generate 10 to 20+ property leads for our customers each month.

If you break down the figures, this turns out to be much cheaper than $10 to $30 per lead, which is what the majority of Pay-Per-Lead models cost. So, marketing your apartments with a flat fee pricing model could save you hundreds, even thousands, of dollars in the long run.

The reason why most experienced apartment marketers prefer the flat fee marketing is because they test their sales process, which is crucial to running a successful apartment marketing campaign. You need to know which apartments are popular with tenants, what to write in your ads to generate a good response, how to present the pictures of your apartment, and how to effectively follow up with leads.

Once you have the process fine-tuned, apartment marketers will find that paying a flat fee to market each of their properties is much cheaper than paying per lead or paying per lease. They know from past experience that they don’t need to market their apartments for more than a month to acquire a tenant.

Here is an example of how a flat fee pricing model can help you maximize your profits:

You have a beautiful apartment of 10 units to rent out. Using the Pay-Per-Lead model, you pay an average of $20 per lead.

You manage to get a lease from 15 leads, which translates into $300 for a tenant. So if we do the math, it will cost you $3,000 to rent out all your apartment units.

Using the Pay-Per-Lease model, renting out all 10 units of your apartment will cost $3,000 if the price per lease is $300.

In this scenario, using the Pay-Per-Lease model is the same as the Pay-Per-Lead marketing method. It is only when you don’t get a tenant with every 15 leads, that the Pay-Per-Lease model is preferable.

For the flat fee marketing method, it will cost you $89.99 for a month’s advertisement at RentShout.com

No matter how many leads you generate and how many leases you successfully make, your advertisement costs will remain at $89.99. Experienced business owners who that know that their ads will draw a good response and that their properties are hot, will use a flat fee model to maximize their profits.

It is not uncommon to generate more than 15 leads using RentShout.com’s marketing services in a month. This works out to be $5.99 per lead which is much, much cheaper than using the other pricing models.

The key to making an advertisement strategy work is testing. Make sure your property is popular with renters, your ad attracts attention and makes prospects call you for details, and that you know how to follow up with the leads generated.

If you can grasp the above concepts, a flat fee pricing model can minimize your marketing expenses a lot. If you are new to online rental marketing, you can also use a flat fee model to test how well people respond to your ad and how well the online rental company promotes your listings.

5 Secrets to Successful Rental Advertising

All online rental ads are not created equal. In fact, many factors determine whether a rental ad will be successful at attracting renter leads. With so much information and so many choices on the internet, rental marketers need to make sure their ads catch – and hold – the attention of potential renters.

This week, we’re highlighting one of our members’ ads that received over 40 phone and email leads in one month… 40! For those who like to keep track of the numbers, that’s less than a buck a lead (Single-family rental ad = $29.99). Let’s breakdown the strong points of this ad that helped to make it a success:

• Photos – As we’ve mentioned before on this blog, photos of your rental are extremely important! When renters are searching online for their next place to live, appealing property photos are a must. If an ad has sparse (or no) photos, its chances of attracting leads are slim to none. In addition, this ad had more than the 5-photo minimum needed to receive the advertised rental photo-video at no extra charge, which meant even more online exposure.
• Competitive Rental Rates – In a competitive market, the price often matters more to potential tenants than anything else. A great way to find comparable prices in your area is to view other rental ads listed on classified sites and rental marketplaces like Craigslist or RentedSpaces. Our featured rental ad has a very competitive price for comparable rentals in the Salt Lake City area.
• Low Deposit or Incentives – Another great way to help your rental stand out from the crowd is to offer a low deposit or move-in incentive. Especially true during times of recession and employment uncertainty, large deposits are hard to put together and may deter renters from choosing your property. This successful rental ad only required a deposit of about 1/2 the cost of the monthly rent and offered one week of free rent as an incentive.
• Widespread Distribution - Recent studies show that 90% of online renters search multiple sources online before making a decision about where to rent. This fact alone makes it essential to have your rentals advertised on as many places online as possible. With RentShout’s online syndication, this rental ad was able to achieve widespread online visibility and capture the attention of renters searching on multiple websites.
• Easy to Contact - Isn’t it frustrating when you find just what you’re looking for online, but then have no idea how to contact the seller, make the purchase, or close the deal? The same is true for renters searching for apartments and rentals! If they stumble across your online ad, the contact information should be absolutely obvious. In this week’s success example, there is a contact form right at the top of the ad, a flashing email button, and a phone number.

To sum up, renters searching online have a lot to choose from. By including plenty of attractive photos, offering competitive rates and incentives, and distributing the ad across the internet, this rental marketer was able to attract over 40 leads in just one month.

Rentals Posted to Twitter Will Soon Show Up in Google

Are you tweeting your available apartment rentals and house rentals on Twitter?

Some may argue against this, but with the recent announcement of the Google-Twitter search deal and the Bing-Twitter search deal, tweeting your available rentals will now deliver one heaping advertising advantage — search engine exposure.

Let’s take a closer look:

If  Google and Bing search results are now going to pull in tweets, don’t you think it’s a good idea for you to get your rental listings in Twitter?  For example, if a renter searches for “San Diego Apartments” in Google you may now see some tweets in the Google search results that relate to this search, similar to what you see here http://search.twitter.com/search?q=san+diego+apartments. It will be interesting to see how Google displays the rental specific tweets in their search results. Will the tweets display within their regular search or will it be a side option? Will Google be able to filter out all the spam such as what you see in the hijacked Twitter trending topics? I hope so.

So, if you are not already tweeting your available rentals, now’s a better time than any to start.

Remember, RentShout offers a 1-click social network sharing option that allows you to easily share your rental listings on Twitter and other social networks.