RentShout Delivers Quality Renter Leads

While we have some pretty amazing rental advertising features, what we pride ourselves on most is the amount of quality renter leads we generate for our members. Last month, we wrote about how our system generated over 40 renter leads to a single family listing.  This month, we would like to highlight one of our members’ apartment communities that we generated some pretty impressive leads to.

Through our network we were able to generate 15 quality leads in one month to this Ft Lauderdale, FL apartment complex.  How do we determine a quality lead?

• An email inquiry that was filled out with a valid name, phone number, email address and comments
• A phone call that either made connection with the member or left a message lasting at least 20 seconds.

So how did we accomplish this?

• We created search engine optimized landing pages for the community and each available unit, which drew in organic search traffic. Since over 70% of renters start their next rental search using the top search engines, our specialists excel in creating landing pages that rank very high in search engine page results, which directly translates to more leads for our clients.
• We syndicated the available units to 60+ directories, which drew in leads from various sources.
• We created videos of the floorplans and posted them to 10+ video portals, which drew in traffic from the video portals.

Best of all: WE DON’T CHARGE PER LEAD.  We charge a low flat monthly fee that allows you to benefit from unlimited leads without having to worry about the high cost of a per lead payment model.

So again, we can toot our horn about all the great features we offer (which we do have some pretty cool features ), but what it comes down to are the leads.  You can have all the coolest features there is to offer, but if you can’t generate leads or show ROI, then what is the true value of all those nifty features?

So here’s to us tooting our horn on generating quality leads for our members.

Increased Rental Leads – Latest RentShout News

We’ve Increased Your Visibility Even More!

Since we launched earlier this year, we have been tirelessly searching for more top-notch online directories to post your rental listing to. And our latest addition is no exception.

RentalHomesPlus is a national online advertiser affiliated with Apartments.com, and offers a free search of Single Family Homes, Condos, and Townhomes for rent. Attracting hundreds of thousands of renters each month to its site, we thought they were a great addition to our growing list of partners!

Learn More

Brand Customization For Your Ads

It’s no secret that brand recognition plays an important role when consumers make decisions. That’s why we’ve added the ability for you to brand your community pages and rental ads!

Now, you can easily add a branded header with your company logo to your community pages and ads, with the click of a button. And of course, if you need help creating one, we’re happy to assist. These new customization capabilities will increase brand recognition, solidifying your online presence and instilling renter trust.

Find Out More

RentShout Directory Brings More Exposure

While it’s important for your rentals to be seen on several places online, we’re also bringing you exposure on our very own RentShout directory!.

We recently began populating our rental directory with all of our members listings, as well as listings from other sources like Backpage and Apartments.com.

As our directory continues to grow, it will become an increasingly valuable spot for your rental listings as they receive traffic and leads!

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.

Tax Benefits for Landlords

The most outstanding among its benefits of being a Landlord and the one which makes the profession attractive to many is the fact that landlords get tremendous tax benefits:

• Landlords get a portion of the cost of their rental property back through depreciation, which is spread out or amortized over a number of years. 
• The expenses landlords incur when making necessary repairs or needed improvement to their rental property are deductible in full during the year in which they occurred.  Such expenses may include costs of repainting (indoors and/or outdoors), replacing flooring, fixing a leaking roof, unclogging sewer lines, replacing damaged doors or broken windows and so on. 
• Landlords pay interest on mortgage loans for the rental property, on loans taken for paying the costs of improvements to the rental property, and on open balances of credit cards that are used for maintaining the rental property.  The expenses of these interests (regardless of their rates) are all deductible from the landlords’ total income.  So, his or her income taxes are paid at lower rates.  Since expenses for interests are often extremely high, deductions for interest are also among the highest deduction landlords can claim.  
• Landlords are permitted to deduct their expenses for automotive traveling on any business related to their rental property.  These expenses refer to those sustained during driving to and from the location — gas as well as the vehicle’s upkeep and repair.  Under certain circumstances; car rentals, airfare and expenses on public transportation (buses, trains, trolleys, subways, ferries, etc.) may be considered legitimate business deductions for tax purposes.