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.

Rental Property Advertising Coverage Increased

With the vast majority of renters searching multiple websites for a place to live, property managers need to advertise their rentals in as many different places online as possible. That’s why we syndicate listings to multiple rental sites across the web; it delivers the most effective results and saves time by taking the manual site posting out of the equation. We’re proud to announce that we’ve just added two more sites, Apartment Hunterz and Cazoodle, to further expand the reach of each rental listed with us.

Our team at RentShout will continue to seek out new partnerships with high-quality sites in order to deliver the best and broadest online exposure for rental listings. Find out more about our new syndication partners from their websites, or check out our social media release. Best wishes for your online rental advertising success!

RentShout Launched!

After much hard work and preparation, RentShout was launched on May 15, 2009! We created RentShout with the goal of offering effective, easy, and affordable online rental advertising for property managers. The service syndicates (or “shouts”) rental listings across the web to leading rental sites and search directories, attracting maximum visibility to rental ads and increasing leads.

RentShout provides several rental template designs to choose from, allowing property managers to carve out a professional rental advertisement every time. Other benefits include rental virtual tours, ad tracking and lead capture, Craigslist friendly HTML, Click-to-Call, downloadable rental applications, and more. Check out the rental marketing benefits page for full details, or sneak a peek at our Social Media Release.

Our first week has already been so exciting, and we look forward to helping you soon!