RentShout Increases Customer Leads

RentShout is excited to announce that we have expanded distribution of our members’ rental listings to the HomeTownRent network of local sites. With the addition of HomeTownRent, we now advertise rentals automatically on over 65 sites, portals, and directories.  Not to mention we also automatically create videos for each rental listing and automatically post them to YouTube and other popular video portals.

Here at RentShout we aim to give property managers a large range of exposure by advertising your listings on top rental directories, video portals and social networks.  We are continually on the lookout for new places we can to advertise your rentals and feel HomeTownRent is a great extension to our network.

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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.

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!

Find Homes For Rent On RentShout

RentShout has launched our own rental search directory.  This rental directory showcases our members’ rental listings along with rental listings pulled from other online sources.  The rental directory allows renters to easily narrow down their search by property type, location and other criteria such as price , beds and baths.  The region specific areas of the directory will showcase a Google map and local area information.  Check it out and let us know what you think.

Nielsen Company’s Multi-Housing News Covers RentShout

Having just launched our site two weeks ago, we’re thrilled to have been covered by The Nielsen Company’s Multi-Housing News division. Their mission statement is “to provide the multi-housing industry with the timeliest, most in-depth and objective news and analysis of the emerging trends that are shaping the multifamily housing industry,” and we’re so glad that RentShout has been included in such a great online publication.

If you visit their homepage today, you just might see us there, otherwise, you can read the full story here anytime. We’d like to extend a special thanks to Erika Schnitzer, Associate Editor for MHN Online, for a great interview and write-up!