How to Use the Internet to Attract More Owners & Tenants, Without Increasing Your Staff

Albert Oaten, AppFolio

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Rental Trends

Multifamily vacancy continued creeping upward to 5.03%. Vacancy a year ago was 3.46%... Apartment vacancy is on the rise, and our report, which polls select apartment complexes, may be slow to reflect this trend

Metro Family Report, Second Quarter, 2009Norris, Beggs, and Simpson

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It is a Great Time to be a Property Manager

Great opportunity to acquire more properties and grow your portfolio, but…

   …it’s hard to do without growing your staff

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Today’s Focus: Use the Internet to attract and work with your customers

1. Internet marketing makes you more money 3 Best Practices to make your website effective with examples

2. Build it and they will come? Not really…How to get started so that your website / business will be found

3. Find more efficiency with web-based applications Move a few routine tasks online

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Three things you can do when you get back to your office

Website Design

Promote Your Website

Make Your Website Work For You

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Who are your customers?

Who are you talking to?

What are the top 2-3 things that matter to them? 

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Start with your customers: What do they care about?

Owners Tenants

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Simpler is Better

People are impatient• Want to find the information quickly• Scan the page looking for clues

Website must be useful and usableYour customers need to first find the useful information

Design for the Brain's strengths: High speed problem solving• Clear headings and labels• Clear hyperlinks• Clearly differentiating form controls, such as buttons and input fields• Highlighting key words or phrases in text

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Best Practice #1: Design and write for your customers

Structure of Site – Speak to each customer individually •Simple navigation: Section for owners and tenants•Know what they care about and write about it•Every element in your site has a purpose

OWNERS… Trust you with their investments You are professional & knowledgeableWant regular updates You deliver consistent, clear communicationsWant units filled You aggressively market properties

TENANTS… Want to quickly find properties Make the postings easy to findWant to easily contact you Make it easyWant discounted services Find some to offer

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Best Practice #2: Less is More – 2 Things to Keep it Simple

Bold Logos + Few Choices• Simple navigation – offer only a few choices• Brand your company with your logo

Simple Text + Cohesive Color Scheme• Get to the point in as few words as possible• Use a simple color scheme consistently that will make a

lasting impression (www.colourlovers.com)

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Best Practice #2: What does it look like in action?

www.northpacificpropertymanagement.com/

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Promote Your Site: 3 Step Action Plan

1. List your site on local (free) search directories

2. Get started with Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

3. Investigate online networking

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Promote Your Site: 5 Free Places tolist your site

1) List on Google LocalGreat way to get your business to show up on Google searches (http://www.google.com/local/add/businessCenter)

2) List on Windows Live Search LocalLocal listings, categorized by business type (maps.live.com/localsearch)

3) Yahoo LocalBusiness listings & community review site (local.yahoo.com)

4) Yellowpages.com (Free?)Great brand recognition (YellowPages.com)

5) CraigslistPromote your services when you post your vacancies (Craigslist.com)

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Promote Your Site:  Top 5 SEO Things to DoBut we only have time for 2 today…

1) Define Search Words Your Audience Uses What will Owners look for?  

”Portland Property Management” “Lake Oswego Property Management”

What will Tenants look for? “Portland houses for rent” “Beaverton rentals” “School District XYZ + rentals”

2) Use Keywords Throughout the Website Focus: Use only 1 or 2 keyword groups per page and write naturally –Rental

Property Marketing Best Places: Headers, meta description, page title, url, etc.

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Best Practice #3: Continue Your Marketing –Do you want to hear from Owners? Tenants?

2 Ideas to Continue Marketing To Owners1. Email regular, clear owner

statements2. Start a quarterly newsletter

and post to your website

2 Ideas to Continue Marketing To Tenants– Put resources online –

maintenance requests, lease agreements

– Start a quarterly newsletter and post to your website

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Best Practice #3: Continue Your Marketing –Is a newsletter a waste of time?

Bank and REO Newsletter: What could you say?• Rental Rates and Trends to Share with Buyers• Reiterate Unique Services• Bridge between them and investors• Referrals

Tenants Newsletter: What could you say? Valuable offers that save them money and make you money

•Bulk rates for house cleaning services – coupon for discount on the first one•Local restaurant offers with coupons – charge the restaurants to advertise•Reiterate Unique Services•Referrals

Proactive updates on events

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Best Practice #3: Continue Your Marketing –Is a newsletter a waste of time?

Owners Newsletter: What could you say?• Sales Trends• Rental Rates and Trends• Reiterate Service Benefits• Differentiated Services• Referrals

Real Estate Agent Newsletter: What could you say? Valuable offers that save them money and make you money

•Rental Rates and Trends to Share with Prospective Buyers•Reiterate Unique Services•Referral Fees for Agents•Refer Listing Business to Agents

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Online Networking: What’s a TWEET?

These are chances for you to network ’online’ with your peers. Grow your online presence and market your business.

How many are on LinkedIn?

How many have used Twitter?

How many are on Facebook?

Have you used Active Rain?

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Continue to take advantage of web-based opportunities

Integrate routine tasks / requests to your website• Set-up an online maintenance request

form….demo

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Other things you can move online….

Automate vacancy postings (?)

Share showing calendars, post on website

What are other ideas ? (from the audience)

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Today’s Focus – Areas we covered

1. Internet marketing makes you more money 3 Best Practices to make your website effective with examples

2. Build it and they will come? Not really…How to get started so that your website / business will be found

3. Find more efficiency with web-based applications Move a few routine tasks online

Confidential ©2008

Three things you can do when you get back to your office – Get started!

Create headings and anchor text for top 2-3 important items for Owners and Tenants

List your website in at least two local directories, Craigslist

Newsletters and Maintenance Orders