The more people that see your listings out there, the faster you can fill those vacant units. It’s pretty simple, more traffic to your property listings increases your pool of potential tenants and the probability of getting a good tenant. If you are a property manager looking for ways to drive more traffic to your apartment listings, check out the following tips.
Come Up With High-Quality Listings
You have to create high-quality listings if you want more traffic- there is no shortcut. You can do this by taking pictures of the apartment at their best light and creating accurate and very detailed descriptions of the amenities as well as the entire property. Accompany the photos with such descriptions in your listings is always a good idea. You need this much to turn the high traffic into good tenants. Though the initial goal of creating high-quality listings is to generate more traffic, you will need to convert this traffic to paying tenants is a short period to protect the company’s bottom line.
Start Sharing Your Property Listings on Social Media
Not many property managers are using social media to drive traffic to their listings despite the fact that social media sites have proven to be a very useful tool to do this. Sharing your property listings on social media is a good way of increasing traffic and attracting good tenants at the same time. Use Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter to advertise your vacant units and see the difference. In each post, give a description is short, yet compelling coupled with a high-quality picture of the property.
Creating the initial social posts for your property may take time, but as time goes by, you will be able to reuse the descriptions and become more efficient. You can even ask existing renters to share your apartment listings on their social media and successfully market on your behalf.
When A Tenant Shares Your Property Listing, Reward Them
You want increased traffic in your listings, sure some of your renters would just be fine sharing your posts on social media for free, but it would be much better if they got something in return. Use random giveaways to reward the tenants; you can award a pair of movie tickets or a gift certificate for every resident that shares an apartment listing on social media and tags you in it. Recruiting your residents to help improve social media penetration is an effective creative marketing strategy.
Consider Online Advertising and Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Pay per click or PPC is a cheap, uncomplicated, yet effective method of increasing traffic to your property listings. The best thing about PPC is that you only get to pay when a user scrolls through your listing. If you have niches that make your property stand out, don’t forget to include it. For instance, if you have short-term rentals, allow pets or anything else that may attract potential tenants. Select keywords that comprise of your town or city such as ‘2BR apartment’, ‘townhome for rent’, ‘studio apartment,’ and so on. The number of keywords you can use will depend on your budget. Search engine optimization or SEO allow you to target people who are actively looking for rental properties directly.
Create a Community Blog for Your Apartment Residents
Blogs can be one of the most effective creative marketing strategies a property manager can use to increase traffic. Many property managers in Lincolnwood don’t want to create a blog because they think it’s time-consuming, but it doesn’t have to be. Even posting once a week is enough to accomplish a blog’s intended purpose. You can use the blog to advertise vacant units, increase open listings as well as placement in search results for your properties and share helpful information with current residents.
Take Advantage of Real Estate Aggregator Sites
The two most popular real estate aggregator sites are Zillow and Trulia. Prospective renters in many towns and cities use these sites to scout for potential apartments or homes. This can be an excellent tool for property managers, and you can even use these sites for free if your complex has less than 50 units. If your complex has more than 50 units, you will have to pay to be listed on Zillow or Trulia, but it’s worth it. Real estate aggregator sites are among the best creative marketing strategies to maximize applicant traffic to increase tenant applications and the views of your property listings.
Make Sure That Your Website Is Mobile Friendly
Most internet users use mobile phones to browse through their favorite sites. If they happen to be prospective renters and come across one of your shared posts containing a link to your website, they might want to follow the link to the website and check out available properties. It is, therefore, vital to ensure that your site is mobile friendly to avoid locking out potential tenants. Most internet users will just close the page if it loads slowly or if it’s not adjusted to fit the screen size of a smartphone.
If you are a property management company in Lincolnwood, consider using creative marketing ideas to maximize applicant traffic to your property listings. That is if you want to keep the time between paying tenants in your property to a bare minimum and avoid putting your cash flow at risk.