Property Management Marketing: Taking Inbound Online

Growing your property management business requires a consistent stream of new leads. You never know which leads will turn into long-term client relationships, but you can't afford to pause your property management marketing strategies if growth is your mindset. 

Knowing where to begin when you are trying to find and convert more owner leads can be a daunting task. There are multiple methods you can lean on to increase your leads and secure more clients. However, if you focus on cold-calling or networking events, you won't find the leads you need to grow or match your efforts—especially if social distancing keeps you from meeting new people face-to-face.

It is fundamental to your success to understand how to utilize various marketing methods and put them into action when developing your marketing campaigns. If you're not already heavily invested in inbound marketing as a primary component of your marketing strategy, you are losing a significant number of new potential clients.

Geekly Media is the expert when it comes to making inbound marketing work for property managers. Check out this insight to help you navigate these complicated waters so that you can get your property management marketing plan on the path to victory!

Why You Need to Embrace Inbound Marketing

The term "inbound marketing" is thrown around quite a bit these days. That's because it has become an integral part of success through your property management marketing strategies. Inbound marketing must be at the core of the way you market, even if you also use paid advertising or other advertising methods.

What Is It?

So, what is inbound marketing? It's a marketing method used to introduce potential new clients to a service or product—without chasing them down. This can include SEO keyword optimization, social media channels, and other various online marketing methods. 

The "inbound" part means that your strategy brings visitors and new leads to you. Other "outbound" strategies, like paid ads or calls, mean that you are going out to find new leads—and hoping they want to hear from you. Outbound strategies reach out versus inbound strategies that draw in. 

Why Property Managers Must Embrace It

It's a lot of work to chase after leads continually. When you connect with someone using outbound approaches, you have to persuade them to take your call or connect, learn more about you, and hopefully give you a chance to talk more about working together. 

Inbound marketing removes a lot of the unproductive work to bring new leads to your door. Your inbound marketing plan starts with having an excellent Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategy in place. These strategies help people find you and willingly show up on your website or in your inbox asking you to tell you more about yourself! 

Inbound Delivers More Qualified Leads

Inbound marketing leads are often more "qualified" than outbound leads because they already need your services. They came looking for you—and it's easier to do your job and sell yourself to someone who already thinks they need (and want) your property management services. 

They Need Help To Get There

However, qualified inbound leads won't stumble onto your website without some help. For possible new owners to reach out to you when they are looking for property managers, you must appear in the top Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). If your site or content shows up beyond the first couple of pages, new leads are unlikely to get to you before finding another property manager who can meet their needs.

Your SEO strategy helps the qualified leads you want to "stumble" onto your website when searching for the answers they need to their DIY landlord questions! When your content answers common questions queried by property owners looking for residential property management, you'll consistently be among the top search results—and generating more excellent leads! 

Google prioritizes pages that begin with words like who, what, how, why, where, which, and is. This is because search engines like Google deliver answers to what people type into the search box, which is most often in the form of a question. Search engines set up their algorithms to keep visitors happy! Make sure your content answers questions to help drive more qualified leads to your site.

That's the essence of inbound marketing!

Invest in "Mobile-Friendly" Platforms to Broaden Your Audience

The percentage of internet use via mobile devices increases every year. Smartphones make it incredibly easy to do a quick search on the fly without having to wait until you get to a computer to get online. 

• If your website and online content aren't mobile-friendly, you're losing business! Your SEO and inbound property marketing strategies aren't working for you at full capacity if your content loses impact if someone finds your website on their phone or tablet.
• Invest in mobile-friendly platforms like HubSpot, and let Geekly Media help your website translate seamlessly—no matter how your web traffic finds you online. We can also make sure your copy and graphics read well from a laptop to a phone or a tablet.  

Remember also: there are plenty of leads that come in from third-party mobile apps these days. This could include traffic from an online review resource, such as Google or Yelp. If your website is lacking in mobile adaptation, you could lose a plentiful source of leads.

Give Owners Multiple Contact Options

Consider the advantage of the many dynamic means of communication available today. Technology has expanded people's ability to connect! Offering multiple contact options makes it far easier for new leads to contact you. 

How many of these communication channels do you make available for your clients and new leads? If you're missing any, consider adding more ways to communicate to boost the effectiveness of your property management marketing efforts. 

Text

Many people prefer to send a quick text message these days versus getting on the phone. Not only is it more efficient, but it is more convenient. Texting doesn't require you to be in a place where you can pick up the phone and can respond at your convenience. 

Offering a text option helps leads reach out while they're "in the moment" of the content on your site that answers their question—and it doesn't require you to respond right away if you're tied up with another task. Just make sure you don't forget to respond to a text from a new lead later!

Chatbots

These are not only an excellent way for your customers to feel immediately connected; they are also one of the latest components of successful workflow automation. Chatbots have tremendous potential to create a personalized experience for new leads and engage them immediately to begin a successful relationship.

Connect Your Chatbot to Your Knowledge Base

Your chatbox could be smarter than you think! With HubSpot technology, your chatbox can connect directly to your knowledge base for a seamless conversation with website visitors.

As leads type questions into the chatbox, it connects them with articles or FAQs that answer their questions from your expertly-crafted content! If you currently use a chatbot, but you haven't taken advantage of a feature, it's a very cool tool that can delight new leads (and current customers) when interacting with your website. 

It's just another way to boost the effectiveness of your property management marketing inbound strategy! 

Form Submissions

Providing forms throughout your website is a productive way for customers to reach out, and it helps you collect new contact information without having to beg for it! New leads answer a few questions, hit submit, and you can reply while being prepared to answer their questions in advance.

Traditional Methods

No matter how much technology evolves, there will still be people who prefer "old school" methods of contact. Making it easy for an owner to pick up a phone or send a quick email is still a great way to generate new leads. Make sure you don't forget about manning the phone or checking your email to catch these valuable leads!

Keep up With Social Media

There are plenty of ways to perfect your social media presence, including letting the Geekly Media team help you maintain your brand and social presence through consistent social media activity. 

Creating a posting schedule helps ensure that your content stays up-to-date and that your audience hears from you regularly. With social media, out of sight often means out of mind. Including social media in your inbound marketing strategy helps engage your audience and position you as the property management experts in your market.  

Social media best practices include:

• Being proactive with new content on a schedule
• Being reactive to any comments left on the content you post  
• Ensuring your audience feels heard and acknowledged 
• Holding contests to generate interest in your property management business

Responding to comments (carefully) is also a way to show your clients you're actively involved in your media accounts. When running a contest, note that it is against Facebook policy, for example, to ask anybody to "share" a post as a method of entry. Follow the rules to stay active and engaged!

Cultivate Your Property Management Website

When is the last time you updated your website? Your website is one of the most potent property management marketing and lead generation tools that you have available to you. It is crucial to ensure that your website is operating at peak performance. 

This means including keywords that will help you rank highly on search engines (for SEO best practices), making sure all of the links work, and producing fresh content to keep visitors coming back for more. It's also essential to have several ways for people to reach you via your website (see tip #3).

Let Geekly Media Make You An Inbound Pro!

We realize a lot of this information can be overwhelming! Inbound can be challenging to grasp and implement when your primary job is managing properties—and that's okay Geekly Media is here to help. 

Inbound marketing for property management is just one of our specialties. You delight your clients with excellent property management and let our team make you an inbound property management marketing pro! One of the most crucial ways you can tap into inbound from the start and begin maximizing its momentum is through your website.

Updated and republished 7/13/2020.