Finding tenants quickly in a rental market is imperative for a landlord. When income generated on a property depends on having a trustworthy tenant filling the vacancy it’s important to know how to market your property. Digital marketing has become not only a popular avenue for landlords listing their properties but also a way to reach the most people and therefore find tenants quickly.
- Digital marketing is any form of marketing services or products that utilize an electronic device.
- It generates leads and reduce rental vacancies
- Many types of digital marketing are free or low cost for the landlord
The days of newspaper ads and “For Rent” signs are still tried and true. However, the best way to get your message to a large variety of readers is through free online listings. More than 90% of apartment searches begin online. Renters want to see the exact details of a property along with the layout before making an appointment or viewing it in person.
Create your own website
Although the easiest way to have a website made is to hire someone to do it for you, it is possible to create one for yourself for free. Many websites offer user friendly options that require no budget and no experience from the builder. Building yourself a website allows you to have a one stop shop where renters can see you as a brand and get a look at all your listings.
Integrating SEO best practices and optimizing your site for mobile users will generate plenty of traffic to get that listing rented quickly. Research shows that 57 percent of mobile users will abandon your website if it takes more than 3 seconds to load. Having a site that is mobile friendly and includes beautiful, attractive and thorough listings is key. Consider these customizations on your websites to generate more viewers:
- Photos
- Forms
- Videos
- Reviews
- 3D walk-thrus
- Interactive media
- Real time mapping
- Utilize social media
Expand Your Reach in the Social Media World
Now that your website is up and running it’s time to advertise to your community. This can be done for free too when utilizing social media. Of all the various social media networks, each appeal to a different demographic. It’s important to utilize each one appropriately.
Craigslist dominates as a resource for both tenants and landlords and is a great free resource for generating leads. Placing an ad for your property reaches an audience surrounding the geographic region of the listing. Highlight the basic information plus any features that might make the property more desirable. You can also include a few pictures and link to the more informative listing on your own website.
Set up a branded YouTube channel and increase online conversion rates by providing virtual tours to prospective tenants. This is a good channel for generating inbound traffic or leads to your site. “Videos are important to renters, with 90 percent of renters saying they watch a video as part of the apartment search.”
Creating a Facebook page for your listings will allow you to post to local Facebook groups and share the listing over and over again. Videos rank higher than photos in recent algorithm updates by Facebook so this is a great place to upload your home tour video.
Other social media sites to connect to your property listings/brand:
- Snapchat
- Quora
Take Advantage of Property Listing Syndication
Instead of manually listing your property site by site, you can find software designed for property management that includes automated rental listing syndication. Just create one marketing profile and the rental ad goes out to all the top sites automatically. Automated listing syndication is the way to go, increasing exposure and reducing vacancy rates.
Here’s a list of some popular (and free!) property listing sites that also syndicate:
- Realtor.com
- Zumper
- Apartment Finder
- Homes.com
- Rent.com
- Zillow Rental Manager
- Cozy
Whether you’re a landlord with one rental property or many, multiple condo units or single family home(s) these easy and free tips in digital marketing will guarantee at least a few things. First of all, your vacancy rates will decrease. Secondly, you’ll find yourself with quality and dependable tenants. And last, the demand for your property will go up with all the exposure you have created for yourself.
Thanks for the article Jackson. I like the idea of videos/3d tours. Do you have any suggestions on those and how to go about integrating them into a Rentec website? It seems you are advocating to go outside when we really like using the pre-built dynamic website from Rentec…very simple. Looking forward to your response.
Hi Brian!
You could incorporate videos and 3D tours via a social media campaign to promote your business and properties. It’s free to upload videos to YouTube or Vimeo, and then share them on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and Google+. You can also link to your YouTube videos from your Rentec Direct website and marketing pages. Some social media sites also have their own video hosting capabilities to share short videos directly with your network.
Here’s a look at some video marketing ideas for real estate professionals like yourself: https://www.paradym.com/blog/15-essential-marketing-videos-every-real-estate-agent-create/
Brian,
Glad you enjoyed the article! Thank you for your feedback. Videos are definitely a beneficial addition that I think more people should utilize. And great question. As for integrating them, Kaycee offers some great advice. To build off of that, the easiest way I think is to upload your video to YouTube. They offer an embedded link that you can copy and paste onto the website editor, which will allow you to add the video to a page on your Rentec site. I hope that helps!