Gaining long-term tenants is the goal of every landlord to create a steady return from their real estate investment. But before that, you need to find the right renters to reside in your rental unit. If you want to land high-quality tenants, you must market your property effectively so you can attract a sizeable pool of potential renters.
However, some mistakes are often committed by property owners during the marketing process. But once you’re familiar with how to resolve these errors, you’ll be back on track to attracting the best tenants for your rental space.
How Important is Rental Property Marketing?
Prospective tenants won’t know of your vacant rentals without effective marketing in place. Without tenants, you aren’t able to collect rental income or maximize your ROI. What’s more, with busy competition drawing in residents to their rentals, you need to step up your rental marketing game. The more effective your marketing plan is, the faster you can land a qualified tenant.
What are the Top Rental Property Marketing Mistakes?
Here are some of the common mistakes landlords and real estate investors make when marketing their rental units:
Absence of Strategy
Have you thought about the advertising angle you’re going to use for your rental home? without a clear plan, you’ll find it difficult to put together listings and draw in tenants.
Start by identifying your property’s unique and desirable features and your target tenant base. To be successful in advertising your Kansas City rental, you must figure out the marketing techniques and strategies that speak to your desired tenants.
Targeting the Wrong Demographics
As previously mentioned, you must know your target market. For marketing to be effective, it must be specific. If you aim for a general audience, you can end up wasting your energy since the message is too broad and can apply to anyone. To prevent this from happening, it’s recommended to perform marketing research so you have an idea of which tenant demographic is attracted to your property and its location.
Changing Marketing Tools Frequently
When it comes to marketing tools, there are various kinds available. They can be effective and save you a lot of time due to automation. Some can even make your strategies more focused. However, using too many tools all at once is not only costly but could also make marketing more complicated than it should be. Evaluate each tool and use it with intention. This saves you time, money, and effort.
Depending on a Single Platform or Marketing Technique
Plenty of online and offline marketing channels are effective such as social media, classified ads, online listing sites, and even handing out flyers at community events. But you shouldn’t limit yourself to using a single. It’s a good idea to use a combination of marketing tactics so you can maximize the reach of listings.
Thinking You Can Do it All Alone
Marketing a rental can be overwhelming especially for new landlords who lack experience. If you choose to do everything on your own there’s a greater potential for mistakes.
It’s better to have a dedicated team of professionals working with you so your marketing campaign is successful. You want people who can write ad copy, take quality photos and track the ads performance for you. You can also decide to hire a property management company that has a solid track record in the industry and is capable of launching a marketing program for your specific rental.
Sticking with Low-Quality Pictures
Since visual plays a huge role in marketing a rental unit, it’s a must to showcase attractive photos of your property. We are naturally drawn to beautiful shots and respond positively to them.
People also tend to scroll through many online listings before getting in touch with the landlord to request a property showing. If your images are less than stellar or appear blurred and fail to engage viewers then they won’t merit a second glance from potential tenants.
It’s worth hiring the services of an experienced photographer who can highlight the best features of your rental home through photos. Doing so can also capture more leads.
Forgetting to Include a Call to Action (CTA)
No matter how impressive your property is, you still need to place strong calls to action in your ads and property listings. People need to be motivated or driven to fill out an application form.
Nudging your target market with a specific prompt inspires them to reach out and make inquiries or schedule a property tour with you.
Ignoring the Need to Make Adjustments
Once you’ve marketed your rental unit, you should take notes of the responses. If there’s no sign of interest, maybe it’s time to reassess your marketing method instead of continuing to run the ads without pause. Change your strategy until you score results. You can switch photos, use another marketing platform and tool, or find a better marketing technique.
Failing to Decipher the Data
While marketing your rental, you’ll receive plenty of information. Check the statistics of viewership and the quantity and quality of leads, and consider which marketing tactic garnered higher engagement. If you study the data, you can easily find out which method works in your favor.
Depending on the Generic Copy
It’s easy to spot mediocre marketing ads when you see the same words and phrases popping up over and over. Some of these are:
- Has great potential
- Hidden gem
- World-class
- Breathtaking
- Nice
- Cozy
- Unique
If you’re tired of reading the same texts then avoid using cliches when crafting property listings. You want your marketing ad copy to stands out from the rest so strive for originality.
Bottom Line
There you have it, some common marketing mistakes to avoid. To steer clear of these typical marketing mistakes, you can partner with a trusted property management company such as Young Management.
We can provide strategic rental marketing and other crucial services such as tenant screening, property maintenance and repair, financial reporting, rent collection, drafting of leasing agreements, and more. Contact us today!