If you don’t know this by now, marketing should always be top of mind for the successful property manager. While at one time, marketing was thought to be something that required a lot of money to be effective, times have changed. There are now a whole lot of resources and tools at your disposal, and many of them are free.
Our top 8 must-have free marketing tools for property managers are as follows:
- WordPress. There are several Content Management Site (CMS) platforms out there, including Drupal and Joomla, but WordPress just happens to be our favorite. You can sign up for an account, install a free theme (included), plugin your content, images and contact information, and you are good to go. Of course, if you’re not familiar with WordPress, it may not be best to test your skill with your property’s site. You can hire a pro on Guru.com relatively cheap and be up and running in no time. Another option is the drag and drop site, Wix.com.
- Twitter. Nowhere else can you reach such a wide audience in 140 characters or less. Simply sign up for an account, spend some time customizing your profile, and then start a follow campaign. You do this by identifying businesses or brands in your industry, already established on Twitter. Take MHN, for example. You follow them and then follow some of their followers. They will more than likely follow you back. Make sure to target your local chamber, BBB, SBA, and the like. Use hashtags in your posts that are local-friendly, such as the city and property name.
- Instagram. Another very powerful social media tool, Instagram allows you to showcase some of the more “backstage” occurrences. This is where you might post pics of the staff, event involvement, tenant highlights, and the like. Connect to Facebook so posts are automatically posted in both places.
- YouTube. You must have a YouTube channel if you have a multifamily property. The likelihood that a prospective tenant is going to first look for a virtual tour of your property and units is high, so make sure it’s easy for them to do so. Simply sign up for an account, create a channel, grab your cell phone or video camera, and shoot.
- Facebook. This social network is popular; however, small businesses are having a hard time reaching audiences if they aren’t paying in advertising for content posts. So, while Facebook is a place where you should at least have a business page that is updated regularly, it isn’t likely this will be the platform where you’ll have a lot of interaction with prospects.
- 1-2-3 Press. This is only one example of the many available free press sites on the web. Simply create your newsroom, identify something newsworthy (volunteer opportunity, property improvements), write the press, and upload it using city and property name as tags. We recommend you search for a press release how-to or template is this is your first time writing one.
- MailChimp. If you have fewer than 2,000 recipients a month, you can use a service like MailChimp to send up to 12,000 emails every month. The best thing about MailChimp is that you have access to its full library of awesome and fully-customizable templates, in addition to an analytics dashboard that shows you just how well your communications perform.
- Volunteering. There’s little out there in terms of positive and free publicity than that which is achieved through volunteering. Get your staff and/or tenants together to work at the local food pantry, Habitat for Humanity, or other local charity. The face and brand exposure time you’ll receive is immeasurable in terms of marketing.
Can we help you get the most from your marketing efforts? Contact the professionals at Class A Management today to learn more. Call us at 817-295-5959 or send us an email to info@classamanagement.com.