February 4, 2023

Marketing Must Haves for Property Management Marketers In 2023

It’s hard to believe that we’re already well into 2023! As a property management company (PMC), it’s essential to ensure you’re making the most out of your localized marketing efforts this year. PMCs face the unique challenge of marketing for the corporate company while also finding ways to improve marketing efforts across each property. This blog can help you achieve both! While your PMC can implement marketing tactics covered at the corporate level, we share how local properties can apply them to their localized marketing efforts. Localized marketing is the process of creating and implementing a marketing strategy that is distributed at the local level and is a must for all PMCs. Let’s get started!

1. Evaluate Your Marketing Tech Stack

One of the first things your PMC should do when improving your strategy is assess your current marketing technology (MarTech) stack. Many property management marketers use the same MarTech year after year without considering new tools that might be a better fit. For instance, is your PMC using multiple tools to manage different aspects of your marketing efforts — one for social media, another for reviews, etc.? Are you currently able to scale your marketing efforts across properties? What about the capability to include personalization? These are all questions to consider. When evaluating their own MarTech stack and searching for others, property management marketers often find superior options. Some platforms allow you to manage multiple components of your marketing strategy, all within a single tool. Consolidation reduces the time your local teams spend learning numerous platforms and can often save you money! While you may be hesitant to learn new tools or platforms, the benefits will far outweigh any time and effort it takes to make the switch. Later in this blog, we’ll share why SOCi might be the best fit for your PMC’s localized marketing needs.

2. Personalization is Key

If your PMC’s properties don’t provide a personalized experience for each potential resident, you’ll miss out on potential leases. As humans, we all appreciate personalization. If a company goes out of its way to make you feel like an individual rather than just a way to make money, we notice. Below are a few ways your PMC can incorporate personalizations into its localized marketing strategy.

Respond to Reviews

Responding to reviews is one of the most effective ways to personalize the customer journey. Whether a resident is leaving a review when moving out of a local property or someone is sharing their experience after an apartment tour, responding is critical. While responding to 100 percent of reviews left is the goal, properties should focus on negative reviews first. When responding to reviews, each property should respond in a personalized and timely manner. For instance, address the reviewer by name and acknowledge the content in the review. According to J Turner Research, 70 percent of prospective residents decided to visit a property with a higher online reputation. Responding to reviews will improve your properties’ brand reputation. For a more in-depth look at what to consider when responding to reviews, download our Online Reputation Management Guide for Property Management Companies.

Share local social tactics

Localized content performs 12x better than content that is not considered localized. As a PMC, each of your properties should have its own social media presence and share content relevant to its location and target audience. If your local property managers are struggling with what to post, consider these types of content:

Special promotions or discounts happening at your property

Positive customer reviews from residents

Pictures of live or virtual events happening at your property
- For example, if you hosted a wine-tasting event, share those images on your local social media accounts.

Current events that are happening in your local area
- Is there a snowstorm headed your way? Did your city's sports team win a big game? These are things you can incorporate into your local social content.

Ways your local property is giving back to the community
- If you conduct an annual food drive for your local community or collect coats for kids during winter, highlight these events on your local social channels.

While managing local social content is no easy task, it's well worth it. Our Localized Social Content Guide for Student Housing, Senior Living, and Multifamily provides a more detailed look at what it takes to execute a comprehensive local social strategy.

Make optimizations based on feedback

While review response and local social are great ways to personalize a resident’s experience with your property, it’s essential that you make optimizations based on feedback. If several current residents have expressed frustration over the response time of your maintenance staff, this is something you need to address. Similarly, if prospects have difficulty reaching your leasing office, consider ways to improve availability. Residents want to know that your properties hear them, and making changes based on direct feedback does this. It’s also important to let residents know when you’ve made updates via email and by responding to reviews that note the same issue.

3. Leverage Chatbots Across Properties

Chatbots are a large area of opportunity for PMCs. If your PMC is already leveraging chatbots, are you using them to their fullest potential? Chatbots allow current and potential residents to ask questions about local properties, leave feedback about their experience, and receive answers to frequently asked questions without waiting for a response or picking up the phone. Chatbots also save your property managers time that they would have spent communicating with residents. With some of their time freed up, your property management marketers could focus on other essential marketing efforts we’ve covered in this blog. If you're still not convinced of the benefits of chatbots, they can also help your local properties:

Provide insight into areas of opportunity at your property
Collect new leads through calls-to-action and surveys
Retarget potential residents discovered through the chatbot

While chatbots are a must-have in 2023, your PMC needs to find a solution that properties can use across locations. Similarly, finding a chatbot solution that allows for personalization is critical. That's where SOCi SmartBot comes in.

A white hand holding an iPhone with a facebook post and message. A second iPhone screen showing a conversation on SOCi's SmartBot

SOCi SmartBot is the first of its kind. This Facebook, Google, and SMS Messaging chatbot delivers localized, proactive responses to commonly asked questions. It can also drive calls-to-action, including phone calls, website clicks, appointment setting, and more!

4. Market to Work From Home Audiences

The COVID-19 pandemic reshaped the way many Americans work. As of early 2022, roughly six in ten U.S. workers said they could do their job from home. Additional statistics on remote workers reveal that more than 4.7 million U.S. workers work remotely at least half of the workweek. This data indicates that many prospective residents will consider the ability to work from home when looking at apartments. With that in mind, local properties must address this market and share how their facility is conducive to the work-from-home lifestyle. For instance, do your properties have a business center where those living in smaller apartments can go to work? Can residents choose from multiple internet providers? Are local trails and restaurants nearby that those working from home can walk to during a lunch break? Your properties should address these questions in your marketing efforts. If a potential resident who works from home is choosing between two similar properties and one highlights all of its benefits for remote workers, which one do you think they’ll choose?

5. Optimize the Resident Journey

Lastly, your PMC should focus on consistently improving the resident journey.What is a resident’s experience from when they find your property online to when they sign a lease? After they sign a lease, are they forgotten about, or do you continue to nurture them, so they resign? While optimizing the resident journey could be an entire blog itself, these are the most important practices to keep in mind:

When a resident finds your property in local search results, they should be able to gather relevant and updated information about the property.

Make it easy for prospective residents to book an apartment tour and for current residents to make maintenance requests.

Provide an option for online virtual apartment tours. Forty-one percent of millennials now prefer high-quality 3D virtual tours of rental properties.

Make the move-in process seamless. From signing a lease to getting the keys to move-in day logistics, management should communicate regularly.

If renters searching for their next property or current residents feel taken care of, they'll remember when it comes time to sign or resign a lease.

Crush Your Marketing Goals in 2023 and Beyond

While your property managers are already busy keeping renters happy and finding new renters, localized marketing shouldn’t be on the back burner. Now that you know which marketing tactics are essential, some of the work is complete! It’s time to execute. With numerous property locations, PMCs often hesitate to implement a full-blown localized marketing plan, but SOCi is here to help. As mentioned previously, analyzing and updating your MarTech stack is crucial. If you haven’t considered SOCi, you’re missing out! SOCi has all of the tools your PMC needs to create a winning localized marketing strategy all under one login. It is the only centralized platform built for property management marketers. From local social to reputation management to chatbots and beyond, SOCi has you covered.

image of multiple devices showing the SOCi platform