How to use social media for your letting agency

Letting agency social Media

As you can read in lots of my blog topics both here and on my how to set up a letting agency blog I talk about social media a lot. There are many forms of social media and if used correctly it can help your letting agency or property management company create awareness with a very small budget.

I looked through a number of my own contacts within my social media circles for a good example of a letting agency who did exactly that and I think an excellent example is Domino Letting in Glasgow.

Introduction to Domino Letting

Established in 2010 by James Callaghan they have quickly risen up the rankings to become a recognised name within the letting and property management industry in Glasgow.

Not being based in Glasgow I can only say this from my knowledge of agents online in Glasgow and lets be real about it online is where its at…isnt it?

Interview with James Callaghan

How long has Domino Lettings been in business?

– Formed in December 2010

How many units are you currently managing?

– Mid level sized agency

You have 7 tenant and landlord pledges which is definitely unique, it certainly personalises the site and makes your agency stand out. Is this something that your landlords and or tenants ever mention to you as the reason they choose to work with you or rent from you?

– Very much so. For landlords they’re not the sole reasons. Our reputation and 3 landlord guarantees lead that. For tenants though they provide a solid wall of assurance in an industry much maligned (sometimes fairly, sometimes not)

Your agency is one of the best agencies I have come across in the UK who uses social media well. Did you always plan on using social media?

– Certainly. I’m actually from a Technology background so very comfortable with new media and the power it holds. We’re also advocates of Inbound Marketing techniques and social media is an integral part of that. Didn’t we meet on such a medium ourselves?!?

What is your favourite social media you platform and why?

– Horses for courses. Twitter for pulse info, Pinterest for aesthetics, Facebook for consumers, G+ for the future. Of all though I would say LinkedIn is the medium that is most suited to my own role of company growth.

Your blogs and video blogs are very informative. Is your strategy in blogging to educate firstly and showcase your knowledge in the industry secondly?

– Exactly that. There’s a lot of mis-information in the Property world so Whiteboard Wednesdays helps scotch myths and empower landlords and tenants to make informed decisions. That this shows us as experts in our field is important, but secondary.

For you in terms of return on investment and that investment may be time as much as money what form of social media or marketing has been the best?

– I’m from a direct sales background so do prefer to see tangible and immediate results. For that reason, LinkedIn seems to yield the best return through my network and groups. However, we have signed business in the last few months with clients commenting that they first saw us on twitter, heard us on the radio, saw a To Let sign and then on an organic google search. All these contact points increased our brand awareness and brought the client to our door.

With regards to your blogging, after how long did you start seeing a return on investment?

– I find blogging to be more ambient rather than a direct lead generator. Clients seeing our blogs acts as one of the reasons they come with us as opposed to being the sole catalyst for an enquiry. It has definitely brought us indirect leads with the client being referred from someone who read a blog/saw a video.

What are your thoughts on Google apps and in particular Google Reviews?

– Controversial! Google reviews are excellent and powerful (in SEO terms) but unpoliced and wrongly weighted (a negative review gives positive SEO lift). We’re not a Google house so don’t use too many of their apps. Google+ may come to be something in the future but it’s hard to find the need for it at present.

Do you request reviews or do you allow landlords and tenants find this themselves?

– We soft request reviews on our email signatures but do ask clients to tell others if they’ve had a good experience with us. Word of mouth generated 74% of our business last year.

If there was one piece of advice that you would offer to another agency what would it be?

– Don’t do it. The market is oversaturated…;-) The advice would be to be the best at what you do and then educate your market with any information you have that would help them to make an informed decision on buying you.

-End of interview

A big thanks to James for his time in sharing his knowledge, experience and success with us. If you are about to frantically go off and set up a Google places account, YouTube or facebook account then you should get knowledge from my blog posts.

February 14, 2014

How letting agents should use Facebook

Many letting agents and property management companies use Facebook but they do not use it correctly in my opinion. In a previous blog post on how letting agents should not use Facebook I discussed this and there reach. So now lets look at how letting agents should use Facebook.

Facebook Reach

To quickly summorise what Facebook reach is ” The total number of unique people who saw your content in their News Feed, ticker or on your Page” , this is really important for your account because lets face it your posting content to be seen.

Here are 5 ways how letting agents should use Facebook

1. Engage with your tenants.

I must admit I love how the guys over at Walton Robinson engage with tenants on their Facebook page. They take a picture of new tenants who collect keys for a property with their company logo and then tag them in the image. They are actually building their audience through their new tenants by asking them to like them. Then once they are tagged their friends congratulate them on the move etc. It appears their main tenant market is students, so by the students friends viewing the image they can see that the agency are student rental friendly.

TOP MARKS

2. Engage with your landlords

There is a couple of ways to do this and there is many companies that are good at it, I haven’t come across many letting agencies that do it great. (if your agency is on Facebook why not like our page and I can check you guys out) One company which I am a fan of is The City Bin Company. They post testimonials on their website which promotes their main message as having excellent customer service. My opinion on this is that it encourages others to send similar positive messages. As more people like the posts the higher the reach of the post will become which feeds to more testimonials etc… Nice trend going 😉 Top Marks

There is also a star rating widget that Facebook allow page visitors to rank. As your page fans or customers rank you with stars you get to show off your star ranking… Aim for 5 Stars.

Testimonials left from landlords on your Facebook page for your letting agency is a great way to build your portfolio.

3. Engage through comedy

Facebook posts which hold an image is much more likely to get a thumbs up in the form of a like, a share or a comment etc and guess what this builds your reach. I must admit the guys over at The City Bin Co do this really well.

This particular post had over 100 shares and 150 likes so you could imagine what the reach is. Any coincidence they have over 7,000 fans.. I think not

4. Ask questions through postings

Rather then just posting a status update and expect a like, post a question and expect a comment. By doing this you are engaging with your fans and opening up the possibility to conversation. Remember its called social media so make sure your social. If you want to bring the possibility of engagement up further include an image and post a question, this really works well once its original. Many property companies and portals post unusual and luxury images with a question to open engagement. Below is an image from the UK’s property portal NeedAProperty facebook page, as you can see this simple question got over 200 likes, over 20 shares and multiple comments.

NB. Its very important to be creative here and looking up “luxury properties” on Google and posting them to your Facebook is not the most creative so don’t expect miracles.

TIP. I would highly recommend that once you are out taking marketing snaps of a property look for something quirky, unique or luxurious at your property. Take a picture, think of a witty comment along with a question and post it. This way you are opening engagement and listing a property.

Remember don’t just list every property you are marketing as your fans wont engage and your post reach will reduce.

5. Engage with other local businesses

If your in property your more then likely dealing with a specific locality, within this locality are a lot of other businesses. A high percentage of this population at some point will either be personally looking or have a close friend who is looking to rent or rent out a property. By engaging with other businesses in your locality your brand will start to be recognized by the community in your locality.

NB. So its quite simple the more of a contributor you are to social media the more you will get from social media.

TIP. Look for other local businesses with a Facebook page, like the page and start engaging.

PLEASE don’t spam as its the quickest way your community will hesitate in connecting with you.

Facebook and social media should be part of your overall marketing strategy. Dont expect to receive a flood of calls over night but do expect if you things correctly to do more business in the near future.

February 12, 2014

How to attract Tenants

How to attract tenants to your letting agency website

Some letting agencies may not be as lucky as our tenant rich cousins in major cities like London , Dublin etc.

How do tenants find your listings

In my previous blog post “using Google keyword planner effectively”, I discussed how letting agencies can drive more landlords to their site. But if you’re an agency that is on the other end of the scale and you are looking at how to attract tenants to your website well then the approach is a little different.

What are the search terms that tenants use

Tenants search terms tend to be a lot simpler as they don’t tend to normally be bothered if they rent from a property management company, letting agency or landlord. They tend to mainly search through the portals and use terms such as “flats to rent in Fulham” . The search results that tenants normally use tend to be dominated by portals and dependent on location and if the search is generic your letting agency website most likely will only ever get listed in the bottom half of the first page of results. This isn’t great as the stats will show 70% of clicks will be on the top half of the page.

How to improve your search return

You can improve your search return by being a little more specific in your listings and to use different sources of marketing. For example if your tenants search term is a little more specific you have a greater chance of returning on the first page. We can target these searches through long tail keywords (In my previous blog I illustrated what long tail keywords were) By listing your property on your own website with a full street or complex address in the page title, keywords etc its more likely to come up in the top half of search results.

Long Tail keywords a more detailed searcher

If your tenant was to look for a property within a specific complex or road within an area you are much more likely to appear on the top half if not 1^st of the search returns.

Example

Lets say a tenant was looking for an apartment on “Manchester Ave”, they may conduct a search such as “Manchester Ave apartment to let”. This gives you a much higher chance and ability to rank on the top half of search results.

How can you rank on top of the search terms

I would first of all recommend to use YouTube when advertising your properties. By recording a quick and informative property overview, uploading it and listing the property on your letting agency YouTube station with the location name in the video title, descriptive text and keywords you are much more likely to get to the top of search returns.

If fact type in “Manchester Ave apartment to let” into Google and you will see how I have done this with a very simple post. Not only does it come to the top half of the page but a video box displays showing that a video is there. As a result the searcher (tenant) will be drawn to the image.

Tenants Database

If attracting tenants to your property management company is what you looking to do then its vital you store the tenants details in a database to use as more suitable properties come on the books. If you want a cutting edge tenants database for free I would be delighted to give you access to one just click here.

February 5, 2014

How to use Google Keyword Planner for your property management company

Google Keyword planner for your property management company

Using Google keyword planner is an excellent way to start off your SEO strategy. Google Keyword planner allows you to see what search terms are being searched for on a monthly average. You can be very specific and break this down by regions such as country and county.

Image credit Michael Wolf

Who is your target market

The very first step in your SEO or SEM plan is to understand who your target market is.

If you are like most letting agents or property managers in any town or city you are most likely struggling to find new landlords and rental properties and have ample tenants on your tenant database. So if this is the case your target market should be landlords. Your content marketing within the site should be aimed at landlords

What are the search terms that landlords use?

Put yourself in the landlord’s shoes and type into Google what you think they would search for in order to employ a letting agency or property management company. As you do this make sure to localise it to a particular market so for example use “property Management London”, this is the type of term that a landlord would normally only search for. These search terms are called long tail keywords search terms and by using these within your site you are more likely to attract your target market.

Examples of Search terms

Below is a graph which illustrates search terms.

Property = 165,000 monthly searches. High volume monthly searches which can generate non qualified visitors. While this will look good on your Google analytics it wont look good when it comes to converting traffic to customers.

Property Management = 60,500 monthly searches. The visitor should be more interested in your service but if the visitor has a property in Newcastle and you operate in London then its not so good

Property Management London = 720 monthly searches. The visitor is most likely looking for a property management company in London and if this is the area you cover your visitor can convert into a customer.

Examples of long tail keywords landlords use

Property management company in London
Management agent in London

If you wish to receive a full list of landlord search terms for your area please email andreas@rentview.com

TIP

In a previous blog post I discussed writing content for your pocket not your ego, what I mean by this is do not try to write content just because it gets 165,000 searches a month.

Google Keyword Planner

Using Google keyword planner is an excellent way to start off your SEO strategy. Google Keyword planner allows you to monthly search volume of specific search terms. You can be very specific and break this down by regions such as country city, town etc.

Multiply Keywords

A really nice feature I am very fond of using is the multiply keywords section, here you can insert multiple keywords and include multiple areas. Google will then give you a return of average monthly search history assorted by volume, by having this detail you can then plan what content your property management or letting agency website should have in order to attract your target market.

So if you are like most property management companies and letting agencies looking to make their letting agency website convert more landlords from visitors look at your long tail keywords.

January 30, 2014

Property Management Blogs

Successful Property Management Blogs

So your looking to build more traffic to your property management website and you want to show your knowledge in property management industry. The best way to do this is through property management blogging in my opinion.

Let me tell you a little story

I recently started to work with a couple of clients who are doing a really great job in putting out some good property management blogs. The topics are relevant for landlords and the blog titles get decent monthly searches so as a result they are starting to build new traffic to the site. Great they thought…

Fast forward three months

So lets now fast forward a few months.. The property management blogs have attracted over 1400 unique visitors to the sites in three months and from looking at the Google Analytics everything looks great. However none of the blog visitors have converted from being a visitor to being a customer.

Now I know it takes time to build your audience and trust within a blog before you have conversions i.e a website visitor turning into a customer. But that’s not the problem here the problem is the blog titles and content. You see there is two types of blog posts, one designed to get lots of traffic which is not targeted and then there is the targeted blog posts which deliver qualified traffic.

Two types of blogs in my opinion

High volume blog titles which are designed to land you lots of traffic.

While it sounds like a great idea searching Google keyword planner for long tail keywords with high monthly volume its normally not going to put leads in your inbox. Some property management companies and letting agents make mistakes in writing property management blogs with titles such as “Renting yields”

While it gets a high volume of 1400 monthly searches what’s the likelihood of these visitors being in your market, and what I mean by that is having a rental property in your market. It is fine for a nationwide agency, service provider or software company as they are not looking for a client in a particular area.

Image credit VCU UNS

Targeted Blog titles which send you qualified visitors

Now I know writing blogs can be time consuming and once written you want to see lots of traffic but ask yourself a simple question “are you writing a blog for your ego or for your pocket”?

And if your reading this blog post your most likely looking to write a blog post for your pocket.

So lets say I am a Letting agency in London by looking at a blog title such as “Renting yields” and localising it to my location “Renting yields in london” I can then write a blog post which increases the chance of being read by my target market which is a property investor or landlord looking at rental yields in London.

It only gets 50 searches a month which is just over 3% of the first blog title but these are targeted blog titles for the property management industry in a particular location which should result in leads.

We all suffer from writers block and creativity problems but once you convert your first customer through a blog it becomes all worth it.

Here are some ideas for blogging for your agency and here is 10 blog topics for your letting agency.

Image credit Nina Matthews

Writing content to convert traffic

So once you have started to write specific content in your property management blogs which will land you qualified traffic your next step is to convert them. The best way to convert your traffic is to use easy CTA’s (Call to actions) within each page of your website. If you dont have these you should look at our property management website design which now includes a blog.

Trust me I know what I am saying as I had to start writing before I started to see the real benefits / customers. If you are looking at other ways of increasing your inbound traffic to your website check out this post on property management marketing.

January 23, 2014

Landlord Marketing

Landlord Marketing with email drip campaigns

What percentage of your landlord website visitors today will contact you asking for information on your services? If you are not sure about a % I will make it simple how many landlords contact you daily looking for advice or inquiring about your services?

If the answer is 0% or more like 1 enquiry every couple of weeks you need to continue reading.

In my previous blog post on property management marketing trends I discussed how by blogging and educating your target market you can increase traffic to your site.

I discussed two types of visitors, landlords who want to educated themselves and landlords who want to employ your service.

Thanks for the image ell-r-brown

The first landlord is the researcher

The majority of these visitors want education they are not YET looking to employ your services. In order to capture there contact information we need to give them something and as they are currently educating themselves the best thing I have learnt to give them so far is more educational resources. Much like you are on my blog now educating yourself on landlord marketing, landlords will hopefully be on your site educating themselves on the rental property industry.

The Second landlord is the employer

The other visitors to your website are most likely either researching companies to use now or in the future to let and or manage their property. You should already have call to actions within the site to capture there contact details. However some landlords may just browse now and come back later when they are ready to employ your services. This is a problem as in an ideal world you do not want to let any landlord leave without getting there details. So once again as above lets give them some free education on the property industry to confirm you are the agent to use and allowing you capture there contact details to market to them.

Email Drip Campaigns

Unsure what an email drip campaign is? Well you most likely have read it here first, drip email campaigns are a fabulous way to build trust with you or your agency. Drip marketing is a communication strategy that sends, or “drips,” a pre-written set of messages to customers or prospects over time.

If you look to the bottom right hand side of this page you will see my own email drip campaign which gathers 6% of all my website visitors. If you want to see what happens once you sign up put in your email address 😉

Go on I guarantee you will be happy with what you get.

Your Website Stats

Look at your website stats and calculate if you converted 6% of your website visitors how many new landlords would that be weekly?

Lets say you get 100 landlords visiting your website weekly and you got 6% of them. That is 300 new landlords contact details in your landlord marketing funnel annually. If you only got 20% of them into a customer that’s 60 new properties on per year.

More Landlords = More Revenue

100 visitors a week -> 6% Sign up to Campaign -> x 52 weeks -> 312 New landlords in your marketing funnel -> Convert 20% as a customer ->62 new units -> Average fee £500 -> £31,000 New annual Revenue.

Benefits of Drip Campaigns

Marketing to landlords is a very targeted market and it’s difficult at times to market directly to them.

There is all the standard ways to conduct landlord marketing through direct marketing, cold calling landlords, email marketing to landlords, leaflet drops, landlord shows, property exhibitions, property auctions etc.

So are you still thinking of where to market to landlords?

If I can help in any way on setting up your landlord marketing email drip campaign please let me know as this is a service we provide.

January 10, 2014

Property Management Marketing Trends for 2014

Property management Marketing Trends

If your like most property management companies your most likely strategising on how you can reach the targets you have set your property management company this year.

If you are not and your looking to increase your profit on last year you should start to put targets in place now. The best way to increase your property management companies profits is through marketing.

Here is my 4 property management marketing trends that will help you increase your profit in 2014.

1. Content Marketing

Your website visitors

This is the number one way potential landlords can find your property management business. There are two types of visitors you can attract to your website. The first is a customer who knows they want to employ your services to either let or manage their property. They normally enter search such as “ Property Management company in Dublin”. You should have your website already optimised for keywords in order to have some of these searches land on your website. If not learn more about letting agency SEO here. This type of search short tail keywords

Your second visitor is somebody who is looking to research a topic in order to get help. They are typically looking for an expert who can help them with a problem they have. In order to reach these potential customers you need to understand their problems, their pain points and write articles on how to best deal with these problems. Really what you are looking to show here is your domain knowledge and show them that they are better off employing you to resolve their issues. A typical search term may be “ finding tenants in Dublin”. The type of search term here is called a long tail Keyword.

What content to write about?

A really good starting point for understanding pain points being searched is by using Google Tools such as keyword planner. Here you can research how many times a month a short tail keyword or long tail keywords are being searched for. In order to write about this content and deliver it on your property management website you should install a blog. But do not get frightened by the thought, you have the knowledge in your head you just need to put in writing, Check out this guide to writing a property blog

2. Google Apps

Last year I talked and blogged about this quiet frequently but I see that using Google tools will help your website visitors grow hugely this year. If your not using Google apps yet start immediately as I see these being key in property management marketing trends in 2014.

Google Places

If you don’t have your Letting agency on Google Places put it on there right away, its quick and easy and you can have it up live in a couple of minutes. Here is a post on set up your Property management company on Google Places

Google Local

Google places is the Yellow Pages of the internet. Once a visitor to Google searches a term such as “letting agent” and their IP is visible Google will automatically return local companies to the search. This is only possible by activating Google Places. Below is a typical local search return result

Google Reviews

Once you have listed Google places I would highly recommend asking customers to leave a brief review of your services. To see how to do this you can look at this post “Requesting a Google review”.

By requesting and building your reviews it will really help build the trust you will receive from new visitors to your site. I spoke about showing your domain knowledge with reviews you reinforce this knowledge. So now when you create content your visitors will see you know what you are talking about. Here is a previous blog post I wrote on Building Landlords trust

Google Authorship

Ever wonder when you do a search on Google why certain search returns show thumbnail images to the left? These images are avatars of the author of the article, by setting up Google Authorship on your content you are verifying with Google who the author is and that it is not spam. Google will show your posts higher within a search result once Google Authorship is set up. By including the image more visitors will be drawn into clicking on your webpage as it will stand out from that of other search results.

3. Video

This should also appear under the Google Apps if you are going to use YouTube which is owned by Google, you will automatically use the same login for your apps as you will for YouTube.

Video Content Management

Video is fast becoming a major marketing force and if you are not going to use video you are going to get left behind. As above when I discussed becoming a domain expert video is the best way to come across as this expert.

If you have a Google account you can then set up your channel and link it through to your website. This is important in all of the Google apps and doesn’t change here. You are effectively telling Google that you are using this app for your website and in turn Google will improve your search ranking.

If you haven’t set up your channel yet see how to do it here Setting up your property management YouTube Station.

Property Marketing Video

Depending on your strategy in marketing properties you may want to look at video tours. Promoting a property through video is a great way to rank high for certain search terms for properties. And similar to above using video for certain keywords will return a video play screen within Google search results, this is the top way in getting instant clicks. Here you can see how to edit a property marketing video.

4. Call to Actions

Include steps 1 – 3 on to your website and I guarantee you will see a huge spike in your website traffic. The last piece in property management marketing trends is having an effective call to action.

The content on your property management website needs to confirm your domain knowledge as an industry expert in the property management field. Now that you have them on your site having reviews linked in as discussed will build trust so now you just need these landlords to contact you. All you need is their contact details to make a website visitor a high end lead.

You can take a look this blog on letting agency website design for more ideas

Entry Forms

A simple and easy contact form which only requires name, email and phone number works best. Take a look at competitors sites and your own and if you have anything more than the above I am sure you are losing possible customers. You want to create as least friction as possible in order to get the landlords details. Expecting a potential landlord to copy and paste an email address into his email is not acceptable and only showing a landline number is the same. I personally am not a fan of Captcha as so many people get them wrong and end up leaving in frustration. As the KISS acronym states Keep it Simple Stupid.

Analysis

Implement these property management marketing trends into your business today. The team at Rentview are happy to help and you can find more information on some of its property management software services here

January 8, 2014

Tenants Fees in Ireland

Tenants Fees

Do you charge your tenants fees or administration fees? That is the question I asked letting agents across Ireland over the last couple of weeks.

So why did I ask it?

With the rental industry seeing huge demand at the moment most letting agents cannot get enough properties to let out. Most letting agents I’m speaking with on a daily basis are seeing increased costs in running their letting agency both legally and professionally. So with a reduced amount of vacant rental stock to let and increased overheads some letting agents are starting to struggle financially.

Letting Agents Survey Results-

Is it Legal to charge tenants fees in Ireland?

Well if you look at Section 90 of the Property Services (Regulation) Act 2011 it is not-
90.—(1) Subject to subsection (2), any provision (whether express
or implied) in an agreement in respect of the sale or letting of land
whereby the purchaser or tenant, as the case may be, is required to
pay or otherwise bear the cost of the licensee’s fees or expenses in
respect of the sale or letting, as the case may be, shall be void, and
any moneys paid pursuant to such a provision shall be recoverable
as a simple contract debt in a court of competent jurisdiction.

(2) Nothing in subsection (1) shall affect the liability of a person
to pay fees or expenses to a licensee in respect of the acquisition of
any land where the licensee has been retained by the person to
acquire such land and does not also act, in respect of such acquisition,
on behalf of the person from whom the land is acquired.

So from reading the relevant sections in the Property Services (Regulation) Act 2011 charging a tenant an administration fee would be illegal.

Prospects not Tenants

It however does not state if charging a potential tenant would be illegal i.e a person who views a property but fails to proceed into a lease.

A PSR representative quotes “As you may know, the interpretation of the law is a matter for the Courts. I am not aware of any Court action in relation to alleged contraventions of section 90 of the Act so cannot give you references to same. Section 90 refers to tenants (not prospective tenants) and it would be a matter for the Courts to interpret if prospective tenants should have the same rights.”

Charging tenants to view a property

You currently show potential tenants a lot of property with only a small percentage converting into becoming a tenant. Depending on your location some tenants may only view one property with you, so why would a tenant pay to view a property? Unless they are desperate I cannot see this ever happening and would see it as a disastrous business decision.

Receiving an Offer

This is an area where I personally feel along with other agents that there is the ability to charge an administration fee. This is how it works in other markets such as in the UK. If at any stage the tenant pulls out or has given misleading or false information about his/her references that the administration fee is charged. However if the tenant proceeds to sign a lease the fee be refunded in full.

Agent’s comments on this

“I think the fee could be refunded to the tenant if he/she takes a property from the agent. If however he/she is looking through various apartments with several agents then the fee should be retained for administration charges”

“In some respects it is a business crime not to charge tenants fees, especially if they walk away for he deal before signing, as can happen. Absolutely the norm in the UK for the tenants to be charged admin/credit check fees. Also very interesting that many tenants coming into Dublin from overseas expect they will be charged? I’m asked the question regularly! Would love to see it become standard industry practice.”

Charging Prospects

There is also the argument that by charging a tenant you are double charging the landlord.

Agent’s comments on this

“The landlord is king and pays a fee to find a tenant, charging a tenant could be the difference between an empty property or an occupied property as some tenant may avoid the agency solely because of this if I was the paying landlord I would not be happy and would seek another agency.”

“I feel that we get our fees from the Landlord so there is no reason to charge tenants as well. There are enough charges without adding“

Mid lease expenses

When managing some properties having fees in place will help with the overall costs associated with managing the property. These fees can be avoided however for example where a tenant consistently lodges rent in cash into an office or bank then a charge is incurred. Most banks charge approx .5% on all cash deposits so for the average agent this is 10% of your fee gone on bank charges.

Agent’s comments on this

“The reason we started was because Bank Charges are crazy and tenants even though they are asked to never transfer the funds but bring in the deposits/rents into office. This is causing higher bank charges and we have passed it on as we cannot afford to carry this cost. It is a small cost €30 for them to bare and to this date we have never received a negative comment.”

Check out these blogs on rent collection “costs of lodging rents” & “How to collect rent”

“I do have in my lease a 300.00 charge held from the deposit should the tenant break their lease which is very effective. It covers re letting costs as well as PRTB charge etc.”

Membership Fees

Even though the wording of the act states that you cannot pass on any fees to tenants some agencies charge fees. These agents call these fees “membership fees”

Agents Comments on this

“We charge this for each tenancy and at the renewal stages also now. It is an administration charge or a membership charge as such. This is only charged to residential tenants. These charges pay for reference checks, changing utilities, bank fees etc all the way to providing a character reference at the end of the tenancy.”

The Results

Well its clear to see there is a huge appetite from agents to start to charge tenants fees. 69% of letting agents who answered this survey are either planning to or willing to if other agents start to charge.

Analysis

So by charging prospective tenants at any point prior to them actually becoming a tenant is from my understanding the only way to work inside the act. Charging tenants for optional expenses incurred though out the lease term once highlighted within the lease may be the only other option as highlighted with banking fees above.

I am only opening the debate on whether letting agents should charge a fee or not, I am not in a position to legally advise any letting agent. If you are looking to increase your revenue but not looking to charge tenants fees here is a list of 30 free ways to market to landlords

Your Thoughts

What is your thoughts on tenants fees in Ireland. Are you a letting agent, landlord or a tenant who would like to share your opinion and open a discussion on this important subject.

December 12, 2013

Email marketing landlords

Email Marketing landlords

Finding it hard to find new landlords? Well you will be glad to know that you are not the only agent out there, it’s the BIGGEST challenge facing letting agents in the rental and letting industry today. If we look at the rental stats today you will see rents are rising…. Why? Simple its supply and demand.

Finding Landlords

Tenants are staying in properties longer and as a result marketing to landlords has become harder. Where can you find landlords? Where can you market to landlords? How can you find new landlords?

These are typically the questions on the edge of each letting agents tongues right now.

Repeat Business

The answer to your problems is most likely with your current database of landlords and their circles. A great way of building your portfolio is by reaching out to previous customers with a promotion and reason to do business with your agency. This can be done through email marketing landlords.

Reason’s to do business

Reasons to do business… also known as a closing tool. This is what will make your landlords & vendors commit to doing business with you. We can either add value or decrease fees. In my opinion adding value is better for your agency as your retaining high revenue and giving additional service. While reducing your fees is a great way to get business on you may end up doing twice the amount of work to get the same profit.

Examples of a closing tool for a letting agent

Increased Value – A very popular closing tool which will increase revenue in the long term is offering free property management with every letting to include rent collection*. Limit this to 4 months for example and place in your terms of engagement that this must be cancelled with 30 days notice. As you are already collecting the rent collecting your fee is simple… You get paid when the landlord does. Having a property management software which allows landlord transparency is a real great way to increase value also.

Reducing Fee’s – As discussed above you may end up doing twice the amount of work for the same revenue but some landlords are very price sensitive and without a monetary reason they will not consider you as a solution in letting, managing or selling their property. The key here is to offer such a good service that repeats business is guaranteed. An example of this would be daily deal sites where the product or service being sold is not achieving a profit but the repeat business at list price will make up for it.

How to market to repeat landlords

Email marketing landlords is a really great way to build business. I would highly recommend looking into Mailchimp as an easy solution to email marketing.

Use mailchimp when email marketing to landlords

Email Marketing landlords through Mailchimp

You can create an email marketing template through Mailchimp and upload your previous email lists easily*.

Reasons for sending email

When sending email marketing landlords its always good to have a reason for sending them an email. For example if its Christmas you could send Christmas Greetings with a gift of “Reduced Fees”or “free property management”. We use the Christmas greeting as the reason to email and the hook for your business is the closing tool.

Subject line’s

If your subject line is not appealing you wont even have your previous landlord or vendors open the email. Think of the marketing emails you receive and which ones you open… OK so I have you thinking, what subject line do you think will make your landlords and vendors open your marketing email?

Take a look at this blog from Mailchimp on What are the best subject lines

email marketing subject lines — Subject lines define what emails get open

Call to Action

Your “Call to Action” is what you want your landlords & vendors to click on. Make sure this stands out within the email as this is the whole reason you are sending this as you want to gather details of who is interested in your services. Take a look at some examples of call to actions on this blog.

Designing your email template

You can send a plain text email when email marketing landlords or a fancy email with built in images. The fancy design will most likely have you engaging the services of a designer but will work a lot better in converting client’s especially if your mail is a Christmas greeting.

landlrord email makreting template — Example of a landlord email marketing template

Conversion Ratio on email marketing landlords

Well that’s what its all about, call it your ROI (return on investment), number of clicks, enquiries etc. Typically speaking you can expect to get 1 in 4 opening your email and anywhere between 0.5% – 1.5% following through with a call to action; ie enquiring further details.

What does that mean in Revenue

Well if you are marketing to 300 landlords and your average fee is £750, you can expect 75 landlords to open your email and to get 3 new listings from this which would mean £2250 in new business.

Start email marketing landlords

Its quite simple, set up a Mailchimp account for free, import your contacts, create a template, fill in the text and send it.. Or seek the assistance of the professional team here at Rentview , info@rentview.com who can do it for you 😉

November 6, 2013

How a great Letting agency website can convert your landlord

Letting agency website design

A great letting agency website design is a must for any letting agency wishing to capture leads from landlords or vendors searching locally for the right company or individual to rent or sell their property. I would go as far as to say that this is pivotal for your letting agency because in some instances, it is the first time your potential client will have come across your services, team, testimonials, listings and story.

40% of clients accessing your letting agency website will be from a mobile.

Since the launch of the iPhone 3 in 2007, accessing the internet from a Smartphone has become more and more popular. Our mobile internet usage statistics on letting agents or estate agents state that 40% of users will access your website via a mobile or smartphone. This is a significant amount of users searching for your letting agency or landing on your website checking out your services.

Mobile sales have already overtaken desktop sales and mobile internet usage is predicted to overtake desktop usage by 2014 – meaning mobile searches will soon overtake desktop searches. This is why it is so important that your website is responsive and fits to every screen.

If you have a letting agency website which was designed over 3 years ago, then your website is most likely not designed for mobile access. This move to mobile has happened rapidly.

letting agency website design mobile iPhone — Letting agency website design needs to look good on mobile too!

So what is responsive website design?

Responsive web design is a web design approach aimed at crafting sites to provide an optimal viewing experience—easy reading and navigation with a minimum of resizing, panning, and scrolling—across a wide range of devices. In plain English, it makes it possible for your website to be viewed easily on any device. See the full Wiki on responsive web design here.

Since the world and its mother are now connected to their smartphones or tablets, it makes sense to design your website using a responsive design. Twitter bootstrap is a free front-end framework given to the web development community to use when developing a responsive design. See the history of twitter bootstrap here.

When developing a letting agency website it is important that you develop a responsive design to cater for access from other devices. A stat compiled by Hubspot states 46% of visitors are unlikely to return to a mobile site if it didn’t work properly during the last visit.

Google Search Engine

Google dominate the search engine market with over 60 per cent share in the market. Google states that responsive web design is its recommended mobile configuration. They unsurprisingly refer to responsive web design as industry best practice. When developing a well-structured letting agency website it is good to keep Google local search and Google Places for business in mind. For more on these see here.

Simple minimalistic design is best

Although we now have access to more information than ever before, we seem to have less time to absorb information as our lives have also become busier. It is easy to believe that our attention span is getting so short it will be like a fish soon! Current statistics state that visitors to your website will spend an average of just 1 minute scanning your web pages for content and headline text which they are looking for.

Your website should act as your spanking clean virtual office with all the relevant things in place for when a landlord or vendor walks in enquiring about your services. Imagine a landlord walking into your high street office and the floors are dirty, desk untidy with disorganised staff unable to deal with a query.

Now imagine a landlord or vendor coming into your website and getting the same impression because there is too much content to shift through, too many clicks, no specific calls to actions and no visible testimonials endorsing your service or team.

Social Proof your website – positivity is infectious!

Your website should convey a positive vibrant message throughout. The best way to convey this message is not from the agency itself, but from other Landlords and Tenants who have used your service. The new landlord/tenant will identify with these people who have endorsed your Letting Agency and will develop a confidence in your service before even using it. You can convey the positive feedback from your Landlords/Tenants by:

Displaying recent testimonials
Displaying happy tweets from happy customers
Displaying reviews on Google + from smiling landlords

Simply by showcasing your recent testimonials, reviews or tweets from landlords and vendors will influence new clients to enquire further about your services.

Localised search for local services

Since Google updated its Penguin 2.1 search algorithm they have played a heavy focus on local search. Landlords searching online will be looking locally for the right letting agency to rent or sell their property. A great way to get your website ranked locally is to add your office to google places.

Some points about visitors to your website

– Of the world’s 4 billion mobile phones in use, 1.08 billion are smartphones

– Users will scan your website for relevant content

– Average user will spend 30 seconds on a page

– Strong call to actions are required

It is clear that good letting agency website design will stand to you and your business. If you are interested in our letting agency website design, click here.