Marketing your Agency

September 6, 2013

30 Ideas for Marketing to landlords

Marketing to landlords

Finding new landlord clients is one of the biggest challenges letting agents face in today’s rental market. With so many agencies competing for business marketing to landlords in the traditional sense is going to eat into any annual marketing budget rapidly. But don’t worry there is many ways to promote your services and find new landlords for your letting agency whilst not costing you any upfront marketing spend.

I am sure if I said to you today that if I would pass you on new landlords and list their properties with your letting agency at 75% of your listed fees you would jump at the chance, right?

Well keep reading because here are 30 ideas for marketing to landlords that will surely land you new landlords and cost you nothing upfront. In fact, in over half of my suggestions on marketing to landlords will cost you nothing at all.

30 Ideas for marketing to landlords

Offer a referral scheme to current landlords to invite their family and friends and receive a discount. This way you retain your current landlord and it does not cost anything to win a new landlord. Word of mouth is powerful!
Ask your tradespersons to recommend your services to landlords next time they are on site repairing a rental property. For every referral, give them a commission. It’s a great way to promote your letting agency.
Place an advert on some free local websites in the property classifieds section. Landlords tend to look at how other units are priced here also.
On completion of your services, ask a landlord for a referral for a family member or friend who may be interested in your services. Always push to offer great customer service, and finding new landlord referrals will not be a problem.
Contact end of tenancy cleaning companies offering a referral scheme where you both recommend each others’ services. Cleaning companies would also appreciate your business, and your services can complement one other.
Attend a local networking event. There are always landlords and investors at such events and they are a great place to meet new clients.
Join your chambers of commerce; networking is what the chambers of commerce is all about and by attending them, your name will circulate within the business community quickly.
Place a business card and note on the notice board of an apartment complex where you have just let out a property explaining you require more in the complex. Landlords conducting showings are sure to pass by, and it’s a great way to promote your letting agency.
Contact your local mortgage advisors informing them of your services along with working an affiliate scheme. Look for a buy to let specialist; you are bothworking with the same type of customer.
Place magnet branding stickers on your car whilst out meeting landlords and conducting showings. You would be amazed at how this can help push your brand… Be sure to be a polite road user however 😉
Maildrop leaflets in an apartment complex the next time you let out a property enquiring more units with a special offer. This is a great, quick way to get units in a complex, as landlords will be emptying post boxes whilst conducting showings. You can leaflet 100 units in 2 minutes.
Call previous landlord clients on lease anniversaries offering your services. Just because the tenants stayed on for another 12 months and the landlord renewed the papers doesn’t mean you shouldn’t keep in contact.
Call in to properties which have been sold recently and are getting renovation works offering your services. This means keeping on eye on your territory and simply dropping in when workers or a landlord is on-site.
Attend local property investor meet ups. Simply search for these events and you would be surprised with the number going on in your area.
Call landlords advertising properties to let in classifieds section of your local newspapers. Many landlords still use print media, they may not get as much attention as they could online and this is where you can step in.
Email and or call landlords marketing properties to let on local websites. Landlords advertising on free listing sites may simply not be marketing to their audience correctly. Most tenants search property portals now for property.
Go to the next distressed property auction in your area and hand out leaflets with a promotion at the front of the venue. These auctions are like bee hives for bees, landlords swarm to them so make your presence known.
Place a notice on a local supermarket notice board looking for a property in an area you have just let one. You would be surprised the number of landlords which use these to let properties. Its also a great are to find new landlords contact details.
Leave business cards at your local key cutting business where you get keys cut. A landlords is one of a key cutter’s best customers and so are you most likely.
Join an affiliate scheme with a locksmith who changes locks from bad tenants. Many landlords get new locks fitted when tenants are exiting and this can be a great way of getting your name to them.
Write a letting agency blog about the area where you wish to attract new business. Lots of people search their area on search engines and by blogging about an event or area, you are sure to rank high.
Drop a card into a property which has a private to let sign at the front of the property. Landlords are most likely visiting the property daily so let them know about your service.
Promote your services through local online community pages on Facebook. Many communities now have an online presence so why not drop by and say hi and mention your letting agency promotions.
Promote your services to other businesses in your area via social media. Use a Hashtag on all your comments. It’s a great way for someone in your community to come across your services.
Leave your business cards in a networking jar or on a board in your local bank. Most banks are now promoting local businesses and services; make sure your letting agency is promoted.
Offer a free prize of one of your services for a local charity event. Whilst it may cost you time to provide, the promotion of your brand within the community will be well received. It’s also a great way for PR in local papers and online.
Offer free advice to landlords online, through your office or local citizens advice centres. Many landlords who need help with tenants often research for advice and by offering it for free they are sure to use yourself if anyone when employing an agent’s services.
Connect with an estate agent who only sells property offering either a referral scheme or commission structure. Lots of properties are sold by estate agents for the BTL market.
Partner your services with a local appliance sales or repair company where you recommend each other’s services. Most landlords will outsource repairs and it’s another great way to pick up landlords.
Leave business cards in your local DIY store. Landlords always have a couple of DIY jobs to complete between lets, so get your card beside the cash register.

So now you know how to increase your marketing to landlords with no marketing spend, i’ts time to start implementing your letting agency promotional plan. You may also be interested to read a blog posting on Finding landlords

August 22, 2013

Landlords negotiation of fees with letting agents

Whats the best approach to take when landlords negotiate fees

Many say the letting industry is currently in a race to the bottom, with letting agencies competing with each other in order to win new business. Some agencies think that by simply reducing their fee structures and marketing this that business will pour in. I would argue the point that whilst it may work well to have a few listings on their books now, it will do greater damage in the long run.

Image Credit Matt Biddulph

A typical example of this is a company reducing its fees to what would appear to be a level where the ability to turn a profit is significantly reduced.

We should all know that in order to provide a professional service, their needs to be some profit in the margin. I mean, if not why go into business? I have no reservations about a company offering a limited time only promotion in order to stand out. For Example – Reducing the fees for the first 3 months of management is an incentive to do business whilst placing a restriction on the discount.

However when I see a letting company offering a letting or management package at a set cost or on a percentage base well below that of the competition, I see this as a race to the bottom. It affects the market, as it becomes a bargaining point for landlords. This normally happens with a landlord with whom you already do business, who will say something like “company X is offering the same package for half of your fee”. It is clear that your landlord is looking for negotiation on fees.

So what can you do here?

Well the obvious first step is to compare service with service. This should allow you to point out that the difference in this fee is that company X are not providing the extras which make the landlord’s life easier.

What if the company offer the same service?

This is typical as company X will market the fact that they offer the complete package with the only difference being the cost. The reality of this is that as industry professionals we understand that it is next to impossible to offer this at the rate advertised and still make a profit. So in reality what the landlord will get is a below-par service at a below market value fee. The only problem is that the landlord will sometimes find it hard to understand this.

So what is the solution in fee negotiation?

I am a big believer in offering more services rather than reducing fees in order to win business. A great way to achieve this is to offer the landlord a service which will cost you less after costs than a reduction in fees. By doing so, you will secure the business whilst increasing the value of your services to the landlord. Give the landlord a free digital inventory reports instead of reducing your fees.This is the best way to handle negotiation of fees.

Image Credit Victor1558

Building Value

A simple way to maintain your fee structure and deal with competitors’ lower pricing is to offer more services for the same value. The skill here is to build value in your additional services. So for example, if I were offering a landlord a free inventory service with my letting service I would ask what type of inventory they currently use. If it does not have detailed photos, I would highlight the important of this.

If the master inventory is not up-to-date, once again I would highlight the importance of this.

Lastly, I would inform the landlord that you can offer a solution to all of these areas, inform them of the value of this, and then remind them that you are going to include it with your letting service for FREE.

Same fees, more value

By doing this, you are creating value for your landlords rather than just dropping price. I must highlight the importance of building value in your additional services, as without these, all the landlord will consider is the lower fee. If you bear this in mind the next negotiation of fees that you will have you will come out the better.
by Andreas Riha

May 14, 2013

Link building strategies

Link Building strategies for your letting agency

Link building for your letting agency website is crucial in order for your site to get listed high on organic search results. In a previous post we discussed the biggest challenge letting agents face today, which was winning new properties to let and manage. We then went on to discuss how to win more landlords with a post on marketing to landlords in 5 Steps.

With so many letting agency websites to compete with it has become essential for you to put an SEO strategy into place.

Link Building strategies

One way search engines rank your website higher against others is by how many times your website gets mentioned on the internet. This term is simply called “inbound links”. The more websites that mention your website the higher search engines rank your own website (Page Rank). Page rank is important as the higher a websites page ranks the higher amount of credibility it gives to its link to you (Link Juice). If you are going to start to build links you need to research link building strategies.

What tools can help you?

A tool you can easily use in your toolbar to see what page rank a website has is available on Google Chrome

A really quick way to find out how many links you currently have going to your site can be found by visiting Alexa. Enter your site url and it will return a link with your number of links.

A useful exercise is to check up with a number of your competitors and see how they are doing. Through some research you could possibly find some websites that can give you some really strong links.

Further research into link building

Probably one of the best articles I have ever come across with regards to Link building strategies is written by Jon Cooper. If there is ever a document I would recommend reading it is this one… by the way it is free and I did not write it 😉

We would be delighted to hear how you get on with your link building strategies and what worked well for you.

by Andreas Riha

Imagecredits Mark Kens

April 5, 2013

Creating your YouTube channel

In our previous blog, Why use YouTube for marketing, we discussed the benefits of using rental marketing videos for your letting agency.

Creating your YouTube channel

So the first step in rental marketing videos is setting up a channel to host the videos. There are a number of video hosting platforms but we have used the most popular, YouTube. In this demonstration, I am going to go through creating your YouTube channel.

When creating your YouTube channel it is very important to keep SEO in mind, as this is really going to help the channel to get traffic. If you didnt know already, YouTube is owned by Google, so by using SEO with your brand’s keywords and marketing message in your YouTube profile, you are feeding Google’s search appetite.

Below is a video blog showing how to do this and here is a link to the YouTube channel I just created: Letting Agent UK

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsZckmGYfU8

Creating your Letting agency video channel (by Rentviewsoftware)

by Andreas Riha

March 22, 2013

Why use YouTube for marketing your letting agency

Why use YouTube for Marketing

Answer – If YouTube were a country, we’d be the third largest in the world after China and India,” YouTube said in a blogpost announcing that it now has a billion unique visitors every month. “Nearly 1 out of every 2 people on the internet visits YouTube.

3 Benefits of using property video marketing

Qualified tenants – As discussed in our previous blog on Strategy in marketing a rental property using video marketing will result in a higher qualification of viewing tenants. This means that the tenants that view your property tour and request a viewing actually like the property, location, price, interior and layout. This in turn will reduce showing unqualified tenants and wasting your time.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)– A great way for your letting agency to rank higher in search terms and to return possible results in video on a search. Currently, I am sure you are competing strongly for the term “letting agent in YOUR AREA” on a search engine. Why not type this into YouTube to see what your competition in your area is. For the more advanced on SEO you can use title tags, meta description and keywords to allow your potential customers find you easily.

It promotes your letting agency

All letting agencies list on a wide variety of property portals and ‘To Let’ boards but the majority do not provide video marketing of properties. By offering this, it adds another string to your property marketing bow.

Don’t worry, it’s probably not going to cost you anything and you do not have to be a professional cameraman to make property video tours.

This is a really nice video outlining Video Marketing and how it is becoming the most powerful sales and marketing tool for small and large businesses.

In the next blog I will show how to make and publish a property video tour. If you use Property Video Marketing what results have you seen for your agency? We would love to hear.

So the next time you are asked the question “Why use YouTube for marketing” you know the answer.

You may now be interested to watch Creating your youtube channel

by Andreas Riha

March 20, 2013

How to market rental property

What is your strategy in “How To Market rental property”?

Learning how to market rental property successfully is vital for letting agents and landlords. This skill is even more important than ever before, as the highest amount of tenants ever are looking for private rental property, and the internet is the most common place for them to look.

What strategy do you use to market rental property?

Most letting agents use a strategy to market rental property. I have outlined 3 strategies below that agents use to market to tenants. Each strategy attracts a lead quality.

Property listed with no photos or only an external photo

From my experience, this strategy is often used to market rental property that is not in great condition or below the listed value. Personally, I would feel that by doing this you could be wasting a lot of time in showing the property as people coming to view the property may not be interested in the property at all, but came to view of it because of its location. I think the main strategy behind this is playing “the number game” by getting enough tenants in to view it will eventually interest somebody. The benefit here is the potential to attract a large volume of tenants, depending on price. The negative here is that time is money and you can end up doing multiple showings to a lot of tenants.

Tenant Qualification – The tenant is happy with the location and price.

Property listed with ample photos

This strategy is favoured by most agents who list the property with photos of every or nearly every room. The potential tenants who come to view are qualified* and whilst the volume of tenants may not be as high, they are interested in seeing more than just the interior photos. This is when you market rental property as it saves you a significant amount of time.

Tenant Qualification* –The tenant is happy with the location, price, property and interior.

Property listed with a walk through video

This is a very targeted strategy. It brings SEO benefits to your letting agency brand if done correctly. This may take longer for you as a letting agent to advertise, but it really is a great way to list and market rental property. Any potential tenant who has viewed the marketing video and arranged a viewing are as qualified as they come.

Tenant Qualification –The tenant is happy with the location, price, property, interior and layout.

It does not require you to have professional recording equipment and in fact most smart phones now with a 5 mega pixel + camera providing excellent footage. They can be quickly uploaded directly from your smart phone to a YouTube or Vimeo account through their app. In our next blog we will look at creating your youtube channel.

You may also be interested in reading Why use youtube for marketing?

In a previous blog on Marketing to landlords in 5 steps I discussed how important it is to always market a property as professionally as possible. One of the reasons being is that it is a great way to market to landlords looking for an agent who has property in the same area as their own rental unit.

Here are a couple of links of different marketing strategies used by a estate and a letting agent:

Using humour in your marketing to attract viewers “Up tight Tribute to Honest Agent”

I am not sure if this letting agency was having a bad day when they decided to market this rental property or if the letting agent is a PR genius. I am sure that if they are reading they will go with the latter after all they got mentioned in national press, social media and even on our blog ha ha!

how-to-market-a-rental-property-example

I would love to hear your feedback on the strategy you find best and or perhaps a strategy that I have not mentioned.

by Andreas Riha

March 7, 2013

Finding landlords – Expand your letting agency portfolio in 5 steps

Finding landlords

Finding new landlords is the biggest challenge for letting agents and property managers. For most letting agencies and rental managers, finding tenants in today’s rental market is easier than finding landlords. So how can you increase your marketability as a letting agency to new landlords? Well there are a number of housekeeping procedures that some letting agents fall behind on which we will discuss below. These can improve marketability to new landlords and help in finding landlords to expand an agency’s portfolio.

finding-landlords

1. Advertised properties on portals

A lot of landlords today look through property portals to try and estimate what their property will achieve on the market prior to it being available. They will look at properties in the area, pictures, descriptions etc. So it is very important that your listed properties are looking their best. Have a detailed property description, mind your typos, make sure your pictures are professional and not taken from a low mega pixel digital camera. I would also strongly advise against night time photos. Even if the market is busy and you know that if it was listed without pictures you would still get a dozen showings in 48 hours ensure every listing is as professional as possible.

2. Profile Page about your letting agency

Once again landlords are busy looking through portals and having a profile with 2 lines of text is just lazy. I am not saying list a page full of text but put some thought into what your services are and what makes your rental agency stand out against the busy crowd. If there is possible to upload thumbnails of the staff, do it. This is a service business and that means it’s a people business so let landlords know who you are.

3. About us

This is similar to the above and is also relevant to your website. There are a lot of property websites that I visit and I can’t find out any information on the staff in the agency. Have they experience? Who are they? Have they been working in the industry long? This is all information that potential landlords really love to know. So why not really sell yourself here?

4. Services

We provide a full letting and property management service. This sometimes is as much information that is on a letting agencies profile or website and it’s not going to get you a large volume of inbound inquiries. List your services and if there is something that makes you stand out list it. Do you provide Digital Inventories on all your let properties? Do you offer a landlord free online account login on all managed properties? Free energy certs on all rentals? If there is something you can offer or currently offer that makes you stand out let potential landlords know about it.

5. Testimonials

In the information age that we live in there is nothing more appealing than customer testimonials in finding landlords. Now a written testimonial by Jack Smith is good but landlords may think is it genuine? A picture of Jack Smith beside his testimonial is more powerful. You can take this to the next level and include a small video clip of Jack Smith giving a testimonial. One of my favourite types of testimonials I am seeing now is Jack Smith leaving a testimonial on a Facebook page. Extract this and post it on your website and link it to your Facebook page. This way your new landlords can see its genuine and also might Like your Facebook page.

finding-landlords-letting-agent

Following this list can only increase your brand and image as a excellent and trustworthy letting agent or property manager. I would love for you to tell me what number 6, 7 or even 8 could be on this list so why not comment and let me know? Finding landlords is not easy but I hope this list will allow you find more.

As always, please feel free to share and ask any questions you may have.

Letting agents software

by Andreas Riha

February 27, 2013

Letting agents revenue

I recently got a call from a Rentview subscriber who was hoping to maximize her letting agency revenue opportunities from her current portfolio.

When we got chatting, we went through what percentage of her landlords had taken the letting agencies full property management package against the let-only service The response was standard enough with approx 1 in every 4 landlords choosing the full property management package. So that meant that the remaining 75% were choosing the let only service.

letting agents revenue

Letting agents revenue can be restricted by lack of communication

The problem here is that letting agents will not typically contact a let-only landlord during the lease cycle. The majority of letting agents using letting agency software or an organised filing system will only contact the landlord and tenant in the last month of the lease. The result of this can be rewarding for a letting agency, but what if there was greater communication throughout the lease period? The rewards could be even greater.

In a typical letting and management agent’s portfolio, they have let-only landlords who are midway through a lease period and others that have gone by the initial lease period signed. So for each type of landlord there could be a different approach used.

Methods to increase letting agents revenue

Mid-lease landlord– a landlord who you helped to find tenants but who is not receiving your management services.

One way to deal with this potential repeat customer could be a quick check-up call with the landlord to see how everything is going with the tenancy. Is there anything that you can help the landlord with? Is there any rent outstanding? Is the tenant maintaining the property? Does the landlord need any advice on new regulations?

Being a landlord isn’t easy, and as you are the experienced professional, you can offer your assistance. It is a great reminder of your services and shows the landlord that you are an agency focused on customer service and increasing your letting agency revenue

Expired lease period landlord– a landlord who had been contacted at the end of the lease term and wanted to renew the lease himself or let the lease roll.

Here you could use a similar approach to the above but it can also be used as a direct revenue opportunity for your letting agency. Why not offer something for free to this landlord, like a quick midterm inspection? A midterm inspection is a quick drop into the property to see how everything is going. This typically won’t take more than 5 minutes inside the rental property with the tenants, followed up with a call to the landlord.

Better still why not offer the landlord a detailed midterm inspection report? This typically would involve pictures along with notes on the property condition, items which may need attention and give the landlord a feel for how is property is being maintained.

increase letting agency revenue

What you can charge will depend on how you deliver the inspection. I know that letting agents using the Digital Inventory reports are charging somewhere around £80 for this service. A digital inventory report includes detailed date-stamped and geo-tagged photos, detailed condition reports and is all accessible on the cloud. Check out how to use the Rental Property Inventory App.

Your portfolio and your clients are your letting agency’s assets and if you don’t take good care of them they will depreciate. Letting agencies that want a better way to manage their property management portfolio may be interested in our Letting Agency Software.

Letting agents’ revenue on let-only clients should not be restricted to an annual letting or renewal fee. By offering additional services and communicating with landlords, letting agents can increase revenue!

by Andreas Riha

February 7, 2013

Letting agency website design

In our last blog post on letting industry challenges we looked at how winning new landlords was one of the current biggest challenges for letting agents. Apart from providing an excellent service to your landlords and winning referrals, your website is currently your next best marketing tool. The problem is, as we discussed, that many letting agents neglect their website and their letting agency website design.

How to use your strong letting agency website design to build a portfolio

Image Credit: Jayel Aharem

Letting agency SEO

So let’s start by doing a quick health check on your website to see how people are currently finding you. There are a couple of simple enough ways to get under the hood of your site, I would recommend using Google Analytics (click here for a previous blog on Analytics) or Google webmaster tools. You can access these by simply setting up a free Google account (if you haven’t already got one) and simply searching for them. You will need access to the control panel of your website to install a simple code into your website as a security feature. It’s quite simple but if that is something you are not comfortable doing, just ask who ever looks after your site to install the code.

Analyse your website

If you can’t access either of these a simple way to get some information on your website is to got through Alexa. Here you can get a quick overview of where your website ranks. It also gives you the chance to see keyword queries that bring a high percentage of traffic to a particular URL. So when here, check your own site and then perhaps a competitor who is doing well.

Once you get the site up, you can go through and click onto search analytics to see the top search queries which are driving traffic to your competitor’s website. Compare it with your own. Is your competitor generating more traffic through search terms? Are the search terms they rank highly in ones which you wish to gain traffic through? If so, they are probably working more effectively on SEO than your own site. Most letting agents are looking at finding landlords through their website SEO.

How to use your website as a visitor

Search the term that you think a new landlord would search to find a property manager or letting agent in your area, then see who ranks the highest. Now visit their site on Alexa to find out more about them. Learn from their website and implement changes needed to move your website up the search ranking.

Another interesting statistic to find out is how many back links your competitor has. The more back links a site has, the more attractive the website is for search engines to return that site on the first page of a search result (or SERP). A back link is your website’s URL on another website. Below is how a back link looks:

https://rentview.co/blog/data-backup-for-agencies/ or if hyperlinked in text, the same link might look like this.

If you want to know more about link building strategies this is a great place to start. In order for your website to generate traffic, it is very important to look at your letting agency website design.

by Andreas Riha

February 5, 2013

Letting industry challenges

What is the biggest challenge in the letting industry today?

This is a question I ask letting agents regularly, and it seems that winning new instructions is one of the biggest letting industry challenges out there at the moment. With rental properties being in such high demand there has never been a better time to rent property. With the average tenancy term increased and more people renting – it’s simply supply and demand. So what can letting agents do to increase their rental listings?

Where do most of your tenants find your listings at the moment?

Letting industry shop window

letting-industry

The internet is the majority of letting agents’ biggest shop window and a lot of the time it is better than any shop window on the high street. The problem is that many agents neglect their own website thinking that just because it is live it will get them new listings from landlords. However, the internet is a very busy high street and if you’re not managing your website correctly the competition is going to attract the lion’s share.

I mean, you would not open a letting agency and not place a sign over the door or advertise the fact that you are a letting agency, would you? I would not have thought so, but this is what some agencies are doing on the internet. So how can you find out how easy you are to find on the internet for potential landlords, and tenants for that matter? Begin some search engine research today! SEO or search engine optimization is important for all businesses, including those within the letting industry, who have an online presence nowadays. For more information on SEO, see our blogs below.

letting-industry

Blogs which may interest you on this topic

Find out more about letting agency seo

How to win customers through a Google adwords advertising campaign

by Andreas Riha