marketing – Page 2

October 2, 2012

Starting a Letting Agency – Letting agency business strategy

So you’re thinking about starting a Letting Agency?

Back again with another business blog, and today I am going to recall some of my global strategic management knowledge to help break down the different letting agent strategies. Starting a Letting Agency involves a good bit planning and strategy. If you know anything of business strategies, you will have heard of Michael Porter, a leading opinion leader on business strategy and lecturer at the professor at Harvard Business school.

Image: Michel Porter’s Generic Strategies for Letting Agents

starting-a-letting-agency-strategy-

A popular approach that he believes for any company to take is the generic focus strategy. And what this means is you are either going to try and be the best on the market or you are going to try to be the cheapest (See Image above). On both occasions you are looking to work towards one thing, a competitive advantage in the industry, for the purpose of this blog we are going to discuss the lettings and management industry.

So what I decided to do to show you a quick example of two different letting agents with two opposite strategies is jump on Google and see whats on offer with agents in Ireland. Within a few minutes, I stumbled upon two agents advertising with VERY different approaches, one taking the low-cost strategy and one offering a premium and differentiated service to landlords for lettings.

Agency 1 – Mannix Ryan Estate Agents

starting-a-letting-agency-case-study-1

Letting agency Strategy Case Study 1

This agency stuck out to me in particular because of their claim to be the only agency doing what they do. This is a clear attempt at gaining a competitive advantage due to their superiority and different offering, compared to every other agent in Ireland. Even comparing their website and the social media tags below the text to others, I have seen that it is clear that this service is based around quality and not price, in fact there is no mention of how much it costs. So the value proposition to the landlord is on innovation through the use of video. Now we look at another agent offering the same service but differently.

Letting agency strategy Case Study 2

starting-a-letting-agency-case-study2

Now we look at the low-cost letting agent. As you can see from this advertisement, that I came across on Daft.ie , everything about the company and the brand screams low-cost. This is in stark contrast to above where the product offering was describing in detail the excellent service and differentiated marketing ability they offer. A great example of one the biggest companies in the world who has gained and sustained a competitive advantage in their market, based around choosing a focus strategy on costs is Ryanair. On the flip side, a company who has developed a sustainable competitive advantage based on differentiation and innovation/quality is Apple, who charge big bucks for their products.

So there you have some basic business strategy examples for starting a letting agency. I guess I wanted to find out what agents are doing at the moment and how effective are they finding their business strategy in terms of increasing their landlords, tenants, properties and revenues. Is one strategy better in the other, can we find a balance between the two?

I’d love to hear your thoughts, or if you have any questions, do get in touch!

by Rentview

The following may be of interest:

Letting agent marketing strategy

Why use Youtube for marketing

Rent management software

September 25, 2012

Starting a Letting agency: Letting Agents and Under-used Marketing Tools

Starting a Letting Agency – marketing tools

After the success of last month’s blog on internet marketing tips for estate and letting agents I thought it would be a great idea to try a little something different this week. A more subtle and extremely under-used form of marketing is the utilisation of your customers for word of mouth promotion, in this case it’s the tenants and landlords. Word of mouth marketing has been defined as ‘a face to face conversation between consumers about a product or service experience’. From my research into the area it can also be defined from the agency’s point of view as the ‘Intentional influencing of consumer to consumer communications by professional marketing techniques.‘ Okay, so we know exactly what the term means know from two perspectives, let’s discuss three ways in which to implement some word of mouth marketing techniques.

#1 Utilise what you have first

Stop worrying about all the different ways to market your services to new landlords and tenants. Obviously the more traditional mediums are still of use but it is the dawn of a new era, so agencies need to start thinking outside of the box. In fact, launching new campaigns, which I will mention below, can have a double effect as you start to build relationships with your current clientele while developing the potential to spread your agency via positive peer to peer communication. Check out the video below from a previous blog on Rentview, where I touch on word of mouth potential with tenants at the end.

#2 Stop shouting, start listening

I often see large banner ads placed along major property websites with prices listed for management fees to landlords. Nothing wrong with this obviously, for an integrated marketing communications plan you need to have 360 degree branding (hitting the target market with your message at as many points of contact as possible). However, what is the most trusted influence on a landlord in my opinion? I would say their fellow property owners and what they have to say about a service they have experienced.

#3 Rewards and relationships

Your tenants are handing over a lot of money – hundreds and often thousands per month for the lovely property you have given them. Obviously that’s the deal in place, but in the long run you want them to continue their stay for many years to come. That means, in my opinion, that you need to stay in touch and build and maintain that relationship with your database. What about creating a monthly newsletter with some property tips from your agency team? What about a monthly competition where you invest 300e of current marketing spend into a nice gift like a smart phone to raffle via your social media pages? These are just a couple of quick ideas on how to relationship build for the future.

That’s my top three tips, I hope they were of some help to any agents reading and please give us your feedback and thoughts by heading over to the Facebook or the Twitter pages. I leave you with some happy customers!

by Rentview

August 1, 2012

Internet Marketing for Letting Agents

Hi again and welcome to the second installment of internet marketing tips for letting and estate agents. Last week I discussed all things Pay per click and weighed up the pros and cons of investing your marketing dollar into paid search advertising. This week I planned on continuing discussion on search but after the last blog was covered by Agent Media over in the UK I came across a great post on how to use Facebook for agencies and wanted to delve into this area further as I have read a LOT of literature on the topic of social networks.

Image courtesy of Mashable

The blog mentions that the majority of company pages fail as they don’t understand or know what to do on the page and this is a point reinforced from a Digital Marketing talk I attended in April from Avril Fagan the head of digital at Sage Ireland. When it came to social media and social network sites such as Facebook the question was asked should a brand do it or not? There is no right or wrong answer according to Avril but the important thing to note is if your going to do it , do it right and commit to it or as she described ‘once your in there is no going back!’. And that’s where this list can really help letting & estate agents setting up and maintaining their Facebook page.The list provided in the blog above covers everything you need to or can do when setting up your Facebook. Below I want to discuss in general how an agency might use Facebook to maximise your return on investment.

Image courtesy of Alltopstartups.com

If we take a second to think of why people use social network sites like Facebook we will quickly learn why you cant solely use it to promote your agency and its properties or services. People are there to build social relationships with others, so for a company or a brand to come in and attempt to directly advertise or connect with customers it can be difficult. The two main uses I identified from reading publications on the use of social networks like Facebook are customer service (information exchange, discussion, communication and participation) and Viral media opportunities which are actually closely linked to one another.

So discussion is one of the main marketing benefits you can take from setting up a Facebook page for your agency, the more you engage the more people will find your page as they see there friends and colleagues have commented or shared items from your agency page. As Ian mentioned in the blog posting relevant questions and photos will encourage such activity- how to come up with this content is another days discussion but understanding the benefits of doing so is important. If your agency is showing up in a followers news feed (Where their friends see your brand) due to a like/comment/share on content from your page like a photo or video it adds credibility to the content as it is not directly from you. Research has shown that receivers of information related to a company are much more accepting when coming from a friend.

Once you build that social relationship with your followers it will become easier and easier to spread your content virally. Just look at Paddy Power above, although its completely different industry, they rarely ever advertise their services or odds on their Facebook. Instead it is full of humorous images and interesting statuses, quizzes, videos that people like and share every day, generating a huge buzz and a growing reach. So weather it is landlords, tenants or other property professionals your engaging with this is the type of strategy I think you should be aiming for, although it certainly isn’t easy to do!

Thats all for today, plenty more to get through with this topic so look out for more next week, dont forget you can click ‘like’ below to share onto Facebook or Twitter and let us know what you think.

by Rentview

Letting agency software

July 31, 2012

Video Blog-Cormac speaks on the benefits of adding tenants to Rentview

This is the latest of the Rentview video blogs where I take you through the top benefits of uploading your tenants onto the Rentview system. As many of you are aware Rentview differentiates itself from other software solutions with its unique tenant and landlord features available due to the the software operating on the cloud.

I note the various benefits a tenant receives such as the online lease, the utility set up, online inventory and statement of rents paid and due and an end of tenancy reference. I also note the benefits to the agency as you can manage your database with more ease & efficiency as well as the end of lease benefits such as retention and word of mouth marketing.

Enjoy the video and ignore the few stumbles and interesting facial expressions I like to make, the video blogs are a new area in which we look to create useful content that’s easier to digest and more appealing for engagement.

Video Blog – Uploading tenants details to your Rentview.com account from Rentview on Vimeo.

Be sure to click the ‘LIKE’ button below to share this onto your Facebook or Twitter or drop us a comment with your thoughts below & tweet @Rentview_

Cormac

July 27, 2012

How to generate additional revenues for your rental agency

Andreas video blogging on how Rentview.com can assist your rental agency convert more let only clients to your full let and management services.

The current stats would show that only 1 in 4 landlords choose the full let and management services rather than just the let only package. We understand this and have developed a way of promoting your management services to your landlords. Take a look at the video blog and let us know what you think.

As always we would love to hear your feedback.

Please feel free to Tweet, Share, Like and everything else that makes us social 😉

Andreas Riha

Video Blog – How to generate additional revenue for your rental agency through Rentview.com from Rentview on Vimeo.

July 25, 2012

Internet Marketing for Letting and Estate Agents

Hi guys Cormac here with a new blog on some creative and effective marketing tips for agents. During my year writing a dissertation on viral marketing and social networks I’ve picked up some useful tips on their purpose for businesses online strategy. The attitudes of the consumer (for example your targeted landlords/tenants) are completely different to what they were five years ago. The way i like to describe it is the hunter has become the hunted. What I mean by this is that no longer are we standing still and brands/marketers/companies shout their marketing messages and push advertisements in our faces but we decide exactly what we want to engage with. The power of TV and newspaper continues to fall as we spend more time online and become more attached to hand held devices.

What does this mean?

So the consumer is now the one looking for the brand, once they decide what they need they will go online and start researching what available, they wont be listening to the radio when they have the I-pod blaring and they wont be seeing your ads when there reading the news on their latest phone app. So what an agency needs to do is increase its presence online. There is a wide range of areas you can engage in when implementing an online strategy as you can see from the infographic below complements of alltopstartups.

Today i’m gong to discuss part one of the online marketing strategy which is search engine marketing. Search marketing is broken into two areas SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) and Pay Per Click advertising. This is one of the number one ways to market your agencies website as your targeted audiences are heading to Google every day to search for the services they need such as rented accomadation and letting or management services

Many of you will be aware of the Google Adwords platform as it is the main money making facility for Google so its marketed heavily to everyone and anyone on the internet. It is what really kicked off the online marketing buzz but in my opinion its benefits are slowly stagnating as more and more companies use its service. Why is it losing its appeal? Well you have to pick ‘keywords’ related to your industry for where you want your ads to appear, for example your doing a campaign targeted to Landlords you may choose ‘property management Dublin’ , ‘letting services in Cork’ etc , the more specific the better. However since the influx in companies using the services the costs of using such popular keywords are rising as companies bid against one another for the most common searched terms.

In reality there is only so many words that are relevant for an agent so it may get to the point where you are bidding more then you should or choosing ineffective search terms. What this means is you need to focus on natural search marketing known or as i referred to above SEO , search engine optimisation, Avril Fagan the head of Digital marketing at Sage Ireland describes this as the holy grail of search. It involves creating content relevant to your industry, website optimisation of key-words, meta-tags and much more that I will cover in the next blog.

by Rentview

July 17, 2012

Property Infographic: Landlords and Property Management

Rentview are always busy looking to provide some useful information to the rental market and our latest Infographic looks at some of the key trends/issues landlords are facing with their rental properties today. Take a look at our findings.

Now some quick notes on the data and areas for discussion :

Bank transfer is the most common payment method with over half of the landlords surveyed collecting the rent this way. Just under 30% are using a standing order to deduct the amount each month while 14% still physically collect the rent from their tenants. Which is easiest in your opinion?

Our next question we quizzed the landlords on was their experience in collecting the rental payments. Almost half (43%) of landlords have experienced some sort of difficulty in collecting rent. Definitely a worrying statistic which raises the question of quality of referencing tenants?

Following on from my point on the quality of referencing we questioned our landlord database on the various formats they use for issuing a reference to a tenant. Not surprisingly e-mail has taken over from some of the previously popular formats like phone and written.

A big area we wanted to analyse was how the landlord communicates with their tenants for management of the property. This is a big area in which Rentview help agencies save time and reduce the no of hours they have that phone held to their ear! Coming out on top was landlords who call their tenants and those who have hired an agent on their behalf to manage the tenant and the property. I have always been a conscious of using the phone when dealing with important tenant/landlord issues as it is in no way traceable if there was ever to be a disagreement.

And finally the stuff most of us don’t want to hear, how many landlords have had to issue legal notices to their tenants on rents unpaid. Unfortunately one fourth of the landlords have issued a rent arrears or eviction notice.

For more information on Rentview you can click here , and connect with Rentview on Facebook and twitter @Rentview_ .

by Andreas Riha

June 19, 2012

Information Systems Planning for Letting Agents Part One

Back again to discuss the process of software adaption for Letting agents and planning its incorporation into the organisation. Some clients I have dealt with over the previous months have found it difficult in getting up and running with the use of Rentview property management software and this series of blogs will look to guide agencies on there planning and integration of software solutions such as the cloud based property management system we offer. Firstly i want to point out the illustration below which shows different levels of IT focus and planning in organisations, these survey results are taken from Gabriele Piccoli.

What this illustration shows is that a strong focus on the use of IT and software programs and long term planning is essential to achieving a competitive differentiation in your market, whether you are a Letting Agent or a large Multi national company, the opportunity is there. They have classified IT into three stages supplier, aligned with business and competitive differentiation. If you think about some of the most successful companies in Ireland such as Tesco or closer to the property industry Daft.ie we can see how their use of IT and software has allowed them to differentiate themselves. Who is to say that you cant allow software to take a pivotal role in your agencies strategy and long term goals.

Before I get into the planning process (the next blog) which will help you understand and establish the role you want IT or software to play in your organisation its important to note some of the main reasons or benefits of creating the plan.

#1- Unity of Purpose, businesses achieve their best results through planning with a clear strategy/goals in place. The deployment of software can allow people to take responsibility with different roles specified to staff members. Using Rentview as the example you may request different property managers to partake in different tasks, one may be responsible for managing the schedule and statements to mark money coming in and out while someone else may be responsible for uploading all let only clients onto the software to market your management package etc

#2 Simplifying decision over time, without a plan in place on the use of software in the company there is no context then for future decision making. Any potential project selections being made as part of a yearly budget process will then have little sense of overall direction or meaning.

Information systems planning for letting agents part two

by Rentview

June 18, 2012

Strategic Alignment for a Letting Agency

Strategic alignment refers to the closeness of the relationship between company CEO’s or senior management and Information systems managers, or those workers heavily involved with the use of technology and software in the work place. Aligning the information system’s purpose and direction with the overall direction of the firm is a vital for long-term success.

The purpose of this blog is to help agencies and other companies alike to understand the process of aligning the needs of the organisation. After a year of learning about the role of information systems in organisations today, one thing was clear to me in my studies; it’s all about the planning.

Opportunities come and go fast, so it is important for all management to sit down and plan the role of information systems in the organisation. There are some key PEOPLE that an organisation needs to look at first; general managers, functional managers and the end-user are all important when making a decision on the use of information systems. For example, if you are debating whether to purchase property management software for your agency, it’s important to discuss the potential use of the software with your functional staff members and the end-user who is your customer, be it landlord or tenant.

To help align the information systems goals with business goals there are a few key questions that a general manager and firm can ask themselves. Gabriel Piccolli, the author of Information systems for Managers, Texts and Cases brings us the five key questions.

1-How much should we spend on IT?

A simple question that forces senior execs to discuss and decide what they are willing to spend on the role of information systems in the organisation, it helps if the agency know their budget before they go to the market looking for a property management solution.

2-Which business process should receive the €€€?

Which business processes are important to the firm that need some IT investment? I would assume activities such as website maintenance and management of customers would place highly here. Again it’s good to establish these things before making your investment.

3-How good do our IT services really need to be?

This question forces senior execs to make a conscious decision about the degree of service the firm needs and what they are willing to pay for. A smaller agency may only require a simple and low complex software system for certain business activities while the multi branch agencies may require a bigger and more comprehensive system.

4-What security and privacy risks will we accept?

Obviously this is something an organisation needs to discuss before investing in an information system and it is a hot topic at the moment with Google who I like to call ‘the ruler of the internet’ catching some negative PR for their new policies on the storage of customer data. For agencies looking to acquire software and align its use with business goals, you must ensure your data will be safe and retrievable when purchasing a system. Most software providers will state weather data can be obtained at the end of use.

5-Who do we blame if it all goes wrong?

Execs must clearly identify and assign responsibility for the information systems in the firm. This is helpful in assessing problems with the use of the software, such as the system not meeting expectations of the general managers. To put this into context, if you were to purchase a Rentview package for your agency you may assign work to your functional and general staff. In this case the general manger or agency owner may be responsible for setting up the different user accounts of each of his functional staff (the property managers), while a functional manager such as a senior letting agent may be given the responsibility of setting up accounts for the agency clients; both landlords and tenants.

That’s it for today, the next post relating to information systems will look at the first stages of the planning process. Please feel free to comment and discuss the post below.

by Rentview