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Property Management Marketing Guide

The Property Management Marketing Guide

Should you do your marketing in house or should you outsource it?

If you outsource it, what’s the best choice for you?

There are lots of options and since you are focused on running a property management company, it might be hard to find the time to sort out what the best choice is for your company.

Never fear, we’re here to help

This guide is an overview of your options.

We begin the guide discussing the pro’s and con’s of doing your marketing in house vs outsourcing it.

If you go the outsourcing route, the next section covers the pro’s and con’s of the most popular options we see property management companies choose.

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Aren’t we a little biased?Geek wrote this guide; Geek also does marketing for property management companies. So there could be a ‘fox guarding the hen house’ situation here potentially, agreed?

Here’s why you shouldn’t worry about potential bias:

1. You have a built in BS detector and a delete button. One read through this guide and you’ll be able to tell if we are biased or if the information is honest. If you find our info overly biased, we’re pretty sure you know where the delete button is on your computer.

2. The Geek business model is so different that we don’t consider any of these companies competitors. In fact, many of our customers not only pay us, but may hire one or more of these companies in addition (the record is one company has hired 4 on this list, including us). There are a couple of RUN AWAY FAST options on this list; those companies you want to avoid. But everyone else? Mix and match as you see fit is our view.

Options covered in this guide:

We will leave no stone unturned as we do a deep dive into the largest and most obvious choices for working with other vendors to help you make your phone ring with prospective owners.

We’re specifically going to look at the pro’s and con’s of working with:1. Pay-Per-Lead Directories2. Pay-Per-Listing Directories3. National Multi-Niche Agencies4. SEO Expert / Digital Marketing Agency5. Pay-Per-Click Expert / Agency6. Property Management Marketing Firms7. Property Management Software Vendors8. Property Manager Website Vendors9. Geek Real Estate Marketing

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Do it yourself or in houseWhen our sink is broken at home, my wife is certainly not going to wait around for me to fix it; after 29 years of marriage she’s a lot smarter than that. I grew up in a family where we used butter knives as screwdrivers. My idea of home repair is to pull out my checkbook and a phone and start dialing for help.

My point? We all have our strengths. Let me release you from all guilt or confusion over this; you don’t need to be a master marketer yourself in order to have a profitable property management company.

However many small business owners feel like they ‘should’ understand marketing. After all, they started the company, their name is on that business license, and they sign the checks. Its “assumed”.

Maybe you should do your own marketing; If so, that’s great. But many companies would be a lot more successful outsourcing it. Here are some questions to ask before you decide what is right for you.

Do you have the time?Great marketing takes LOTS of time. Thinking of new and interesting ideas. Creating and writing ads. Managing your social media. Optimizing your advertising campaigns and testing. Being a student of marketing literally consumes most of our time, and we work sometimes in excess of 70 hours week.

Sure, you can try something in your spare time, but to get something great (AKA something that actually makes you money), you will need time and energy to invest in it. If you don’t give it the love it deserves, you are going to end up pouring money into something that doesn’t get the results you want - trust us.

Are you a student of marketing?In truth, most property management owners are not marketers. Now that would be fine if most small business owners were actually students of marketing and were on the ‘learn as you go’ plan. Alas, a quick overview of property management marketing leaves plenty of evidence to the contrary.

Successful marketing takes real skills. If it’s not in your wheelhouse (which is totally ok because nobody is good at everything) than you and your company will profit more by letting an expert take the reigns.


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Do you have time to fail at marketing?I asked earlier if you had the time to market. This is a slightly different question: do you also have the time to ‘fail’ at marketing? Learning how to market well, especially at the beginning, requires some waste. You are figuring out how things work… some of it will work but most of it will probably flop. That’s the way it goes with any skill.

If you have a lot of time to implement a marketing plan, the DIY approach can work. Sometimes on a tight budget, it’s your only option.

On the other hand, if you want the process done yesterday, a learning curve might slow you down more than you find acceptable.

If you are thinking you’ll save money by doing marketing yourself versus hiring someone else, factor this learning curve in your calculations.

Do you LIKE marketing?This relates to all previous points. Marketing takes time, money, expertise and energy. It’s a profession, just like owning a property management company is. It’s a discipline, with specific things you need to know in order to do it well.

You own a company. You know how to force yourself to do things you don’t like to do. You have used this ‘get er done’ approach PLENTY of times or you would not be where you are today.

That said, life is short. So even if you are ready to invest the time, ready to learn about marketing, ready to embrace the learning curve, it still is not irrelevant to ask yourself: do I even LIKE doing this?

If you like marketing…and are motivated to enter into that discipline…and your timeline expectations are realistic… go for it.

If you don’t like marketing however, you will have to trudge through all the time, all the effort, all the expense of doing something that you don’t like. In this situation, three bad things happen:

1. Your life is a bummer. At least until the project is finished. (And by the way, the project of marketing is never finished.)

2. You will get inferior results. How do I know? Real marketing takes love and care. If you aren’t having fun, you’ll rush. You’ll do something ‘good enough’. Your company deserves more than ‘good enough’. This is your livelihood we’re talking about here.


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3. Opportunity cost. Your time as the owner is the scarcest resource in your company, and also the most important. If you spend your time on X, it means you can’t spend it on Y. So doing your own marketing comes at a clear cost: whatever else you could have done with that same time and energy. If you think marketing is the best use of your time, do it. But ask the opportunity cost question before you launch into things.

What about hiring someone to do your marketing in house or having a current employee take it over?

A full time marketing person in house. If you hire someone as a full time marketer in house, someone has to supervise that person. And then you have another FTE on the payroll (if you hire someone cheap, well, you get what you pay for). There is risk associated with this since your expertise is in managing a property management firm, not supervising a marketing agency.

And as you well know, it’s much easier to hire someone than to get rid of them if things don’t work out.

This option only makes sense if you are a very large or multi location operation, and even then, we recommend taking a really deep breath and a long drink of your favorite beverage before walking down this path.

The part time option.Perhaps you can take someone already on staff and turn them loose with a few marketing projects. Buy an Internet course and have them study it.

Maybe. But you’ve seen plenty of part time For Rent By Owner situations in your career; how do those situations normally work out? You know I speak the truth when I say that a part time property manager is deluded in believing they can keep up with a professional. Most self managed homes are renting below market, wildly out of legal compliance regarding federal and local laws, trust account management generally is out of whack (I could go on). Self managed situations are tenant time bomb nightmares waiting to explode.

The same is true for your marketing. Your company deserves better than a part time and untrained person handling one of your most important business functions. We can’t even pretend to not be biased here; this is just a bad idea.


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When outsourcing your marketing makes senseJust take the opposite of most of the previous points and you have your case for finding outside help:

1. Your time is better spent on other things.2. You lack the time or expertise in house to handle your marketing.3. You don’t want to waste time failing on the learning curve. You need

results faster than that.4. You don’t want to hire a FTE to handle this, with all the payroll and

management issues that involves.5. You would prefer to limit your risk by hiring a service you can easily fire if

you are unhappy (much more complex to get rid of an employee)

So what is the right choice?There’s not a right or wrong answer. Maybe you have the chops to do your own marketing; if so, go for it. For others, outsourcing makes sense.

A wise man once said that you don’t go to war without counting your soldiers or start construction on a building without seeing if you have the budget to finish. Just make sure you look at what you are taking on with realistic eyes and either choice can work.

Next, we look at the pro’s and con’s of the most popular property management marketing outsourcing options.


Pay-Per-Lead Directories:All Property Management / Manage My Property / Thumbtack

These are all directory sites with auction elements to them. You are listed with all the other companies on the service and the top bidder takes the highest spot. When a prospective owner contacts you from their site, you pay the company for the lead.

Most reading this will have heard of at least All Property Management, so we won’t bother with too much more explanation here other than to point out the pro’s and con’s of using directory sites to implement your plans to make your phone ring.

Pay-Per-Lead Directory Pros:1. Truly outsourced lead gen. Getting setup is fast and easy and there is very

little learning curve. The time cost to manage these lead sources is next to zero freeing you up to work on other things. All you have to do is get a profile up and figure out how much you want to bid.

2. Turn off and on at will. You go on vacation, you get sick, you’re busy with work, whatever the reason may be, you can turn these directories off at any time.

3. Pay per lead. You pay only for the legitimate leads they generate. The people who contact you are interested in property management, not vendors wanting to be on your vendor list, renters looking for a home to rent, or some weirdo internet spammer from Romania.

4. Price can be scaled to your budget. There is no setup fee. You only pay for what leads you get. Prices range from $20−$200 per lead typically, depending on the city/time of year/demand. It is an auction, so if a market gets hot, expect prices to surge.

5. They acts as a proving ground for closing rates. Because they send leads to more than one company, these directories tend to be very competitive. This obvious downside also comes with the upside of acting as a proving ground for how well developed your sales process is. Slow response times, poor follow up and weak offers will all be exposed in the light of heavy competition. If you struggle to close these leads look to your sales process before blaming the vendor.

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Pay-Per-Lead Directory Cons:

1. You lose the ‘hot buyer’ who only wants to call. Directory sites have no real ability to deal with phone calls. Sure you are listed on the site, but your phone number isn’t. This is a significant downside since in our experience, at least 50% of ‘hot buyers’ simply want to pick up the phone and call someone ‘right now’. No phone calls means that you lose the very folks you want; those with a sense of urgency. Depending on whose stats you believe, a phone call is 310X more likely to become a buyer, so not having live calls coming directly to your office really hurts.

2. You lose the mobile phone internet searcher. The majority of internet searches today are done on mobile phones. HOWEVER, 47% of mobile searchers say that if the don’t see a phone number on a website, they move on to another site. That means you are losing HALF of the hottest buyers. No bueno.

3. Conversion rates of directory site leads are lower. While we can’t for obvious reasons disclose client data, we can say that internally we see directory leads convert at a rate below the industry average closing rate (13% according to LeadSimple) and well below the close rate of the leads that we generate for our own clients. This “con” is extraordinarily important, since it directly affects your cost per signed contract which is the ultimate number that matters. That said, the lower conversion rate shouldn’t come as a surprise given that these leads are being sent to multiple property managers (up to 5). Keep in mind this doesn’t mean the leads themselves are necessarily low quality, it’s just that the system by nature creates more losers than winners by putting a single lead in front of five bidders. Depending how often you win or lose, your results may be radically different from other bidders.

4. No barriers to entry. Anyone can bid their way to the top and many do even when it makes no sense. There’s a lot of volatility in the rankings on these sites because anyone with a credit card can show up and bid their way to the top regardless of the quality of their services or whether or not they can even close the leads they are buying. This “dumb money” exists in any auction and drives up the price of leads for all buyers. And while it’s short lived for individual companies, it tends to persist for the marketplace as a whole. There is always a steady stream of existing customers that choose to pause or cancel the service, and new companies ready to replace them.


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The directories have no incentive to prevent irrational bidding and there are no built in filters to prevent it. Note that this is actually a bit different than Google Adwords where strict “quality scores” are applied which means the person willing to spend the most does not always rank at the top. In fact, it is not infrequently the case that the person on top in Google actually pays LESS than those below them!

To be clear, the irrationality we are referring to has to do with the lack of correlation between bidding and overall ROI. While you can bid your way to the top, that doesn’t mean that you are going to get more signed contracts. Close rates are the great equalizer and most property management companies have an “optimistic” view of how effective their sales process is.

5. The directory model is built on losers subsidizing winners. Back when most directories were started the online marketing landscape was very different and they were able to drive the bulk of their web traffic organically by mastering SEO. That all changed in 2011 when google rolled out a series of updates to their search engine algorithm that rendered a lot of those tactics obsolete and generally made SEO harder to do. Since then, most directories have slowly seen their traffic shift to where now the bulk of the leads they generate come from paid advertising (Adwords, display ads, etc.).

In financial terms this is called arbitrage; buy an asset from one party, sell it to another, make money on the spread. Why is this a problem?

In order to protect shrinking margins, pay per lead directories are forced to be stricter about limiting costs and preserving revenue by limiting lead refunds, upping lead prices, and increasing the number of times each lead is sold. All of these are natural profit maximization strategies, but they work at odds with your interests as a lead buyer.

All of this takes us back to our main point, the pay−per−lead directory model is built on the losers subsidizing the winners. The viability of the directory hinges on their ability to resell the lead, but by reselling them an uneven value distribution curve is created with a smaller number of lead buyers in each market capturing the bulk of the value because of their superior sales process.


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This disparity in value creates a lot of churn among the less competitive lead buyers as they realize they can’t make the numbers work. And this ultimately speaks to the fact that the directory model depends on the group of lead buyers being collectively willing to pay more per lead, than any one member would be willing to pay per contract.

The bottom line is that unless you are laser focused on closing these leads and staying at the top of the food chain, don’t waste your time and money.

GEEK GRADE: If you are a rock solid closer, B+. If you’re anything less than that, C−.


Pay-Per-Listing Directories:Yellow Pages / DexKnows / Yelp / RentalChoice.com

Unlike pay−per−lead, these services simply charge a monthly fee for the listing you get on their website, regardless of how many leads you do or don’t get each month.

This could be anything from advertising on Yelp, to ageneric online directory like Yellow Pages, to one of the many lesser known property management directories that have popped up over the years.

We have clients that have tried it all and we feelcomfortable painting with a broad brush here based on our first hand experiences.

Pay-Per-Listing Directory Pros:1. You get a shiny company listing. Enjoy it, because that’s about all you're

going to get.

Pay-Per-Listing Directory Cons:1. No results. There are very few stones we’ve left unturned in the process of

trying to generate leads for our clients and to date we seen ZERO, results come from any pay−per−listing service. We suspect that many of the pay per listing directories are well aware of the kinds of results they actually generate and understand that their revenues would fall dramatically if their pricing model was tied to real leads.

2. You pay no matter what. No only do you not get any leads, which is annoying given that you took the time to sign up and set up a listing, you actually get billed on a monthly basis for the non−results you are getting.

GEEK GRADE: F. Run away. Run away fast.

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National Multi-Niche Agencies:ReachLocal / Yodle / DexMedia / Web.com

Large Multi-Niche Agencies Pros:Frankly, not any pros here. We have seen little good come from these options and encourage our customers RUN AWAY from them.

Large Multi-Niche Agencies Cons:We’d like to quote the Wall Street Journal which wrote a piece on these companies titled, “Small Businesses Search in Vain for Web−Ad Help”:

“The Federal Trade Commission has received about 60 complaints involving ReachLocal since 2009 roughly half of them filed within the past two years and more than 180 complaints about Yodle over the same period, including more than 100 filed since 2012, according to data reviewed by the Journal following a Freedom of Information Act request.

The complaints, which were mostly from small−business owners, ranged from unfulfilled promises of new clients and better search−engine results to unwanted sales calls, exaggerated online traffic reports and overbilling. Some owners say the firms posted errors on their business websites including faulty contact information while others complained that the company's' newly refurbished sites promoted services they didn't provide.”

Failure to deliver on promises is a recurring theme with these national agencies and it’s not hard to see why considering these factors:1. Most of these national agencies are venture backed and have high churn

rates. The only way to hit their aggressive growth targets is to aggressively sell to new customers.

2. These companies grow by hiring armies of salespeople to cold call. These salespeople work for a commission and they aren’t paid to educate consumers, they get paid to close deals.

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Large Multi-Niche Agencies Cons:

3. The small business owners being called are simultaneously skeptical, and desperate to believe the promises they hear from the sales person on the other end of the line.4. Once the sale is made, the customer is pushed into a pool of tens of thousands of other business that are all supposed to be carefully monitored and managed each month. The salesperson that originally made the sales is off to hit the next months sales targets, never to be heard from again. Expect your ‘contact’ to be a sales rep who covers your geographic area, that has zero property management knowledge, and frankly very limited knowledge of your account (expect a lot of ‘let me check and get back to you’ replies to your direct questions). It appears that each territory has a sales manager, who covers many industries. And honestly, you will be a very small fish to them, so don’t expect much love (compare yourself to a chain of car dealerships that generate hundreds of calls a day; who do you think will get the reps attention?)

If you're still not convinced here are even more cons:1. The conversion tracking is abysmal. Let’s say you do get an iron clad guarantee of certain results and sign a contract on that basis. You would think that a conversion would mean a lead, but to these guys it doesn’t. DexKnows sends whoever clicks on their ads to a company listing and if someone clicks through to YOUR site, they count that as a conversion. Companies like Yodle or ReachLocal count all leads, including those from renters and vendors.2. The wrong “leads”. These providers are very capable of driving traffic, the problem is that it’s usually the wrong kind. And this brings us to our next point.3. They don’t know, or care, about property management. Residential property management represents a small slice of the pie that these national companies are targeting. They simply can’t justify developing a deep level of industry expertise and you’re the one that’s going to pay for it. Things that are obvious to you will be news to your account rep that’s juggling clients in 20 other industries.4. You’re not paying for results. You typically pay a flat monthly fee that isn’t based on performance.5. You are locked into long term contracts. 12 month contracts with upfront and monthly fees are common. If you’re unhappy after a few months, good luck trying to get out of the contract and dealing with the legal department of a company this size.

GEEK GRADE: Big fat F. You can’t say we didn’t warn you.


SEO Expert / Digital Marketing AgencyThis would be anyone who’s going to help you improve your organic rankings in the search engines to drive more traffic to your site. Some vendors provide this as a stand alone service, other “full service” agencies offer SEO work as just one of many services.

It’s very hard to speak broadly about this category of vendor but we’re going to try to provide some general thoughts.

SEO Expert Pros:1. Building organic traffic is hard, good help can be invaluable. The SEO landscape is

constantly in flux, and having a digital sherpa on your side can be worth its weight in gold.

2. Organic traffic represents an asset you own, not just rent. Once you get there, a well-ranked site is the gift that keeps on giving.

SEO Expert Cons:1. It’s hard to know who to trust. There’s no category of vendor more likely to

disappoint, fail or outright cheat ou than an SEO services company. Telling the honest companies from the charlatans can be hard and there’s no regulation in the industry so it’s still a wild west.

2. It’s hard to know what to pay. Even if you do find a reputable company, how much should you expect to pay? Should you pay a monthly retainer, per keyword, per ranking?

3. It’s hard to know how long it will take. Every company will have a different answer and it really does depend on what you’re asking them to do, how competitive the market is, etc.

4. IT’s never “over”; plan on a recurring expense pretty much forever. You may be promised that they will ‘rank you on page 1 of Google, and you’ll see impressive examples.’ But hold on, First, some keywords in some markets are fairly easy to rank for, and generally speaking, ranking for ‘property management cityname’ in your area, won’t be nearly as easy. In addition, once you ARE ranked (if you are), you can’t end your SEO efforts. Why? Two reasons.

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SEO Expert Cons:

First, Google pushes out changes to its search algorithm 500-600 times PER YEAR (1-2X a day!), according to industry expert Moz. So if you get in the SEO game, expect Google to keep changing that game, which means ongoing commitment. Second, your competitors. They want to be ranked, just like you. If they see you ranking at the top, they will have the same reaction you would likely have, “Hey, I want to take that top spot from them!” This is a never-ending SEO arms race.

GEEK GRADE: Incomplete. B if you get an expensive tutor; likely a D or F if you try this on your own.

SEO is something we at Geek do daily. So we know there is value in it. But is there a clear cost/benefit for the average property management company? Not sure about that. SEO requires a long term investment. And it’s moving in a direction that requires very high quality content, which is not easy or cheap to produce. And this investment comes without any guarantee on ROI. Just getting yourself at the top of Google rankings is the beginning of the flight, not the end. Think this through carefully before you go after this “free” source of traffic.

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Pay-Per-Click Expert / AgencyCompared to SEO, PPC is supposed to be a much safer bet and, in many ways, it is. Still, managing your own pay-per-click campaign isn’t for the faint of heart and if you’re looking for a set it and forget it solution hiring a PPC firm to manage your account can make sense.

PPC Expert Pros:1. Get quick results and avoid, or stop, the bleeding. The good news is that PPC

advertising can generate results quickly, the bad news is that PPC advertising can blow money quickly. A good PPC shop does the former and stops the latter.

2. Know where your dollars are going. A good PPC agency will help you not just generate qualified clicks but also clearly tie those clicks to qualified leads. Getting crystal clear ROI is a big deal and something a good agency can provide.

PPC Expert Cons:1. It’s hard to know who to trust. While it’s not nearly as shady as the SEO

marketplace, it’s still hard to know who to trust and who’s going to take you for a ride.

2. It’s not always clear what you’re paying for. We’ve reviewed many, many property management adwords accounts and even worse than the waste we often see is the simple fact that there is often ZERO tracking of the actual phone and email leads that were generated. Often, when we point this out, we’re shown fancy reports that talk about every number other than actual leads. DO NOT hire a PPC agency that doesn’t provide you with monthly reporting on the unique phone and email leads generated by the campaign. If you already have, suspend your campaigns until you get this in place. This is entry-level accountability and any reputable firm will provide it.

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GEEK GRADE: Once again, incomplete grade.

This is very much a ‘get what you pay for’ proposition. Geek is a Google certified PPC agency and has as much or more PPC experience than anyone in the property management game. Hiring someone like us to ONLY do PPC will cost you more than you likely want to pay. And, honestly, the really good companies won’t even take a property management company; the budgets are just too small for them to mess with (ie: some PPC agencies manage $1M - $20M a MONTH budgets. So your $500-$1000 budget is not super interesting to them).

Our experience is that most property management companies don’t want to pay for a really good PPC manager so they find someone on the cheap and, in this case, ‘cheap is expensive.’ Had a client pretty happy to be paying $200 per month to have their PPC budget of $1,000 per month. They were getting 'a ton of leads'. Their happiness only lasted until we took a more careful look at things. Turns out their 'results' were not being tracked accurately...at ALL. Pretty much every call was a renter or current client calling. So that $200 was a waste. Oops.

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Property Management Marketing FirmsFourandhalf / Dee Allomong / Social Eyes

There are a handful of companies that specialize in the property management marketing space. Some of them work exclusively in this industry, others simply make it a focus for their firm.

Property Management Marketing Firm Pros:1. Focused on the property management niche. This gives them industry specific

knowledge, which helps and hopefully means they are doing less learning on your dime.

2. Easier to reference check. They should be able to provide you with a list of satisfied property management clients and you should be able to find clients of theirs on your own to ask how their experience has been. References matter.

3. Easier to assess portfolio quality. You have to approximate quality with generic marketing agencies, whereas you can see first-hand the work these guys do for other pms.

Property Management Marketing Firm Cons:1. Pay for services, not results. No guarantees on performance. These

companies typically charge monthly for their services and, while they may do good work, there are no guarantees about the number of unique calls or email leads they will generate each month.

2. Locked into long-term contracts. Some firms require long-term contracts which are meant to get clients to commit to the process long enough for things to start working. But the question is, if things aren’t working, how do you stop the bleeding?

3. Not exclusive by market. Whatever work is done for you could theoretically also be done for three other competitors in the same market. Not only does this represent a potential conflict of interest but it could also diminish the impact of your marketing efforts if they aren’t unique.

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Questions For Property Management Marketing Firms:1. Do they do their work in house or outsource it? You don’t want to be working

with any company that is simply upselling another company’s services and padding the bill. This is especially true with pay-per-click and SEO services. Big red flag.

2. Are they involved in professional organizations like NARPM? Professional organizations act as a form of public accountability. Vendors that put their reputation on the line by getting involved with trade orgs are less likely to be selling smoke and mirrors because if they are they will get outed and blacklisted very quickly.

3. Are they exclusive to the property management industry? Some vendors only work with property managers, others work in a variety of industries but also focus on this industry. Focus matter.

4. Do they report on the number of unique leads they generate? This is the big one. Even though they may not guarantee results, you should run like the wind if they don’t even report on the results. And to be clear, when we say results, we mean the UNIQUE phone calls and contact form submissions they generate each month. This is a pass or fail litmus test in our opinion. Any reputable vendor will provide this.

5. Do they offer any kind of lead nurturing program? Lead nurturing is basically an automated follow up program and while it’s important to do, the real reason this matter is that it demonstrates a commitment to taking the process to the finish line unlike vendors who want to simply demonstrate upstream activity without showing a lot of concern for making sure it translates into signed contracts.

6. Do they offer any services with monthly fees that don’t require them to actually do anything? Another red flag. Examples are directory submissions or managing local business listings. Both are one time activities that requires little to no effort each month, yet they are often used to justify charging significant monthly fees to clients who don’t know better. Directory submissions for SEO are borderline worthless and business listings can be managed for a few dollars a month via services like yext.com

GEEK GRADE: Can’t give this an A due to the lack of accountability to results. We’ll give this a B- to D depending on who you hire.

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Property Management Software VendorsAppFolio / Buildium / Property Ware / Rent Manager

While all the major property management software vendors offer website building services. Note that our comments below are not an opinion on the quality of the software these vendors sell. We can’t speak to that, nor is it relevant.

Property Management Software Vendors Pros:1. Existing relationship. This is the only upside to hiring your property

management software vendor to do your marketing or build your website.

Property Management Software Vendors Cons:1. They aren’t a web design firm or marketing agency. There’s no more reason to

have your property management software vendor build you a website or do your marketing then there is to have your accountant do it. They don’t specialize here and can’t even afford to invest the resources necessary to develop a deep skillset here because it simply isn’t the core focus of their business.

2. You’re sacrificing quality for the sake of convenience. Whether it’s having a web design firm build your property management software, or having a software vendor do your online marketing, you’re going to get worse results than you otherwise could have.

3. There is no “synergy” no matter what is promised. Your website should be a conversion focused selling machine. Period. Every bit of “synergy” you think you might get from working with your pm software vendor falls under the heading of being secondary. Don’t try brushing your teeth with a hammer simply because it came with a toothbrush attachment.

GEEK GRADE: F

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Property Management Website VendorsProperty Manager Websites / Qvassist.com / IT49

We sometimes hear business owners talk about building a new website as if that will solve all their marketing problems so we wanted to include a section on this to share our perspective.

We agree that having a good website is important but the truth is that a good website will catch customers like a great lure will catch a fish. The lure is only as good as the skill of the fisherman and the quality of waters it’s placed in. Building a great website is definitely important, but it’s just a starting point, not an actual strategy.

Further, most pm websites are to some extent built for many purposes; lure new clients, service renter inquiries, provide resources and lon-ins for current customers and in some cases, promote brokerage (list/sell) services. That is asking a LOT of one website. We have strategies we use with our customers to overcome this ‘we’re focusing on everything; dilemma, but just know that you either need a killer game plan or you are by the very nature of things going to end up with a website that is a mush of many things and not about one main thing.

With that in mind, here are some things to consider when thinking about building a new website to help with lead generation:1. Websites are not magic. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking, “If you build it,

they will come.” Your website is like digital storefront, it should do a great job of helping you sell to any visitors that show up, but the fact that it exists doesn’t mean people will come. It’s typically best to view your website as your primary piece of sales collateral, designed to help you sell rather than generate new leads on it’s own. A new slick website can improve how well you capture leads from your existing traffic but won’t actually drive more traffic without a significant, and separate, marking campaign. If you’re going to build a new website, the focus should be on improving how well your website converts visitors into leads.

2. Focus on conversion. Most websites, including professionally designed sites, are not structured to convert prospects into customers. Most sites are a mash up of priorities. The designer wants it to look cool. The SEO person says it needs to be laid out a certain way so Google bots recognize it. Left out of the conversation typically are UX/UI (User Experience and User Interface) considerations that focus on conversion.

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UX/UI and the associated discipline of CRO (Conversion Rate Optimization) are focused on this simple fact: its PEOPLE that buy from you. Not robots. Not art competition judges. People. So UX/UI and CRO focus on that aspect of the triad. Sure a good looking site matters since it builds trust, and trust REALLY matters. Sure having a website that the Google bots like matters for SEO. But in our experience, after looking at many websites, the weak link is on the CRO and UX/UI side of things. We’ve seen such a problem in this area that we are now partnering with some of our Geek clients to help them include CRO elements on their existing websites without rebuilding their websites.

4. An industry focus helps. Selling property management services isn’t rocket science. Working with a firm that has experience designing these types of sites means that you can cut out a lot of the typical discovery process and guesswork that is required any time a generic web design shop works with a client in a new industry.

5. Don’t overpay, or underpay. We can’t think of any circumstance where it makes sense to build your own website, even if you have the of the required skills. On the other hand, 99% of the time it makes just as little sense to spend a pile of money on a high end website. $10k high end website, $5 business cards, expensive custom yard signs...these are almost always an emotionally driven purchase that leaves ROI as an afterthought. Consider that the people selling $3k websites are driven by the same market dynamics as the people selling a $7k website. The goal is always to sell more websites while maintaining good margins. Every vendor is looking to streamline the process and improve their margins, so don’t get snookered into paying an exorbitant fee to a company that pretends to hand carve each new website from stone. Once you pass a certain point, not only does paying more not correlate to getting more, it actually decreases the likelihood that you will see positive ROI. We’ve seen clients make this mistake and it’s painful to watch.

6. Make sure you can make updates on your own. While it’s important to have access to support for help, it’s also really important that you are able to make basic changes to the site on your own without having to ask for permission or wait on someone else to get it done.

7. Look for stand alone web design agencies vs. all in one shops. We recommend working with a specialist, not an all in one vendor that offers websites in addition to 5 other services. If you need some of those other marketing services, look for other dedicated specialists.


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Give up the dream to have something completely original looking if you want a reasonable price. We have heard complaints that websites that come from one vendor all look the same. ANd while that may be true, it doesn’t make as much difference as you might think. We’ve seen enough pm websites to be able to say categorically that the bar is not very high on what might constitute a ‘great’ looking website in the pm industry. So while a template design from a web company may not be your first choice, the relative amount of difference it will make is surprisingly small in our view.

GEEK GRADE: Again, depends on the vendor, and there’s a lot of them. Right now, Property Manager Websites (or PMW) are leaders in the pm industry. They produce pm sites at reasonable prices and their sites are optimized for mobile. And no, they didn’t pay us to say that.


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Geek Real Estate Marketing

Geek Real Estate Marketing ( ‘Geek’ for short) gets exclusive leads for property management companies nationwide. Geek is a certified Google Partner. To see what Geek offers, go to www.GeekRealEstateMarketing.com

Geek Cons:1. Does not do client services type work. Does not manage your ppc account, build

websites, etc.2. Exclusive. Only takes one client per city.3. Leads can not be ‘turned on and off’ as with directory sites. Geek will however work

within mutually agreed upon reasonable marketing budgets.

Geek Pros:

1. Exclusive leads. Geek is exclusive to their clients. One client per city. phone calls ring to your phone. All marketing has your branding only. Only Geek does this.

2. Experienced in real estate, focused on property management. Geek is a NARPM affiliate and owner Mike O’Neil is an active licensed real estate broker of 27 years.

3. No contracts. Leave anytime you wish.4. Pay per lead pricing. You pay strictly for performance. You have no ppc ad

spend; Geek covers all that. You only pay for actual qualified leads.5. Partner program. For clients that qualify, Geek will use existing customer

digital assets (IE websites, social profiles) to generate leads on a pay for performance basis. This involves adding CRO (conversion rate optimization) elements to existing ‘digital real estate’ owned by the client. Example: Geek will do targeted SEO to drive more traffic to the customer’s site. This is strictly based on pay per lead performance (no results, no payment). These leads have the added bonus of being less expensive than leads generated from other sources.

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http://www.geekrealestatemarketing.com/

property management marketing guide...property management marketing guide ... if you think marketing...

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