Like all businesses in the world, real estate has also gone digital. Wonder what we mean by that? Well, gone are the days when you used to attract potential buyers by posting a “FOR SALE” sign in your front yard. As the Millennials have been crowned as the generation of renters, we need to run things by their norms and trends. The old school tricks don’t apply to Millennials, they are always on their phones and other gadgets, and you will not gain much.
Keep the Target Market In Mind:
You can’t aim high if you aren’t targeting your market well. As Millennials are the unofficial kings of the renter’s pool, you need to target them especially. Observe your target market carefully; this will enable you to see where they spend most of their time. Once you have acquired that knowledge, all you need to do is make your listings available on those platforms. As easy as it sounds, only a handful of the landlords are following this approach. Almost 90% of the landlords are still marketing with the old tricks that aren’t going to take them anywhere anytime soon. So, by learning a couple of new tricks, you will easily outsmart a significant majority of your competitors. Stay with us till the end, and you will learn how to get an edge over your competition by using digital marketing.
Title and description of your listing:
By observing the renters’ pool, you now know where your target market spends time or where they will look if they are searching for a house. All you need now is to post a catchy listing, something that will instantly attract the buyer.
Many people may argue and say, it’s the picture the buyer sees first, but will a picture cover every part of your house? No! So you need a tile as well as a proper description. Both of these parts of your listing need to be extremely enticing. It should be something that will make the buyer stop and click on your listing. Make sure your listing contains keywords like two-bedroom apartment, house with backyard, house with pool, etc.
These are the kind of keywords that buyers mostly use to search for rental properties. Don’t let the buyer assume anything or make them guess, writing a compelling but proper description with all aspects of the property adequately highlighted.
Visuals of your Property:
Photographs:
By visuals, we mean two things, a photo, and a video. Both of these can do a huge favor to your property. You can increase the clicking traffic on your listing by 139% just by adding pretty pictures. Soon after the description, the potential buyer will click your pictures to go through them again. So, the quality of the pictures matters a lot too. Make sure your listing is illustrated with high-definition as well as eye-pleasing images of your rental property.
If you are worried that you will need to hire a professional photographer and pay a huge fee to do so, you are wrong. All you need is a good camera and some cool tricks to capture the best pictures of your property. First, capture clean and clear shots of your property, de-clutter all surfaces, and tidy up before clicking pictures. Secondly, download an editing app, and use the tools to vertically correct your pictures, enhance the color as well as crop the unnecessary parts of the picture.
Video Tour:
The second part of our visuals is video content. A video tour is very trendy, and it also helps the buyer connect with the house better than pictures. Many have even called this the new open house of the real estate market. People, who are moving to a new state, can’t be bothered to visit open houses; hence video tours are the best thing for them. You will be surprised to know how many Millennials are moving from one state to another for jobs. So, if you want to make an impression, create a video tour and post it with your listing. Like your pictures, you can also edit your videos and make them more appealing.
Social Media and Social Networking:
You want the biggest weapon of all; learn the art of social media marketing. It’s the best thing since sliced bread. Social networks are unofficial kings when it comes to free advertising. You don’t have to pay a thing as well, and your listing will reach a million people if you use the right tools to post it.
Take Facebook, for instance, make a page of your rental business, ask your friends to like and share. It’s just one click, and I am sure none of your friends will say no. The next thing is to post a listing; there are many groups active on Facebook that deal with real estate genre; you need to post your listings on such groups to gain reach. Use the right keyword, as explained earlier, and when a person searches for a rental property, your name will pop on top.
These platforms are so huge, and using their paid advertising to increase your reach will be a smart move too. It will worth every penny you spend on advertising. Forget billboard advertising, Facebook, and Instagram are the new advertising giants.
Another good news for the real estate agents who love putting videos of their properties, according to a recent report, video content ranks way better than images on Facebook. So the next time you are posting a listing, make sure you add a video. Thanks to the latest reports, your property will be rented before you know it.
Conclusion:
Like every business, real estate is a race, and at the moment, digital marketing is like a black horse. You are lucky that most landlords aren’t into digital marketing, so all you need to do is to make sure you have learned the ropes right and start posting. Score all networking sites and use the above tips to create the best listings for your rental property.
If you’d like to talk more about property management, or you need help with Everest Property Management, please contact us at Everest Realty.
As a top producing Realtor and Property Manager; Terry specializes in sales, extensive construction homes, rentals, REO’s, short sales, and all aspects of Real Estate. After graduating the University of Michigan with a master in MBA, Terry continued his endeavor and now has over 15+ years of experience in the Real Estate world. If there is anything that has to do with Real Estate and sales, you can always be sure of Terry to provide important, specialized knowledge.
