How to Win New Business in a Competitive Property Management Industry

The property management landscape is becoming more competitive with new players entering an already saturated market and companies struggling to gain new business.  To maintain a sustainable business model and generate revenue, it’s important for management companies to focus on finding fresh new leads that are in need of the service you provide.  In this blog post, we’ll focus on four significant ways to boost lead generation and stand above the competition.

1) Be visible on search engines

When developing or updating your HOA, condo, or rental company website, it is important to make SEO or search engine optimization a priority.  Search engine optimization is an important effort that leads prospects from searching for specific information to your website, discovering that you have an answer to their question and eventually, you can help solve their challenges.  For management companies that service one or more geographic locations, implementing local SEO is critical because association boards and apartment managers will search for a management company in their vicinity. Here are a few SEO tips to help guide your efforts:

• Focus on the keywords that are most important for prospects to find you and implement it in your content, page titles, descriptions, links, and images.
• Implement local keyword search into your SEO strategy.  For example, if you’re a condo company that manages high-rises in Seattle, make sure that your site is discoverable for the keyword.  Pudget Sound Condo Group, for example, does a good job with their local search efforts. They’ve added relevant keywords in its page title, URL, and description – thus, they are on the first page of Google’s search engine.
  
• If your budget allows, spending marketing money on online search ads such as Google Ads or Bing allows you to improve your company’s visibility.  Again, if you’re a local management company, keep in mind how a local HOA board or apartment manager would search for you.
  

2) Make digital marketing a priority

Digital marketing is an important effort that allows companies to increase their reach by sharing knowledge and expertise.  HOA, condo, and rental management companies can benefit from digital marketing by building credibility over time. Digital marketing includes a variety of tools all meant to support your efforts in moving prospects along the sales funnel – blogs, email marketing, social media, search engine optimization, and online advertisements.

Here are a few ways to engage in digital marketing:

• Add a blog to your website and write content frequently.  Write about the challenges community associations or apartments face and how to solve them (such as board meeting efficiency, keeping residents engaged, the impact of drones, and the list can go on).
• Build an email list to send newsletters or company updates to.  If you are providing new services such as in-house maintenance, that’s something worthwhile to share with your audience.
• Create your presence on social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.  Share your blog articles, company updates, new staff joining, tips, and more.

3) Network and share your expertise at industry events

Networking at events helps you to make connections and build relationships with prospects.  There are many trade associations that operate on a national and state-level such as Community Association Institute (CAI) for HOA’s and condos, and National Association of Residential Property Managers (NARPM) and Institute of Real Estate Management (IREM) for apartments and rentals.  These trade associations provide a multitude of services that empower management companies to succeed. They provide opportunities to attend industry conventions, luncheons, and other events that are great for networking, sharing your knowledge with others, and learning the latest trends.   Other ways management companies can utilize their memberships in trade associations include purchasing a booth or sponsorships, speaking at conventions or teaching classes, or providing expertise at luncheons that laser-focus on an important topic such as emergency preparedness or handling community relationships.

4) Leverage modern technology solutions

Community management software is not often considered a lead generation tool, but from the experience of our clients, I’d argue that it can become a very powerful asset that gives you a competitive edge.  When board members or apartment managers seek a property management service, they are looking for the whole package. If you don’t provide the services they’re looking for due, and if part of that reason is that you’re using an inefficient software platform, your prospect is more likely to go with another property management that uses a more powerful software platform.

Obtaining new sources to generate more quality leads is a very important goal of growing your property management portfolio of community associations and/or apartments.  A combination of these four strategies enables you to not only generate new leads but move them along the sales funnel to becoming a customer and building a sustainable property management business.       

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About Pilera

Pilera Software is the premier community and property management suite that has helped thousands of community managers and back-office personnel enhance communications, improve customer service, and manage compliance and operations.  May we help your community achieve these success stories?  Book a demo to see how Pilera’s community management suite can help your company.