Rental property is a great investment, unless your rental units are empty.
If you offer fine accommodation at reasonable cost, you might think the renters will come knocking at your door. But smart landlords know that you still need to advertise rental space, even if you have the best deal in town.
Here are some marketing strategies you can and should be using in getting more renters….
- Figure out your target market
Just as if you were trying to sell a product or a service, you need to have your target market clearly in mind when you are trying to get renters.
One popular way that business owners and marketing agency owners use to accomplish this is to create buyer personas. In your case, it would be a renter persona.
If you could imagine the ideal renter, what would he/she/they look like?
Here are some things you want to answer on your renter persona sheet:
- Relationship Status: Are they single? Married?
- Employment Status: Are they yuppies? Retired? Unemployed?
- Educational Status: Are they still in college? Graduate students?
- Financial Status: Are you providing Section 8 housing?
- Credit Status: Do you provide housing to high credit risks? Have a credit score minimum?
- Family Status: Are children welcome? How about pets?
As you complete your renter personas (there may be more than one), remember that discrimination is not only illegal, but ethically wrong.
You have a right to expect your tenants to take care of your units and pay rent on time, but you don’t have a right to discriminate based on religion, race or ethnic status.
- Reach your target where they are
Now that you have a renter persona; figure out where they are likely to be.
For example, retired people might be best reached through newspaper ads, or an advertisement in a retirement magazine, like AARP. Yuppies can be reached via text ads on their mobile devices.
Financially-challenged renters might be found through community outreach programs.
Think about where you will place your advertising to best reach your target market.
- Use the power of online marketing
There are lots of opportunities to place ads online for your rental units.
Google Adwords is a good place to start, and their rates are reasonable. Blogads is another online ad service that displays your ads on popular blog sites.
For rental purposes, you could place ads on moving company blogs and real estate blogs.
As the article, “6 marketing strategies that will help you rent your property” looks at make sure you explore all your options when it comes to strategizing.
- Talk about it
Word-of-mouth is still a powerful way to market for rental units.
If you don’t have a wide social network in real life, you can talk about it online on Facebook or Twitter. Even consider posting pictures of the unit on Pinterest or Instagram.
Marketing for renters is just as logical as marketing to any consumer segment.
You just have to go about it in the same way as a savvy business owner would.
About the Article: Kate Supino writes extensively about marketing and best business practices.
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