Multi Housing News August 2012 : Page 35
we’re getting from print sources as op-posed to online.” However, Carunungan emphasizes that many of the traditional market-ing channels are still valuable and that some channels might serve certain purposes bet-ter than others, stressing that property manag-ers should not sim-ply rely on lead generation as the sole metric. “At the end of the day, our marketing channels or advertising sources, where we spend money to ad-vertise, is going to get judged by leads and leases,” says Carunungan. “Howev-er, you will have other channels with sort of a different function than a purely lead-generating purpose. Once we determine the purpose of that channel, then we’re able to quantify the success or failure of that channel.” top marketing channel, social media is playing a big role in bringing prospects to this resource, serving as an indispensable conduit that can be heavily integrated with other channels. “Facebook is driving more traffi c to our website than Bing, Yahoo and other search and lead sources,” says Atkinson. “Mark-TaylorTV, our social media chan-nel, is poised well to deliver lead activity from Facebook as we are closing in on 8,500 ‘likes.’” Broughton at RentSentinel says that while social media is a new and essen-tial focus, there are other online sources that outshine it and other, more traditional marketing channels. “Just with an effective Craigslist strat-egy, you’ll end up fi nding that Craig-slist becomes your number-one source of lead generation of just people going to your website,” says Broughton. “There’s defi nitely a focus on social media. I would say that’s a new focus, though.” While sites like Craigslist might not necessarily qualify as true social media, the amount of traffi c and user interaction his company took “adds more trust at the property management level that the leads they’re receiving are legitimate.” Hence, while potential for problems on sites like Craigslist always exist, this should not deter property managers from making use of what could be a primary marketing channel—one that can easily be integrated with social networking and single-platform solutions. “You present professional-looking pic-tures, professional description and a very clear and concise title describing your Craigslist information,” says Broughton. “Something else that we’ve added on over the last year to make ads more trustwor-thy—if you have a Facebook page, if you have our new RentSocial tool, if you have a YouTube account—we’ll add those links to those sites as well.” At the end of the day, whether it’s new marketing channels like Craigslist or more traditional ones like events and billboards, the value of having a good lead manage-ment strategy and system in place is be-yond imperative from both a revenue and reputation standpoint. “Lead management, to me, is really put-❝ Property managers should not simply rely on lead generation as the sole metric . ❞ that takes place on them is something that certainly rivals the impact of social media. Yet while the intrigue is there, one thing that often makes property man-agers and renters weary is the level of spam and potential for scams on such an open source. Notes Broughton: “We have a very indus-trial-sized spam fi lter—we capture more than a million spam messages a day.” Yet he goes on to state that this particular step ting science into your marketing efforts,” says Carunungan. “You’re eliminating guesswork as much as possible. You’re eliminating bias, in a lot of cases, because you’re putting everybody under the same metrics, for the most part. You are being smart about where you put your advertis-ing dollars.” MHN To comment on this story, e-mail Philip Shea at pshea@multi-housingnews.com A new wave Of course, one of the newer and most talked about marketing channels—one that is just beginning to reveal its true po-tential—is social media, and it’s safe to say that property management compa-nies are jumping on board and integrating this channel with other online resources. Atkinson of Mark-Taylor notes that, while her company’s website remains the www.multi-housingnews.com | August 2012 35
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