If paid referral incentives are legal in your area, consider increasing your reward just before the holidays, when residents are likely to be inspired by the idea of extra cash. Each year,  we use thousands of doorhangers to promote holiday referrals, and also attach a reminder to every service request in order to keep the offer in front of our residents. Ordinarily, we pay $100 for referrals, but we double that amount during holiday season as an extra incentive. We also then have the opportunity to budget for more money in the resident referral category in these months. The cost is minimal since we don’t individualize the design by property.

Contributed by Bobbie Smith