How to market your apartments on a small budget

Tip 2. Email Marketing

People spend far too much time, money and effort chasing after new prospect lead when they usually have old prospect leads that they have either given up on or forgot all about. The most valuable leads you have are over a year old now.

Most of the time, leasing and marketing teams are  impatient with prospect leads.

They want to kind of squeeze the most they can out of the prospect leads right away. And if they don’t lease right away, then they often get discouraged and think, “Those leads are no good and dead them out in their Lead management system. They were unqualified, or they’re just lookie-lou’s, or they’re not going to lease and apartment”.

So think about all of the prospect leads you’ve already been generating. Look at the last 2 to 5 years.

If you even just start connecting with those people that you already have contact details for.. there’s a good chance that if it was more than 9 months  ago, they might be getting ready to actually start looking for an apartment now that their current lease is coming close to the end.

So here’s what to do:

Collect Their Details

Gather up the name and email for all of your “dead prospect leads”. All of the people that you have been in contact with at some stage that haven’t become a resident. Even if this is someone you haven’t heard from in a couple of years. If your lead management system only exports 6 months of dead leads, ask you representative to pull all leads going back as far as you can by month needed.

NOTE: I do not consider a prospect lead dead unless they bought a house or are a felon. All other things in life change from income and credit to pet size and family size.

You will be surprised just how many names and emails you can collect.

Send A VERY Short Email

Send each of these dead prospect leads a very simple email.

The subject should just be their first name, ie. “Bob”.

The body of the email should be these 9 words:

“Are you looking for a new apartment ?”

More follow up examples :

• “Are you still looking at insert what ever their hot button was?”
• “Are you still looking for an apartment with over sized closets?”
• “Are you still looking for an apartment with three bedrooms?”
• “Are you still looking for an apartment with a location near the airport ?”

Focus on The Best

Sometimes people are worried about sending an email out to people they haven’t been in contact with for a long time. But this shouldn’t be a concern.

When you send this email 3 possible things can happen:

1. They don’t respond – in which case you are no different from having not sent the email.
2. They reply and say no (or some variation there-of) – this is not a bad thing because now you can remove them from your prospects list and at least you definitely know.
3. They reply with something other than no.

Now quite often for the people that are still interested they won’t actually reply with yes. They are a bit hesitant and scared of being sold to.

Instead they might reply with something like “why do you ask” or some other non-committal response.

This is just as good as a yes because it means you have re-opened the conversation and can reply to them with more information just the same as if they had said yes they are still interested.

Have a Conversation

A key when sending emails to prospects is to take things slowly and not try to force everything in at once.

I think a lot of time people are worried about not including some information and that if only they include it then the prospect will be convinced to visit again.

But that’s not the way people work.

Emails should be like any other interaction with a person and they should be a 2 way conversation.

Think about if a door-to-door salesperson knocks on your door.

They usually jump straight into their sales pitch and you stand there for a good few minutes trying to get a word in and tell them to go away. As soon as they start on their pitch you aren’t even listening to them because you know they are trying to sell you something and all you are thinking is how you can get rid of them.

On the other hand think about if you run into someone at the shops. Maybe someone that you think you used to know but are not sure.

They might start the conversation by asking how you are – and then you reply. And you ask how they are. And they reply and ask you about how you know each other or what you are up to now. And you reply. And there is a 2-way conversation that slowly leads in a certain direction.

So when you are sending this email – the goal is to get a response and to start a conversation. That’s it!

Don’t try to sell them on anything in the first email. Don’t include any more information. Just a short, simple email that is expecting a reply.

And when people do reply with something other than no – you can continue the conversation (not sales pitch) and slowly lead them towards engaging in your services.

But My Apartment Community is Different

Think your prospects  or your area or your apartment community is different and this won’t work for you?

Wrong!

This isn’t about you, it is about human nature and humans are humans are humans.

So get to work, gather up your old prospect leads and send out the very short email.

The worst possible thing that can happen is you will get no-one reply or get people replying saying to not bother them. Wow! Really?

The best thing that can happen – you are quickly flooded with prospect leads and new leases.

Read More Budget Stretching Apartment Marketing Ideas!