The property industry is one of the most cut-throat and competitive, and with so many agents vying for the same business, it can be tough to stand out. Whether you have been operating in your area for three months or three decades, there are always ways that you can improve your lead generation and find new landlords, tenants, and properties to market. Below, we’ve put together eight strategies that you might not have considered to give you a head start…
Introduce a referral scheme so landlords can recommend your services to their friends and earn a reward in the process. It doesn’t have to be anything extravagant - an M&S voucher or a discount off their next months’ service is enough to entice people into introducing you to their network. Word of mouth marketing remains one of the most effective - and cheapest!
It’s an old school method, but it works! Mail dropping across housing estates and apartment blocks is a great way to reach your target market - especially if you’re trying to focus on a particular part of the town. According to DLM, 79% of consumers either keep, pass on to a friend, or glance over the contents of a leaflet, so create a well-designed flier outlining your services as a lettings agent and distribute them in key locations (or outsource their delivery!).
It’s all well and good offering your lettings agent services like property management, but how well do you really know your landlord clients? Get in touch with them and make sure you're working to build a genuine relationship. If they know you’re passionate about their portfolio and that you care about their success, they’ll be more likely to come back to you when they invest in a new buy-to-let, or they need help finding a new tenant for an existing property.
Another “old fashioned” marketing strategy that works well is cold calling landlords and property owners. You can pitch the benefits of letting through your agency over private rental or choosing another firm, and offer them incentives like a discount off their first months’ service. You won’t land every call, and it requires hard work and tenacity, but it does pay off.
If you’ve already built a name for yourself in your local area, it’s vital that landlords, tenants, and prospects can find you easily. Claim your Google My Business listing (that’s the pane on the side of search engine results pages where your business information is found) and add a description, location, contact information, opening hours, and pictures. Then, when landlords search for lettings agents, Google will be more likely to show you ahead of your competitors.
Once you’ve set up your Google My Business listing, make sure you ask satisfied tenants and landlords for reviews. The more you have, the more established your business will appear, and the more potential clients are likely to trust you. Trustpilot is another popular review platform and can help you build credibility in your niche. Keep an eye on your reviews and make sure that you respond to negative ones as soon as possible - the odd complaint from a disgruntled tenant is inevitable, but if your ranking starts to drop, you’ll need to work to win them over. 91% of us trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations.
Don’t underestimate the power of social media for letting agents. You can communicate with landlords and investors on LinkedIn, and find tenants for your properties on Facebook and Instagram. Build your presence as soon as you can and create regular, consistent content that offers genuine value to your followers, interacting with them as you go. The more work you put into social media, the more you’ll get back from it, so it pays to make the investment.
Why should landlords or tenants come to you ahead of your competitors? If you don’t have an answer to that question, other than the obvious “we’re cheaper” or “we deliver a better quality service”, it might be worth considering alternative methods. At Billing Better, for example, we help agents offer bills included to their tenants in a hassle-free way, creating an “all-inclusive” style monthly package that works for modern renters. Click here to find out more about how it works and arrange a free demonstration - we’d love to work with you!
Have any recommendations? Let us know on LinkedIn and check back soon for more.
