Blind Spots in Property Management Marketing



The podcasts we publish on The Property Management Show usually inspire us to talk about the topics that we cover, long after the guests have left us. On today’s show, we’re sharing some of what we captured when Marie and Brittany were discussing the most common blind spots that property managers miss when it comes to marketing their business and their services.

Two stand out: Positioning and Data.

Most Common Property Management Marketing Blind Spot: Positioning

Positioning can be a big blind spot for business owners and property managers. Here’s a question that we often pose to owners of property management companies:

“What makes you different from your competition?”

There are three common answers that we hear a lot:

* I am an investor myself.

* We care for your property like our own.

* We deliver peace of mind.

These are great reasons for an owner to work with you. But these are not competitive advantages. They’re more like value propositions. They’re selling points, but they don’t necessarily set you apart from other companies.

It’s important to communicate that you invest in your own rental homes and provide peace of mind and treat clients’ homes the same way you treat your own. But, you also need a differentiator, and these qualities are not that.

You might be surprised at how many of your competitors claim those same three sales points. If you’re trying to position yourself as being better than your property management competition, you need something else. What does it feel like to work with you? What do you want your owners to feel like when they know you’re taking care of the leasing, management, and maintenance of their investments?

Think about the experience of buying a used car. No one likes to do it because you know an over-aggressive sales person will approach you almost immediately, try to upsell you, and then keep you there for 12 hours while the financing is figured out.

People hate that.

So, you can position yourself as a used car company that offers 0 percent financing (which all of them do), or you can do what CarMax does, and solve the pain of used car buying. They know the process isn’t the best, so they allow you to do everything online and then arrive to pick up your car curbside without ever talking to a sales person.

That’s a differentiator.

Used car companies aren’t going to double their sales by offering 0 percent APR. But they might by positioning themselves based on their truly unique qualities. Property managers aren’t going to double their doors by offering peace of mind.

These are the little things that make a big difference. Think outside the box when it comes to your market and what you can offer.

Two things will help with this blind spot:

* Observe your competition. What are they doing and what aren’t they doing?

* Know your perfect client.

Elevate Your Positioning Beyond Table Stakes

This is hard. It takes thinking and creativity and brainstorming. We’re in a time of property managers offering guarantees. We did a whole podcast on that recently that will publish soon. When no one was offering guarantees – that was a competitive advantage. But, now that most management companies offer the same guarantees – it’s become table stakes. In other words, it’s so common now that many property managers feel they have to offer guarantees, just to be on level playing field with their competition.

Sometimes it can seem like you’re running out of ways to make yourself stand out.

What’s interesting is that reputation has a huge impact on whether or not those table stake offerings matter. If you’re a company that has a great reputation, it won’t matter as much if you don’t offer guarantees like other management companies do. People are going to want to work with you because of your reputation.