People need a place to live as much as they need clothes on their backs. Take a moment to think about your favorite department store. Think about what makes their clothes, brands, or style so attractive to you. More than likely, your tastes are partially manufactured by the way that the brand presents their products. Your favorite pair of pants? You saw those in an eye-catching email advertisement. That coat you’re never seen without? You saw that on a website homepage. Why should your marketing efforts as a property manager be any less enticing? We’ve pinpointed a few marketing mistakes that property managers make every day when advertising their properties, and how you can save time, money, and the environment by NOT making them.

#1 – Immobile

The internet is everywhere, on almost every mobile device. Even if you have a website that looks great on your desktop, are you sure that it looks good on smartphones? Recent trends show that 84% of current or prospective renters actively search using mobile devices. In fact, 4 out of 5 millennials have smartphones and perform almost every research task on them. If your marketing efforts aren’t tailored towards people using mobile devices to find rentals, then you have a great opportunity to increase your search traffic by 30% just by having a mobile-friendly website. If you’re a property manager without a website, or if you’re looking for ways to improve your existing website, AppFolio has a dedicated team of designers that can assist you with optimizing your web layout to attract potential new tenants. For great ideas on how to optimize your website for prospective renters, check out this recent AppFolio article highlighting key strategies.

#2 – Outdated

Along the same lines as mobility, the internet is only going to be your best friend if you stay on top of things. Property managers with the most successful online presence remain vigilant in posting their current vacancies and removing them immediately after they have been filled. Out-of-date postings may detract interested parties from signing a lease with you, particularly if a potential tenant makes an inquiry only to discover their dream home has already been filled. AppFolio marketing features centralize all of your postings (even on third-party listing sites), allowing you to add or remove listings with one-click simplicity.

#3 – Expensive

Marketing can be expensive, and it’s to your benefit to make sure that every dollar you spend on advertising your vacancies counts. When it comes to print advertising in local newspapers or magazines, you’re required to pay an upfront fee for advertising space with no guaranteed return on investment. Online advertising through Search Engine Optimization is a much smarter way to capture your intended audience’s attention and have various methods of charging for advertising space. For example, some SEO services will charge you only if your ads are clicked on, which means that you’re spending only as much as you need to in order to generate business. Not only will you be spending less on ad space, but focusing your marketing efforts online means that you’re using less paper, which can have an increased benefit to your overall costs as well as our planet!

We recently teamed up with the Sprout Marketing team for a webinar on how you can improve your online presence through Search Engines and Social Media.

The next time you stop by that department store you probably love more than you should, ask yourself what strategies they implemented to capture your attention and get you through their doors. More than likely, you can apply those same tactics to drive renters to your properties as well.

You Might Also Enjoy:

How to Stand Out with Your Property Management Website

10 Best Practices for Listing Your Properties

The post 3 Common Marketing Mistakes Every Property Manager Makes (At Least Once) appeared first on The Official AppFolio Blog.