At the end of last year, National Multifamily Housing Council & Kingsley surveyed 350,000 residents in the US. 80% said they would like to see site plans and/or neighbourhood plans when visiting property websites, and 81% said they want and expect to see videos, plans and walkthroughs of properties.
In our digital-fuelled world, having a fast-loading website that features visuals that stand out, capture and retain the attention of website visitors is crucial. According to Tower Marketing, website visitors attention span is only eight seconds. If your property website doesn’t have clear information and visuals to capture your audience’s attention, you could be losing potential prospects.
We’ve listed our top tips below on improving your website to generate more leads:
1. Turn Your Website Traffic into Leads
SEO is a key part of marketing your strategy – By improving your content for search terms, you can reach a wider audience and have a greater chance of getting your properties in front of your target prospect via search engines.
Once you’ve gained the attention of the prospect, entice them with call-to-action prompts, aka nudge marketing. This is a great way to provide information to the right person, at the right time. Call-to-actions can be used to push special offers, enquire about rentals, or provide an easy way to book tours.
You can schedule these pop ups to appear where and when you want so you can test what works for your website. Use your website analytics to find which webpages have the highest traffic so you can push them in front of the right audience.
2. Capture Interest with Visuals
Videos are a great way to immediately capture interest and show an overview of your portfolio. Make sure you include a site plan and a map of the neighbourhood so your prospects can see where your property is in relation to the surrounding area. This is crucial as according to NMHC, 14% of residents would rent without seeing an apartment in person.
Property maps focus on the prospect’s journey and provide a clear visual of your residential buildings, helping to show live availability.
3. Show Availability in Real-Time
90% of residents said unit selection and availability is critical in helping them choose apartments they rent. Using property marketing and leasing technology, such as Yardi RentCafe, you’re able to show real-time unit availability.
If you want to create a sense of urgency, you can choose how many properties you show as available, e.g., only displaying four available apartments when you have eight, encourages your prospects to “act now” and apply.
When choosing property and leasing technology, make sure it can integrate with internet listing services such as Zoopla or Rightmove, as this keeps your availability consistent and automated to reduce manual errors and saves time.
4. Offer Online Tours
81% of residents said they want to book tours online so they can choose a time and date that fits their schedule. By adding tour booking features to your website, you can allow your prospects to self-serve and have full control over when they view your property. You can either set this up as a separate page or as a call-to-action and include a special offer, such as “get 10% off your first month’s rent when you book a tour.”
Top tip: Make sure you include an additional information box so the prospect can include more information e.g., their preferred move in dates or special requirements.
5. Nurture Leads Through Marketing Automation
Once you have captured leads through your website, use automated marketing to nurture them. Marketing automation is key in saving your leasing teams time and improving the customer journey as you can send automated nurture campaigns, which can help distinguish unqualified leads.
When your prospect has made contact through forms or call-to-actions, you can automate content to be sent on that specific topic e.g., pet friendly apartments. This ensures you are sending your leads relevant content that engages them rather than generic content that they may ignore.
6. Promote Customer Reviews
Online reviews are important to build trust around a brand and website. Create community pages for your residents to share their experiences and make sure your renters have a “verified resident” tick mark, as this shows visitors the reviews are genuine.
You can use automation tools to schedule prompts to your renters, such as after they’ve moved in or after a few months once they’ve settled to find out how they’re getting on.
Reviews are a vital part of the customer journey as they provide proof to your prospects that your property is exactly what they’re looking for.
Discover Yardi RentCafe for Residential
Yardi RentCafe is a powerful marketing and leasing platform that has been created for residential real estate to help streamline the renter’s digital journey. You can fulfil your marketing, leasing and resident services needs with a single connected solution. Use RentCafe to build your marketing website and work with the creative services team to create content that represents your brand and helps generate leads.