Any good marketer will tell you that not every prospect is worth pursuing. This is certainly true in the property management industry. Not every landlord or property owner will be worth investing your time and energy. To optimize your efforts, you should focus on the demographic that is both most likely to avail themselves of your services, as well as most likely to be a good, long-term client. Here’s how to identify and target these high-quality prospects.

3 Types of Landlords/Property Owners to Target

If you lined up 10 landlords and/or property owners, the reality is, only about 3 of them would actually be receptive to your marketing efforts. This is why it’s so important to hone your strategy. Otherwise, you could easily be wasting time and money chasing after 7 prospects that will almost certainly end up being dead ends.

The types of prospects that have the highest likelihood of hiring a property manager fall into the following 3 categories:

• Brand new to real estate investment, inexperienced and are in over their heads
• Investors who may be more savvy but prefer to take a more hands-off approach to property ownership
• Landlords or property owners who have already hired a property manager, but are unhappy with the service they are currently receiving and are considering looking elsewhere

Now that you’ve got a better idea of who your ideal target audience is, you can then begin to adapt your marketing strategy to best reach and convert these prospects. How should you do this? We recommend taking each of the categories above and listing out all of their pain points. This will help you identify the specific value that you can offer to them as their property manager.

For instance, a new landlord may feel overwhelmed and unsure of how to market his or her vacant units. Meanwhile, an experienced property owner would prefer not to have to spend time every month collecting rent payments and managing day to day maintenance requests. Your expertise and capabilities in these areas can provide a quick and effective solution to these problems.

Identifying specific pain points for the third category can be a bit trickier, as every situation is different. Think about some of the reasons a landlord or property owner might become unhappy with their property manager. Are they unresponsive? Too expensive? Not experienced enough? Identify a handful of the most common complaints and then work to position yourself as the ideal answer to those issues.

Narrow Your Target, Improve Your Retention

As important as it is to understand who your ideal clients are, it’s equally critical to know who you don’t want to work with. For instance, a landlord or property owner that has difficulty letting go and delegating is someone you want to stay far away from. Instead, focus on individuals who are looking for peace of mind and are willing to trust you to provide that to them.

By concentrating your marketing efforts only on those prospects who are most likely to convert and also knowing which type of individuals to steer clear of, you’ll be able to achieve greater growth and maximize retention. This equates to a better bottom line and more sustainable success in the future.