The best way to store your leads is in a CRM or in property management software that has CRM capabilities. Having a consolidated lead database is essential for tracking the progress of leads down your leasing funnel. When building out your CRM, make sure you give access to everyone in your organization that needs it. This will ensure seamless handoffs at each stage of the renter’s journey, and prevent frustration that may arise when prospects have to answer the same questions over and over again.

The biggest benefit of a CRM is it helps you prioritize leads and ensures you are utilizing your resources wisely instead of focusing on leads that have a lower probability of closing. Additionally, it enables you to segment your lead lists based on specific characteristics to help you deliver the right message at the right time based on what type of apartment the prospect was looking for, neighborhood preferences, desired amenities, etc.

CRMs also provide PMCs with the ability to implement a centralized leasing process that makes it possible for you to manage leads across your entire portfolio from one dashboard, which will create a more efficient process both in terms of time and cost savings and performance improvement. Centralization makes it possible to funnel applicants between properties seamlessly without forcing them to complete multiple applications. This eliminates a great deal of friction for the prospect, while also eliminating competition for residents between properties within your portfolio and ensures residents get the best apartment for them.

In a recent Resident Experts webinar, Mike Whaling, founder of 30 Lines, a platform for apartment marketing, elaborated on this point. He noted that when prospective residents are looking for apartments, they likely aren’t familiar with your brand and which communities fall under your portfolio. They’re just looking for the best apartment for them.

Whaling said, “The biggest inefficiency that I see is we often have choices that we can put in front of people within our portfolio, but we're unable to co-market between sister properties to take advantage of those opportunities..”

He notes that once our properties start working together and centralize leasing operations, PMCs are able to significantly reduce their marketing spend.

Optimizing lead channels

Another benefit a CRM delivers is it allows you to better track where leads are coming from and which lead sources are most effective. This makes it easier for you to meet your target audience where they are and advertise there, whether that be Google Ads, billboards, radio, TV, referrals from existing residents, micro influencers on social media, or through organic traffic to your website. When prospects reach out to you, it’s important that you respond to them on the same channel. If someone calls you, call them back. If someone texts you, text them back. If someone emails you, email them back. Meet them where they are.

In regards to organic traffic, Whaling noted that leads that come from organic traffic are likely to yield the highest conversions because they are likely closer to starting the application process. As a result, you should take measures to build and improve your organic rank on Google searches by optimizing for local search.

Depending on where the prospect is in their searching process and when and how they search for review content plays a big role in whether or not the Google Knowledge Graph shows up at all. If they are just conducting a general search for reviews in a particular city or sub neighborhood in a particular area, reviews from other sites, like Apartments.com and Apartment Ratings will be the top results returned back to the prospect, and the Google Knowledge Graph will be absent from the search results. As a best practice, these sites shouldn’t be neglected. If their review content is thin, outdated or if you have a poor rating on them, you could lose out on the prospect at the very beginning of their journey.

Build reports that monitor and help improve lead gen

Choosing a CRM that has robust reporting capabilities will give you a better understanding of where your leads are coming from, what channels are most effective, where prospects are getting stuck. This will help you fix small problems on the fly before they become major issues.

Monitoring lead generation data will help you adjust your marketing strategy and optimize lead flow. When evaluating the reporting suite of your CRM, make sure it includes business intelligence tools that will help you better utilize your data by creating visuals that package important information in a way that’s easier to understand.

When building out marketing campaigns, it’s a best practice to conduct A/B testing on content and forms to identify what is working best and what converts at a higher rate. When it comes to building forms that convert at the highest rate, less is more. The fewer fields you have, the higher the conversion rate. Just make sure you know what the bare minimum of information you need to qualify leads is, and focus on gathering that.

Lead scoring

Once the lead is in the CRM, the next step is assigning it a lead score, which will let leasing teams know which leads to prioritize and which ones need a little more nurturing before moving to the next stage of the renter’s journey. Scoring leads is a perfect task to hand off to AI and machine learning. These programs will be able to take a look at all of your conversion data and compare it to new leads to pinpoint which leads are the hottest.

Lead scoring can also help you coordinate which type of follow up is required based on what their overall score is and where they are in the renter’s journey. Factors that might go into the lead score include: what the lead source was, how much information they’ve provided, their intent based on specific behaviors they’ve shown, how much interaction they’ve had with your property, how much time they’ve spent on your website, to name a few.

One of the main benefits of lead scoring is that it allows you to automate touch point nurtures and other communication based on their lead score and where they are in the funnel. This takes the guesswork out of prospect communication.

Learn more

To learn more about how Entrata can improve lead management at your properties, request a demo, or check out our latest ebook, Lead Management 101.