The 2023 leasing season is not going to look like the last two years did. It’s not only going to have economic challenges with inflation and a potential recession ahead but will also have more competition around lead generation during peak leasing season. More competition means more challenges.
Your marketing and leasing processes will need to be airtight and foolproof. It’s very possible you have “holes” in your sales funnel, due to a potential number of things including staffing shortages or missing pieces of your tech stack. These holes can result in leads slipping through the cracks. And this year is not the year to let any lead get lost, go missing or be untouched.
In the grand scheme of things, there are several areas in your lead generation and leasing processes you should evaluate to ensure your property maximizes conversion rates. We put together a list of potential areas that your team should assess in order to ensure your sales funnel is as reliable and efficient as it can be:
In a 2022 survey done by Grace Hill, 27% of the 221,000 renters who were surveyed rented sight unseen. While some of this may have been driven by the hyper competitiveness of the previous leasing seasons, renting without in-person tours is here to stay. If your prospective residents are reaching your website, it should give them all of the right information before touring or signing a lease.
It’s important that your website is functional on all devices, especially mobile, to prevent friction and potential bounce rates. Your website should accurately depict your brand as a property to capture the attention of the right leads. Otherwise, your website might disappoint a potential resident who might have loved visiting the property had it been reflected properly online, as well.
Visuals of the property give the audience a chance to envision themselves living at the community beforehand which only increases conversions. Beyond having enticing visuals, it’s also important that your website is maintained and kept fresh with the latest information about your community. Your website should integrate with your property management system so prospective renters can get an accurate list of available units, and your team should easily be able to go onto the site to edit or make regular changes so as not to create friction or slow progress on the operational side during leasing season.
Think of your website as a digital storefront. These website visitors are browsing and if they’re interested in the “purchase,” it’s important to give them the easiest path to do so. Having clear places for them to fill out a guest card is the absolute baseline for lead capture. While some prospective renters may be happy to provide details to help you be as helpful as possible to them, forms should only require information that is absolutely necessary to begin the leasing process. Not every renter is willing to fill out pages of forms for something they only MIGHT commit to.
Additionally, a Chatbot can ensure a lead gets additional questions answered while on the site and can also capture their information when appropriate. Above all, your property’s contact information should offer multiple and reliable channels of communication (email, phone number, etc.) and should be simple to find on the site, too.
As we emphasized before, your team cannot afford to miss a lead. But sometimes lead volume can affect your staff’s ability to keep up. Your CRM should ultimately be upleveling your lead management. Staff should know where to go in a CRM, what tasks and follow-up have been handled and not handled, how many touches a lead has and how strong of a FIT (Financial Interest Timing) each lead is for your property. This appeals to the “instant gratification” for leads. Lost leads equal lost revenue.
A solid CRM should automate your replies and follow ups, be easy to navigate and should also empower your team to work faster and smarter through lead prioritization with lead follow-up at the heart of the dashboard.
Since the turn of the digital age, consumers aren’t working as hard to meet vendors or sellers on their terms. There’s a bit of impatience and a higher demand for instant gratification. That reality is reflected in the data. In fact, you are 21x more likely to convert a lead into a lease when you follow up with a new lead within 5 minutes. Take that a step further and offer communication on terms that align with their preferences. 90% of consumers prefer to text for basic information and short conversations. Not to mention, consumers are typically working 9-5 on business days. Are you ensuring they have someone to talk to after hours and on weekends when your onsite staff may not be in the office?
All in all, it’s important you make the most of your tech stack and your marketing processes to ensure your on-site teams are prepared to attract, capture, and convert every qualified lead that walks through your door, whether physical or digital.
We took the liberty of creating a “Lead to Lease Checklist” so you can see what’s missing in your tech stack that might be resulting in lost or untouched leads – check it out here.
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