The Ultimate Lead Nurturing Best Practices Guide for 2024
Our research shows that some renters start looking online for an apartment six months in advance of their move-in date. Typically, prospective renters are 1-2 months out from renting an apartment and there are a lot of options out there nowadays.
Lead nurturing is essential for transforming potential renters into long-term tenants. In today’s technology-driven market, multifamily marketers must look beyond traditional advertising methods and leverage digital tools to build strong relationships with leads — faster. By adopting lead nurturing best practices and scalable lead nurturing tactics, you can increase the likelihood of qualifying leads and leases, ultimately leading to higher conversions.
But what are these tactics? Great question.
Explore the latest tactics for nurturing your audience effectively, along with lead nurturing best practices to ensure you’re doing it well. With this information, you can maximize conversion rates, even in a competitive market.
What is Lead Nurturing?
Let’s start with the basics. Simply put, lead nurturing is all about building relationships and building trust. When done right, it can transform a potential customer into a paying customer through a mix of communication, customer service and analysis. In the multifamily marketing industry, that means nurturing a prospective renter from the point of initial awareness and researching stage all the way through is lease signing in a variety of ways that work best for the renter.
Effective Lead Nurturing Tactics to Consider
According to statistics from CBRE, vacancy rates have slowed throughout 2023, lingering around 10 basis points points quarter-over-quarter. As the market starts to stabilize, renters are feeling less pressured by rapid market changes. This change provides an opportunity for multifamily marketing teams and onsite sales teams to get back to focusing on cultivating meaningful relationships with prospective renters to the point that they become tenants.
To help your teams achieve this, consider the tactics:
1. Responsive Website
Property websites are the first impression many apartment searchers see when looking for their next home. However, many of these websites are nothing more than a fancy brochure. Instead, impress website visitors with interactive, fun shopping tools that educate rental prospects, prompt them to engage further and remember them on repeat visits. At the same time, use your website to collect valuable self-reported prospect data that can help you create powerful personalized nurture outreach to potential renters.
2. Automated Communication
Consumers today expect immediate responses to their questions while they are researching for their new home – no matter what time of day or night they are asking. Since your teams can’t be available 24/7, consider automating prospect communication across channels with the latest in machine-learning AI chat technology. Conversational AI gives prospective renters access to accurate answers about property amenities and availability, schedules tours, and creates remarkable rental prospect experiences, 24/7.
3. Personalized Email Campaigns
Thanks to big brands like Amazon, consumers are used to receiving email communication that is extremely relevant to the, and they’ve come to expect it from any brand they with. Use website shopping tools to help collect valuable details about prospective renters exploring your property online. These experiences can help you determine what amenities, floor plans or communities prospective renters are interested in. Then you can utilize those details to send targeted and personalized emails to your leads based on their preferences and interests.
4. Incorporate Multi-Channel Touches
Meet your future renters everywhere they are! Conversational AI works on your website, but also in SMS, email marketing strategies, Google Business Profile and Maps, and can convert inbound phone calls to text exchanges. You can even add chat links to your social pages and ILS listings. It creates a unified experience for your prospects so they can jump between engagement channels, whether they’re on your website, responding to a nurture touch, asking questions in chat on any channel, or scheduling a tour.
5. Embrace Content Marketing
An important part of any lead nurturing process is engaging content. We recommend creating and sharing valuable content that interests prospective renters and can help make them more motivated to enter into a lease. This can be a variety of content types, including blogs, videos, resident testimonials, neighborhood news and more. It could also include landing pages that are specific floor plans with a call to action to schedule a tour. Any content that helps engage visitors and encourages them to take the next step in their leasing journey.
6. Offer Virtual Tours and Convenient Scheduling
Provide virtual tours to give your leads a way to explore your property on their own time. You can get even more milage out of these tours by incorporating them into your social media posts and content strategies. Whether it’s in person, self-guided or virtual, make sure that scheduling a tour is convenient and seamless for prospective renters. Automate SMS and email appointment reminders and follow-up notes to save your team time and increase the chances that the potential renter shows up. If it takes too long or isn’t easy to schedule, they’ll likely leave before scheduling and try to book with a competitor.
7. Implement Retargeting Ads
If you have website visitors who are researching – but leave without taking action – we recommend using retargeting ads to stay in front of your leads even after they have left. It keeps your property top of mind as they continue their search. Consider using display ads so you can use images of your properties or amenities to create a more eye-catching experience.
8. Reactivate Automated Nurture
Part of a good multifamily lead nurture strategy is to know when to discontinue outreach and pick it back up when the renter is ready. Consider holding onto lost leads in a database of “likely renters” and reactivating automated nurture outreach after a year has elapsed to recapture their interest around their lease expiration date. This maximizes the value of each lead to produce more leases when the time is right for them to make a decision – with fewer newly paid-for leads.
Lead Nurturing Best Practices
While it’s important to understand your team can leverage the tactics we mention above, it’s equally as important to understand the do’s and don’ts behind the lead nurturing process.
Here are four best practices to keep top of mind as you implement your lead nurturing strategy:
Don’t forget your lead history
When running a nurturing campaign, your company must consider the historical data of your leads. Sending uncoordinated and impersonal emails that do not reference previous interactions can hurt the lead’s perception of your brand. It shows a lack of attentiveness and can make the lead feel like just another number in your database. Instead, dig into your database to provide tailored and relevant content. This process helps support consistent and accurate messaging throughout your campaigns while giving the prospective renter a personalized experience with the right message at the right time and on the right channel.
Use segmentation to bucket your leads
Segmentation involves dividing your leads based on demographic information, interest areas or the type of touchpoint they have had with your brand. This helps you send the right content to the right leads.
For example, you can send emails to different segments that focus on different aspects of your multifamily properties, such as amenities, location or floor plans, depending on what each segment is most interested in. Furthermore, segmentation also helps you prioritize your qualified leads effectively. By segmenting them, you can focus your efforts and resources on the opportunities that have the highest realistic potential. This ensures that your onsite team is investing their time and energy appropriately, too.
Manage your renter journey
Managing the renters journey can be difficult, but luckily, marketing automation can help alleviate some of the pressure. Using artificial intelligence in lead nurturing can help create an engaging property website, create authentic online interactions, and collect helpful and detailed customer data. As a multifamily marketer, it is crucial to address each part of the renter’s journey specifically and tailor your marketing efforts based on the stage of the buyer’s journey they are in.
- In the initial stage of the sales funnel, it is important to establish a connection and provide valuable information to prospective renters. Think top-of-funnel connect to attract and engage with your audience – blog posts, tip sheets and checklists.
- For potential customers showing interest and moving further down the funnel, you can adopt a more assertive approach.
- Once a person signs up for a tour or expresses serious interest, it’s time for a more proactive approach.
- For renters who have signed a lease, the focus then shifts to retention, strengthening community and encouraging them to resign a lease.
Here is some additional lead nurturing advice from various multifamily tech pros if you’re looking for more guidance on how to enhance your marketing strategy for the most quality leads.
Choose PERQ for a Winning Multifamily Lead Nurture Solution
There’s a reason PERQ’s platform is the leading multifamily automation system on the market. That’s because it’s tailor-made for multifamily to generate more leads – with less work and cost.
Here’s why.
PERQ captures more leads from your website using a menu of interactive digital experiences that help visitors learn more about your community in a fun and engaging way.
PERQ’s Conversational AI delivers personal and positive interactions in the moment of need, everywhere your prospective residents are.
3. Smarter Nurture, Powered by Science
PERQ nurtures prospects from all your lead sources with a combination of SMS and email messages to entice conversion at just the right times across their rental journey.
4. Streamlined Tour Scheduling
Whether it’s in person, self-guided or virtual, PERQ handles scheduling, rescheduling, appointment reminders and subsequent nurturing of your tours.
Learn more about using PERQ’s marketing automation platform for effective multifamily lead nurture marketing strategies today.