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March 2011 Issue
The dominant theme at the 2010 National Multi Housing Council Technology and Operations Conference in November was marketing with an emphasis on measurement. There is a great deal of industry debate on how to cost-effectively generate a large quantity of high quality leads, but it's agreed that marketing expenditures must be measured and analyzed.
Ideally, your property marketing efforts generate a large quantity of high caliber applicants, but what data points and key metrics should you look at to help measure this?
One of the best ways to measure your marketing efforts is to take advantage of analytic reports from your resident screening provider. Reports that mesh your marketing source data with applicant screening data are valuable tools in determining the effectiveness of your marketing channels.
Ultimately, property managers want to fill their apartments with high caliber applicants for minimal cost. RentGrow's marketing source analytics offer two key areas of insight to help clients market effectively.
1. Applicant Quality by Marketing Source
RentGrow recommends reviewing applicant screening profiles by marketing source. This comparison will help to determine which marketing sources attract higher caliber applicants versus less qualified applicants. Once you identify which marketing sources deliver the highest percentages of acceptable applicants, you can factor in cost to determine the most advantageous marketing sources.
Below is a sample clipped from a RentGrow report called "Applicant Source by Score." It illustrates the quality of applicants (by score) generated from each marketing source.
Click to enlarge image.
*This is a sample report and the data on this chart does not reflect actual performance of the marketing sources listed.
Applicant volume by marketing source is another important dimension of a cost-per-(whatever metric your company uses: lead, lease, qualified applicant, etc) analysis. By analyzing volume by source in addition to quality and cost, you can build a more complete picture of how your marketing sources are performing.
A large national RentGrow client was paying significant sums of money to locator services to deliver applicants in certain markets. However, upon reviewing their marketing source analytics with a RentGrow account manager, the client discovered that the leads generated through the locator service performed poorly when compared to leads attracted via online web listing services such as Craigslist. These metrics helped our client's executive management team to strategically reallocate marketing dollars based on property specific performance metrics and marketing source data.
Work with the resources available to you through your resident screening provider to ensure that you have the best possible performance metrics to optimize your marketing budget for 2011. Our expert account management team makes sure our clients have full access to the resources and analytics they need to help them make smart business decisions on all levels of their property management operation. Contact RentGrow to discuss how marketing source analytics can help you to market more effectively.
© 2011, RentGrow, Inc., Resident Screening Experts. A Yardi Company. Sign up to receive "In the Know". For permission to reprint this article please send your request to newsletter@rentgrow.com.
If you have additional questions about other aspects of your resident screening strategy you can contact RentGrow at 1-800-RENTGROW (1-800-736-8476) or visit our website at http://www.rentgrow.com. | 
