Mobile home park turnaround - I'm stumped

[Adam Johnson]

Experienced investor here.  Bought a park 6 years ago, distressed property, about 2 hours from my office.  High vacancy, poor condition, poor management.  I started off great the first couple of years.  Was staying nearby during the week at times, working a full week to revive it, really had strong forward momentum.  Early efforts were aimed at cleaning it up, removing some abandoned homes in terrible condition, etc.  Tenants became very happy with the progress.  Generally, we still have good relations with tenants, but still have high vacancy.

Shortly after taking over, we switched managers .  We made a mistake, that was corrected last summer.  That manager had a tendency to inject himself into EVERY aspect of operation.  I would instruct one way, he would disagree and do it his own way anyway.  Long story short, we were developing a ton of leads for prospective tenants to move homes in and/or buy homes that we owned and were selling (we don't want to do rental homes).  We converted almost zero leads.  We hired Realtors to help sell homes, same result, usually after he became involved somehow.  Since replacing the manager last summer, we have found a Realtor that is responsive to leads we send, does very well with responding to messages, etc., but doesn't know manufactured housing more than what we have taught him.

Our experience is largely in turning around distressed rental properties.  All of our other properties (multi-family) are closer to home and were purchased distressed and usually completely vacant.  They are all stable and run very smoothly at this point under our direct management.  The mobile home park is lagging way behind where it should be big time.  My problem is almost completely a sales/marketing problem.  

Here's my question/need - I want to start from square one with sales/marketing.  Somewhere I really botched up along the current path, so I want to go back to the beginning and figure it out.  Can anyone give pointers or referrals to a person/company that start with market research - to determine if the market WANTS our product?  Secondary - after we accomplish step 1, I could use some pointers or referrals to a person/company that can develop and help implement a marketing plan.

Thank you in advance.