Quadruple Your Tenant Leads with Facebook Marketplace

Why Facebook Marketplace is #1

For any landlord, keeping occupancy maximized is always top priority. High vacancy and lengthy unit turns are the #1 killer of income. So it’s imperative that vacant units don’t sit on the market for long. For those of us relying on property management to market our properties, we can expect to have these vacant units advertised on standard platforms such as Zillow, Apartments.com, Rent.com, Hot Pads, etc. What I continue to notice is under-utilized or not utilized to its full potential is Facebook Marketplace. I’m going to show you how you can quadruple your lead generation just through the proper utilization of Facebook Marketplace. I know that sounds like a huge leap, and that’s because it is. But I promise you, follow my lead and you will learn how I was able to achieve these results in a matter of 7 days for one of my properties.

Facebook Marketplace has sprung onto the scene as the absolute super power in generating tenant leads. This is the case for many reasons:

• Facebook has over 2.45 billion users
• Those 2.45 billion users spend an average of 38 minutes per day using the app
• Facebook makes it incredibly easy for users to find available rental units close to them
• Users can easily share your ad with friends and family with the click of a button, further increasing your exposure
• Users can instantly message the ad creator. This is HUGE, because many people want to avoid talking over the phone to get quick answers to their questions.
• It’s free to advertise on the marketplace

Using the Marketplace Properly

For many of you, the potential of Facebook Marketplace isn’t breaking news. A lot of property managers out there have already incorporated Facebook Marketplace into their ad campaigns. Where these property managers drop the ball is in their response time and management of the Facebook messages from prospective tenants.

If your property manager is running Facebook Marketplace ads, have a few friends or family respond to the ad via a direct message on Facebook and gauge the response time and attention to detail in their response. I’m willing to bet it’s going to be several hours or even days before they get a response, and don’t expect them to be engaging in full blown conversations and answering all their questions in a timely manner. If your property manager passes this test and is on it from the get-go, congratulations because you have a rock star property manager.

So how do you fix this and get these Facebook leads turning into applicants that are signing leases? By either having your property manager assign an employee to be on top of it all day long, hiring a virtual assistant to handle it, or manage the Marketplace ads yourself.

Response time is KEY

The truth is, most property managers aren’t going to be able to have an employee responding to ads often enough. These leads will be sending messages throughout the day, including outside normal business hours. You need someone ready to respond to these leads throughout the day because the longer they sit unanswered the greater the chance they sign a lease with your competition. Once you’ve gotten the attention of a prospective tenant, you don’t want to lose it. That’s why I recommend either hiring virtual assistants to handle the task, or if you have a smaller portfolio and don’t mind the work, just do it yourself. Getting someone on top of this will result in your property manager being flooded with leads, resulting in more highly qualified applicants to pick from and less vacancy time.

I learned this the hard way by experimenting with my 32 unit in the Indianapolis MSA. My property manager assured me they use Facebook Marketplace as part of their ad campaign and I left it in their hands to get the 8 units we just renovated leased up. It was the beginning of February, so we were in the dead of winter and therefore even more imperative that our ads reach the few people out there moving at this time of year. The first week saw very few leads and I was discouraged. Then a second week with the same underwhelming results. I enlisted the help of friends to respond to the Facebook Marketplace ad via a direct message and gauge the response time. After 24 hours passing with no responses during a week day, I decided to take matters into my own hands. I created my own ad, gave it an attention grabbing cover photo, posted it, and started responding to the leads. Over a period of 7 days I more than quadrupled the leads we received to over 1,962 views, 35 listing saves, and 19 listing shares. Those units didn’t stay vacant long.

Make Your Ad Stand Out

If you’ve bought into making Facebook Marketplace your foremost advertising platform, then I want to share some tips for making your ad stand out among the rest and have a higher likelihood of being clicked and turned into applications. There are four tricks you need to employ to accomplish this:

1. 1.Make your featured photo attractive and attention grabbing
2. 2.Create a sense of urgency within your ad description
3. 3.Keep each section no longer than 2-3 sentences
4. 4.Make it EASY for them to apply or schedule a tour

The Photo

Your featured photo is going to be the first thing prospective tenants see when they are scrolling through the marketplace. This photo needs to draw their attention away from the monotony of terrible photos. Most marketplace ads will be an awful cell phone photo of the outside of an ugly building, certainly not something that makes you want to click. Go ahead and take a look at the marketplace near you and you’ll see what I mean. It’s not too difficult to beat the competition and draw traffic to your post.

We like to use an app called Canva, which is a relatively easy to use graphic design platform where your creativity can run wild to create collages, display any concessions across the photo, and more. Here is an example of a photo we've used:

For this example we were running a concession for a portion off the first months rent. We included that in big bold letters with a bold colored background to draw attention, then included some photos of the renovated units. Compare this to photos you see on your marketplace and tell me which is more attention grabbing.

Creating the sense of urgency

The next tip is to create a sense of urgency for the prospect to schedule a tour and/or submit an application. Many people viewing Marketplace ads are sitting on their couch scanning the ads to identify a few properties they like and narrow it down to a few favorites. You don’t want them to think “I like this place. Maybe I’ll come back to it later if I don’t find something better.” You do want them to think “oh crap this place is going to go quick so I need to get on it and submit an application.” We like the very first sentence in the ad to be something like: “Only a few units left. Apply now!”, or “This will be gone by next week so schedule a tour now!” It may seem a little cheesy to some, but these marketing tactics work.

Keep it simple

The next tip is to keep the description of the property to small sections of just 2-3 sentences. Most prospective tenants scrolling have a very short attention span. When they look down at the description and see several paragraphs about your property, they aren’t likely to stay focused and read through its entirety. Stick to the most important information they want to hear first, such as price and amenities, and if you have any additional media have a link towards the top of the description. Include some symbols or emojis to preface each item so they can quickly scan the ad without having to think too much.

For example: we have professionally edited video tours of our units, and towards the top of the ad is a line with a video camera emoji that says “Video tour of the 2 bedroom” followed by a link to the YouTube video. Most people would prefer a video over a long paragraph. The video camera emoji signals to them there’s a video without them having to read very far, then boom, they’re watching a beautiful video of our units and they’re getting emotionally attached to the property.

The easier the better

The final tip is to make it EASY for the prospective tenant to take action and schedule a tour or submit an application. If your property manager has a website that allows tours to be scheduled online or allows applications to be submitted, then link that web page in big bold letters with the words “APPLY HERE” right next to it. If you’re managing the property yourself then include your phone number and preface it with a phone emoji and put “CALL NOW TO APPLY OR SCHEDULE A TOUR”. If they are quickly scanning this ad you want them to see this and simply have to click.

In conclusion

If you have vacancies to fill and want them filled rapidly, Facebook Marketplace should be where you turn to. Put all of my tips together, get aggressive with your Facebook marketing, and watch your lead generation explode.