Online Ads that Engage and Build Loyalty at Real Property Management

We asked Kent Frogley, vice president of marketing at Real Property Management, how he creates online ads that engage customers, build loyalty, and get results. Here’s what he told us.

Real Property Management specializes in managing single-family rental properties for their owners. We provide a service that is complex, involves assets worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, and literally reaches into the heart of people’s homes. It encompasses work that most people view as a hassle and would rather not do themselves: dealing with plumbers, electricians, or a malfunctioning sprinkler system, placing renters, and handling problems.

While this can be the high or the low drama of life, depending on your point of view, it creates many emotional hooks and natural connection points for customer engagement. We have an advantage compared with many other product or service categories.

We embrace the axiom that successful customer engagement is driven by relevant content. We recognize that effective online ads are fundamentally an exchange. We provide something of value in exchange for the attention of our customers. The “something of value” is content, and relevance determines its worth.

Content creates more knowledgeable customers, and more knowledgeable customers have a higher lifetime value. They refer more people, make more informed buying choices, and they’re more often brand advocates. They represent real growth opportunities for the bottom line. But if you want to retain them, bring your A-game.

We also realize that content alone doesn’t create results. Marketing content and content marketing are very different things. Content marketing is about influencing customer behavior. Profitable customer actions are the end goal, and we work to make sure they are explicitly defined.

A click by itself doesn’t define success. To cite just a few examples: What is the intention of that click? Does that customer behavior align with our communication goals? Are they sharing our content with someone else? Seeking more content by clicking an additional link or asking for more information?

Creating sharply defined buyer personas, linked to a well-articulated messaging strategy and tailored to each persona’s differentiating traits, is basic marketing blocking and tackling. But it can sometimes get lost in the whirlwind of managing day-to-day initiatives. Keep your eye on the ball.

For example, some of our customers are intentionally building a portfolio of properties to generate income, whereas others may unintentionally have a property requiring management because of life events, such as a marriage, or a death in the family. The first customer often is more interested in return on investment, the second in reducing hassle and avoiding stress. Our messaging reflects those different goals.

Last, don’t forget creativity. If they don’t notice you, it doesn’t matter what you’re saying. Break through the noise, hold their attention, make the experience enjoyable. But whatever attention-getting tactic you use, keep it relevant to your brand. Awareness is the first step in the marketing funnel. If you fail there, the rest doesn’t matter.

Kent Frogley is the vice president of marketing at Real Property Management, a full-service property management company with more than 300 franchises across North America that manage assets worth more than $13 billion. The company is part of the Dwyer Group.