$39 billion. That’s the annual revenue of the U.S. property management industry. It sure looks good on paper, but you’d probably be surprised to learn that 30% of this goes to the top 500 firms.

So, where do the rest 79,500 firms lie?

The bulk of them are stuck at what’s arguably the most critical stage- getting their strategy right.  While property management may not be the simplest business engagement, one thing you’ve got to admit is, it’s not as complicated as manufacturing. Even the smallest firms have fair chances of outdoing large established businesses, thanks to something called the web.

According to a report prepared by NAR, 84% of both buyers and renters are heavily using the internet as their first step in their home searching process. If they can’t find your information online, you may be missing out on a huge chunk of potential business. Well, of course there’s the option of riding on a third party website like Facebook, but personal websites have proven to be considerably way more effective. Here’s why:

Growing and Managing Your Clients Through CRM and Contact Management

Getting tenants is not that simple anymore. With competition persistently growing, property management firms are now leveraging CRM and contact management tools in lead prospecting. And going by recent trends, both prospects and property management firms are happy with the consequent results. According to Nucleus Research, every dollar spent on such tools generates an average return of $8.71- super neat, right?

So, here’s the thing- CRM and contact management can only be effectually conducted from your website. You’ll not be able to collect valuable information like email addresses, phone numbers, and names, but also track subsequent interactions.  And if you want to make informed decisions on aligning your firm’s strategy, the tools will help you monitor growth and tenant acquisition, from where you’ll be able to tell strategies that are most effective in different property zones.

Creating a Funnel To Your Property Management System

Now that you’ve capitalized on CRM and contact management tools to qualify new tenants and property owners, what comes next?

A strategic property management firm doesn’t only focus on prospect acquisition. Consequent lead management is even more crucial because it forms the backbone of your business. A good website should help you establish a seamless link between these two, by directing both tenants to a property management system.

While you could create and embed your own system, it’s always advisable to leave the heavy lifting to the experts. Subscribing to third party property management software not only saves you the trouble and expense of building your own system, but also grants you unlimited access to a ton of features previously only available to large, established firms. And if you really need that extra unique feature, you might want to focus only on customizable software.

Establishing Your Firm As “Experts” In Property Management

The most difficult aspect about introducing your brand to prospective clients, is convincing them about your expertise, professionalism and experience in property management. Thankfully, your website will save you the trouble, because it takes an average of 50 milliseconds to make a first impression on a web visitor.

Of course this could also mean that you stand a fair chance of losing that potential client within the first second. That’s why it’s extremely crucial to build a professional website that not only stands out in terms of graphics, but also content. Establishing a solid content framework around your brand will considerably boost brand awareness, as more prospective clients continue acknowledging you as project management experts.

Reinforcing Your Property Management Firm’s Brand

According to Stanford’s web credibility research, 75% of internet users make judgments on various brands based on their site’s overall design. Websites are widely perceived to be direct reflections of businesses, and their corresponding goods/services. With a good site therefore, you don’t have to sorely rely on brokers to supply you with prospective clients. As a matter of fact, your firm can comfortably survive without their referrals.

To comprehensively reinforce your brand, your website should highlight everything that sets your firm apart from the competition, particularly the most established brands. A few clever words and strategically placed graphics could ultimately make a huge difference in getting ahead of the competition.

Sampling An Unlimited Number of Prospects

Imagine being able to host hundreds of thousands, possibly even millions of prospective clients in your office at the same time. That’s precisely what your website will do. The internet grants you a unique opportunity to sample billions of prospective clients, and your website provides the doorway to do just that.

In the U.S. alone, there are more than 280 million active internet users. Now, since it’s common knowledge that everyone has to live somewhere, that translates to millions of prospective clients from just one country. A larger-than-life billboard in the world’s business highway doesn’t even match up to 1% of that, in terms of potential brand exposure. The only limitation, of course, will be your website’s bandwidth.

A good bandwidth, coupled with a perfectly executed web marketing strategy could considerably boost your firm, and possibly even propel your brand past the 500 firms that are currently enjoying a third of the cake.

Previously, brand awareness was mostly dictated by a firm’s marketing capital. Websites have revolutionized the entire game, and it’s now more about your strategy and overall persistence.