According to Gleanster, only 25% of your marketing leads are prepared to buy. About 50% of leads enter a sales funnel undecided. That leaves a noteworthy 50% of leads that are dropped or go cold. Improving how you nurture leads and how to streamline that process can help you achieve more conversions and see greater returns on your marketing dollars. First step: optimize your first contact  Making the most of your first contact with a lead is crucial to nurturing that relationship and prompting the conversion. At the widest part of the sales funnel, you’re putting in the legwork of lead generation. Your brand is making an impression on prospects via ads, listings, and other marketing initiatives. Towards the middle of the funnel, your prospects are showing interest. They’re responding to your marketing strategy. Perhaps they’ve filled out a contact card or visited the property. That first contact is essential. Use robust customer relationship management (CRM) software to store prospect contact information. In addition to traditional data  such as phone and email, also request social media handles. Even if you don’t “friend” each prospect, you gain a better insight on their preferred platform for social media marketing. It is equally important to record lead attribution. That’s how the prospect found you such as the social media platform, website, or ad that convinced them to make contact. Getting this information will help you identify the highest quality lead sources and focus your future marketing dollars accordingly. Learn how to optimize multi-source lead attribution. Be sure that you’re entering prospect data into a CRM system that integrates with your property management software. This step improves efficiency by eliminating multiple points of data entry for the same prospect. It also decreases the likelihood of duplicate entries and...

A case study reveals the rewarding results of a Yardi-led search engine optimization (SEO) and search engine marketing (SEM) campaign for Westdale, a national real estate investment and property management company. Using RentCafe Reach, Yardi tested, analyzed and optimized mobile ad campaigns for Westdale to produce fast results. These included a 160% increase in leads, 81% of which came from mobile devices like tablets and phones! About Westdale Westdale is headquartered in Dallas with six regional offices through the country. It focuses on acquiring, managing and developing investment opportunities and oversees approximately 200 properties in more than 30 cities. Westdale’s goal during the campaign was to work with Yardi to differentiate its communities from the competition and reach more potential renters. Process The case study focused on a RentCafe Reach campaign targeting rental leads. For Westdale’s campaign in a competitive Class A apartment rental market, Yardi researched, planned and executed SEO and SEM strategies to improve lead generation from organic and paid search results. Yardi is a certified Google AdWords partner, and RentCafe Reach campaign management is executed by Google AdWords Certified Specialists. This campaign used expanded text ads and other Google AdWords products. Conversion tracking throughout the campaign was used to support data driven marketing decisions. Results & Metrics The combination of SEO and SEM tactics created a large footprint in search results for Westdale, driving more qualified lead candidates. As a result, Westdale saw a significant improvement in the quality of both online and offline conversions at a lower cost. 160% increase in leads 66% increase in conversion rate 56% reduction in cost per lead Westdale’s Takeaways “When properties experience issues with low occupancy, combining SEO and AdWords brings immediate results,” said Jaymz Yates, director of technology at Westdale. “Yardi has fined...