Automated Email That Increases NOI Of New Residents

Most apartment manager’s focus on email marketing automation is on ensuring prospects turn into leases and that they maintain a healthy balance of lease renewals. This is a great way to help boost NOI (Net Operating Income) for any property.

But there is another way to boost NOI with the right email automation. That is through the promotion of ancillary services or resident utilities such as phone, internet, cable, security systems, electricity, etc. With rents softening across the country it is more important than ever that we maximize the NOI of our properties, and ancillary service offerings coupled with email automation can help do that.

Ancillary services have been a common way to boost NOI for a while, whether you have contracts in place with the Comcast, Verizon, Time-Warner, AT&T, and other ancillary service providers of the world. However, if you don’t advertise those services to your residents, you’re missing out on potential revenue.

We know many property management companies that already have agreements in place that don’t advertise or tell residents about “preferred” service providers. The resident might find out about it through their welcome packet, but that might not be enough for the new resident to take action.

Part of the problem with those welcome packets is that they are paper. The average millennial today is digitally-native and usually hates paper. And the generation after isn’t much different in their regards for paper. Instead of looking through the welcome packet to find a cable provider’s contact info to set up the installation, they’re probably going to search it online and click a button. And who they choose might not be a provider you have a revenue-sharing agreement with. A better way to deliver all the info needed would be through email. And don’t think that putting the info in a PDF inside the email is sufficient. That’s almost as bad as a paper welcome packet since it requires the same amount of digging through a document.

Remember, that when you move into a new apartment, you often already have a lot of physical paperwork (lease agreements, change of address forms, insurance docs, etc.). And any additional paper would just get lost or ignored.

Sending The Ancillary Services Welcome Email

So how do you write/build this email and how do you email this to customers? There are a handful of steps that you need to take.

• Identify who is moving in and when as well as who is going to renew
• Identify the services you want to highlight
• Write the email as a welcome to help them get set up with their necessary services
• Automate the send date to target the resident’s move-in date
• Warn prospective residents the email is coming
• Track performance and adjust as needed

Identify Who Is Moving In:

If you can’t easily tell who is moving in and when through your property management software, then sending emails about your ancillary services won’t work. So you need to have this data available to be integrated into your email program of choice. Luckily, we can help you set up those integrations.

But, don’t forget about the lease renewals. Many customers switch providers after a year to get new deals or they might be looking to add a service as well. So make sure you have an email with custom text.

Identify The Services:

Do you already have ancillary service contracts with phone, cable, internet, utilities, etc? How do they work? Do they need to sign up through a phone number or website? Do you get money from everyone who chooses that service no matter what? Are there other service providers they can sign up with that you don’t have an agreement with?

Once you know what you can and can’t offer, and if they need a special phone number or landing page or not, you need to identify what are the services someone is going to want ready on move-in day. Limit your email to only those types of services so you have the most relevant info. It will make them hold onto the email longer and make it shorter and more relevant.

If you don’t have ancillary service contracts or there are gaps in your coverage we have partners that close sales for phone, internet, security, cable, satellite, wireless and more at a better rate than most telcos and can give you a bigger payout. Just reach out and we will run your properties to figure which services you can fill the gaps on and what average payouts might look like.

Write The Email:

A few critical things to think about when you are writing that email:

• Make sure the subject line lets them know this is important and will save them time in signing up for services.
• Keep the email short to the critical utility services.
• Make all the services available in the email. They simply want to be able to click a phone number or link to connect with the service provider. Make the shortest path possible to contact the provider.
• Let them know of special offers from providers in the email.
• If you have multiple contracts or ability to make back money from the same service give them a choice.
• Disclose your relationship to the providers in the email

Remember they will refer back to this email if it is relevant as they go one by one set up their services. They’ll love having an easily accessible resource with every essential service listed out that is available at your property because they won’t have to research who is and isn’t available.

Automate The Email:

This is what really makes you money. You make this automated and then your team doesn’t ever have to send it again. To automate this your property management software has to already be connected to your email provider and that email provider must be able to send automated emails based on triggers.

In this case, the main email triggers will be based on the prospect’s move-in date. A good target would be to shoot for 30 days prior to a move-in date, but you can change that based on your residents’ particular needs.

Warn New Move-ins The Email Is Coming:

You have to warn new residents the email is coming. Even let them know to add you to their contacts list so it won’t get sorted into a Promotions Tab or other niche inbox. This lets them know that you have them covered and increases the likelihood they open the email. The more likely they open the email the better your open rates and the better your email deliverability will be, meaning fewer emails going in spam or the promotions tab.

Track Performance and Adjust:

Ensure you track not only open rates but who is clicking your links and calling your numbers if at all possible. This should help you better estimate revenue from the email and know how to adjust it to see if you should be making edits to improve performance. Some ways to improve performance include writing a better headline or reorganizing the email to promote the most profitable services first. Your imagination is the limit here.

So if you are looking to improve NOI, this is just one more way to get more out of those ancillary services. Also, if you combine this email with other important email automation, which is easy to do with the right system, then you have a great way to improve NOI for more than just ancillary services. So give us a call at 317-934-2242 to help you put together the right email automation program.