How Property Management Companies Can Utilize Chatbots to Generate Leads

Almost every multi-family marketer has faced challenges amid the current pandemic and is having to get creative when it comes to communicating with current and future residents. That’s where chatbots come in. Chatbots are an essential tool for multi-family marketers to utilize both now and in the future to communicate effectively and efficiently, while also saving your strained marketing team time and resources. 

While we’ve previously focused on how chatbots can help your property communicate with current residents, today, we’ll be looking at how chatbots can help generate more leads with potential residents. With there being so many unknowns in the world right now, let chatbots be something your property can rely on. 

Communicate With Prospective Residents More Effectively 

With more than 1.3 billion people on Facebook Messenger and 64 percent of people prefer messaging over emails or phone calls, chatbots are a lifesaver for scaling localized marketing programs. Local management and marketing teams are currently working with decreased budgets and strained resources. However, prospective residents are still looking for information on properties digitally – at all times, and chatbots can help bridge that gap to provide those answers on specific channels. 

For instance, chatbots should be included on your property’s website and be used on Facebook Messenger. If a prospect comes to your website or a local Facebook page to look up information about your leasing office hours or an individual property, it provides an opportunity for the chatbot to step in to answer those questions. Instead of spending hours searching for information, the chatbot can pop-up instantly and answer the prospect’s questions within seconds. 

Also, chatbots can highlight any specials or promotions, or specific floor plans that your specific property is marketing. For instance, if you are offering a move-in special for residents that sign a lease in August, that can be highlighted through the chatbot. If prospective residents feel like they can get the information they are looking for quickly, and without much effort, it will likely keep their interest in your property and potentially transition them from a prospect to a resident. On the other hand, it can be detrimental if a prospective renter feels like they’ve had to dig for information about your property and stay on hold on the phone to get their questions answered. 

Collect New Leads 

By showing a prospective renter that you can communicate with them effectively and provide them with the information they are looking for quickly, you have a better chance of converting them into an actual lead. While chatbots are great for communicating, they can also be useful when it comes to collecting lead information. There are a couple of different ways that chatbots can be used to collect user information without seeming too salesly. 

One way to collect information from someone interacting with your chatbot is to ask for contact information at the beginning of a chat. You can obtain the information by posing it as a question. For instance, you could program the chatbot to say, “In case we get disconnected during this conversation, will you please provide me with your first and last name, along with your email address.” 

You can also include a form at the end of your chat to collect user information. If the form is optional, your property may collect fewer leads, but the leads you do receive will be more qualified. These forms should include the information that your property needs to retarget these users down the line as they continue their apartment search. In addition to including a form, you can also add some qualifying questions to the chat. This will allow you to understand what part of the sales funnel your lead is in. Are they just looking at your property for fun or casually browsing? Or does their lease end next month, and they are seriously looking for somewhere to live? These are helpful questions your chatbot can get answered, giving you more insight into the state of a lead. 

Retarget Potential Residents 

Once you have collected leads using your property’s chatbot, you can then retarget the qualified leads in several ways that can include, but are not limited to: 

• Paid retargeting campaigns on social media channels 
• Email marketing campaigns 
• Personalized phone calls or emails from leasing reps 
• Direct messages through Facebook Messenger

Retargeting your leads through the tactics mentioned above will help your property increase its visibility and serve as an excellent opportunity for the leads to follow-up with your property. When planning out retargeting campaigns as a part of your localized marketing strategy, it’s important to remember to retarget in moderation. Pick which tactics work best for your property, and use them strategically and sparingly. 

You don’t want to overwhelm your leads with too much information about your property all at once from various channels; otherwise, it might be seen as spam. Instead, if your property has a chatbot through Facebook Messenger, you could follow-up with a lead through a direct message on Facebook or a personalized email. As long as the information you’re providing is useful and not overly salesy, you should find retargeting efforts helpful to your localized marketing efforts. 

Choosing a Chatbot that Works for Your Properties 

Now that you have a better understanding of how chatbots can improve your property management’s localized marketing efforts, it’s time to put them into use. If your property management property is already utilizing chatbots, good for you! Download our guidebook to learn how to maximize the tactic. There are still some things you should be aware of when choosing the right chatbot solution. If you aren’t already using chatbots, now is the time! 

When selecting a chatbot, you should look for a tool that delivers localized responses to questions about your business locations, including hours, products, services, pricing, offers, and more. 

In addition, as a multi-family marketer, it’s essential to find a chatbot that deploys localized chatbots across 100s of Facebook Messenger accounts and prioritizes chat conversations with various team members across properties. SOCi is excited to announce that we recently released SOCi SmartBot, the only AI-driven Messenger bot built specifically for multi-family marketers to scale and deploy localized chatbots across 100s or 1000s of locations.

SOCi SmartBot is on 24/7. It doesn’t sleep, and it never misses a question. This intelligent chatbot will live on Facebook Messenger and, through advanced machine learning, delivers localized responses to questions about your properties, including hours, products, services, pricing, offers, and more. SOCi SmartBot can convert 100 percent of conversations into leads, giving you full lead source attribution. Best of all, it can book appointments and be paired with Messenger Ads to increase conversions across all locations. To learn more about SOCi’s latest release, SOCi SmartBot, request a demo.