Whether your property management company is brand new or well established, it’s helpful to go back to basics and reconnect with who you are as a company. Your brand is more than just your name, website colors, and logo—it’s how your residents and property owners perceive and interact with you, and it’s how you position yourself in the market.
If you haven’t revisited your brand in a while then a brand positioning framework could be helpful.
Your brand positioning is the way that you present your company in the market, how your customers connect with and identify you, and what makes you different from your competitors. Brand positioning should typically include a few things:
For property managers, this can seem like a difficult task. In a service-based industry, it can be challenging to find ways to differentiate yourself. By focusing on your mission, vision, and values, you can create brand positioning that focuses on the experiences you bring to residents and investors, and what kinds of properties you want to manage.
Why is brand positioning so important in the first place? To start, it makes it easier to connect with the right customers. When you know what kind of investors you want to work with, and you present that stance clearly in the market, you’ll find better matches more quickly.
It can also increase customer loyalty. When you’re deliberate about who you are as a company and how you’re perceived, you can deliver better services and experiences that make residents want to renew their leases and investors want to keep working with you.
It also makes it easier to focus your marketing and customer service strategies. When you know what values you want to embody, you can be hyperfocused on delivering on that promise.
Ultimately, proper brand positioning creates a triple win for you, your residents, and your investors by letting you home in on what’s important to you, and deliver a top-tier experience to everyone involved.
Your brand positioning defines how you approach every interaction with customers and potential customers, and how you present your company to the world.
Now that we’ve established what brand positioning is, it’s time to figure out how to actually develop it. That’s where a brand positioning framework comes in. A brand positioning framework is a process or method of deciding what’s important to your brand, and then building that into a clear positioning statement.
A positioning framework provides the structure and tools needed to flesh out your positioning.
Okay, it’s time to dive in. Here are our favorite steps to building a property management brand statement.
It’s important to start by looking at what your focus is as a company. While not all of these might end up in your final positioning statement, they’ll help you decide what’s most important and provide an opportunity for self reflection.
Simply saying, “we’re the best at everything and we’re the most affordable!” is not generally helpful in developing a brand position. We’re all familiar with the old adage that something can be good, fast, or cheap. Pick two, but you can’t have all three! The same applies to property management. There are always tradeoffs, and part of developing your brand is deciding where you put your focus. We recommend this diagram to evaluate where you fall:
In this example, the property management company in question has a strong focus on quality and experience, and that comes at the expense of being able to offer cheap pricing. They should lean into that as part of their brand positioning statement, marketing themselves as more of a white-glove, luxury brand.
Another great tool that we highly recommend is called the perceptual map. A perceptual map is a chart used to visually illustrate where a brand is positioned compared to its competitors. To start, select two metrics that are important to your industry. Set one as the x-axis and the other as the y-axis, and then map yourself and your competitors based on how you’re perceived.
As an example, let’s look at a consumer product we’re all familiar with: cell phones. It’s pretty easy to map some of the biggest brands based on how affordable and how user-friendly they are.
For property management companies, you may use something like price and extent of services. A key to the perceptual map is that it can help you identify areas of opportunity, or gaps in the market. If there’s an empty quadrant, that might be a good place to establish your brand to capture underserved customers.
In this case, it’s a perfect fit for our sample property management company who’s focused on delivering the best possible experience at a slightly higher cost.
Another great tool is the brand wheel. A brand wheel is a diagram that helps develop your brand positioning by starting at the core—brand essence—and moving outward to brand benefits, propositions, and values.
First, start with your brand value. This is typically a single feeling or emotion that you want your brand to embody. For our example company, which we’ll call Gold Key Management, this might be something like “relaxation” or “peace of mind”. This goes at the very center of your brand wheel, because it’s core to everything you do.
Next, outline your brand’s benefits, your differentiation statement, and the facts that back up that claim. For our company, the benefits might be worry-free management, investment protection, and consistent return on investment. The differentiation statement may be that investors get complete asset management with low vacancy rates and competitive rents. To substantiate that claim, we can cite low turn times, high lease renewal rates, and high resident satisfaction.
Finally, it’s time to look at what values and perceptions you want your brand to have. For our high-end management company, values might include clear, proactive communication, transparent reporting, and regular preventative maintenance. Perceptions might include exclusivity, professionalism, and trustworthiness.
By starting from your central brand essence, you can quickly gain clarity on how you want your company to be perceived.
Okay, enough with the fancy charts and graphs. This tip is simple, and it may be the most important. If you want to know how your brand is being perceived, just ask!
To get the most complete picture, you’ll want to get input from your residents, your investors, and your employees. Asking your team how they see your brand can be hugely insightful. It not only shows what kinds of values they’re bringing into their interactions with customers, but it also reveals potential gaps in training and internal messaging.
Investors can also be valuable in understanding your brand, because at the end of the day, they’re the ones paying you. While it can seem daunting, sending a periodic survey to your investors to understand their satisfaction level and what they want to see from you can go a long way. You can also integrate a short survey into your onboarding process for new investors. Even asking something as simple as “why did you choose us to manage your property?” can surface great insights.
Finally, talk to your residents. Schedule automated feedback surveys after lease signings, renewals, and maintenance tickets. Consider an annual pulse check survey to gauge their satisfaction. While most residents probably won’t want to volunteer their time to help you with your marketing strategy, they’ll often have strong opinions that can show you whether you’re actually living out your intended brand values.
Now that you’ve gathered all of your information, organized it effectively, and put it on paper, it’s time to sit down and write your brand positioning statement. This is where you pull it all together. Keep in mind that you may go through a few revisions, and that your first draft doesn’t have to be perfect.
You can think of your positioning statement like an elevator pitch—it should only be a couple of sentences, short enough that you can say it out loud without having to stop to take a breath.
Consider some of these questions to get you started:
For Gold Key Management, the positioning statement might look something like this:
Gold Key Management is a full service property management company for single-family home owners in the Omaha area who want to protect their investments. We focus on proactive management while providing grade-A service and experiences to our residents.
Here are a few things that make this a strong positioning statement:
Finally, once you’ve established your brand positioning statement, make sure that you treat it as a living, breathing document. Don’t just put it on a shelf and forget about it.
Not only do you need to make sure you’re instilling these values in your team and living them out with every customer interaction, but you also need to revisit them to make sure they’re still reflective of your market.
Markets change, new competitors enter the space, and brands evolve. Make sure that you’re checking in periodically, typically every six to twelve months, to make sure that it still helps set you apart from the competition. Make sure it’s still resonating with staff, investors, and residents, and make updates as needed to keep yourself ahead of the pack.
A Resident Benefits Package is a great way to set yourself apart from the competition while also generating revenue. By providing unique benefits to residents, you can make your investors’ lives easier while creating a new income stream for your company.
Curious about RBPs? Join our upcoming RBP workshop!