Newsletters are one of those aspects of property management that can swing either way. Depending upon your business and goals, newsletters can either go a long way toward improving and growing your business or, frankly, result in a relatively low payoff for a lot of effort on your part. So how do you know where you fall along the spectrum? Following are some ideas to keep in mind that will help determine whether a newsletter is a good business strategy for you and your property management business.

Newsletters offer a great medium for getting information out there in a regular and proactive manner. Rather than requiring people to actively take the time to come to your website, a newsletter gets the information you want spread right into their inbox. Generally speaking, property managers want to get three primary forms of information out there: 1) vacancies, 2) company marketing information, and 3) information that affects tenants such as policies and procedures and property updates. With this in mind, although you ultimately want to spread all three varieties of information, the best medium for doing this is not uniform across the spectrum. Let’s look at each of these areas specifically.

No: Advertising Vacancies
Advertising vacancies is one of those scenarios that is most often best handled through mediums other than newsletters. For newsletters to work optimally, you need a targeted mailing list. By its very nature, it would be almost impossible to formulate (much less keep updated) a list of potential tenants. When it comes to advertising vacancies, your best route is not a newsletter, but websites that are targeted to potential tenants: Craigslist, RentWiki, RentalHomePros, and the rental section of your local online news publications.

Yes: Marketing Your Property Management Company
If you’re looking to grow your property management clients and forward your business’ reputation, newsletters can be a great resource. They allow you to get your company’s name in front of both existing and potential clients on a regular basis and to show off your stuff.

Rather than overtly pitching for business, woo clients by letting them know what you’ve accomplished (for example, ACME Property Management has lowered vacancy rates for our new clients by an average of 20% within the first six months). Position yourself as an industry expert by including e-news articles on topics that property owners will be interested in. You can even provide links to other recent news articles written by other sources to take the work out of news-gathering for your clients or potential clients.

Maybe: Tenant Information
The answer to this last one is more subjective than the others. As we’ve touched on previously, keeping clients informed is an essential part of keeping your properties running as smoothly and efficiently as possible. So is a newsletter the best way to share this information? The answer is: maybe. If you manage multiple properties or a single complex with a particularly large number of tenants, newsletters may be a good way to get information out there quickly and en masse. But if, for example, you run a single property that only houses ten units, chances are you’ll be much more efficient by jotting off a memo and distributing it in tenant mailboxes.

Determining whether or not newsletters are right for you and your business is another one of those occasions that presents a good opportunity for you to sit down and revisit your business goals and strategies. Our best advice? If you are actively looking to recruit new properties to your portfolio and expand your company’s reputation, newsletters may just be the best route for you.