Property Management Newsletters
Saturday, March 20, 2010 at 11:24AM 
Contributed by Jean Storms, MPM®
Today, there are more choices for Property Management companies when it comes to providing newsletters for their clients. The key is to investigate the different types and decide what is right for your business.
What types of newsletters are available now? There is, of course, the traditional newsletter format. Microsoft Word® and Microsoft Publisher® are probably the most popular newsletter software used because they are easy to use, although there are many programs available to create them. The advantage here is the newsletter can be printed or converted to a PDF document to send by email.
There are now many programs for email newsletters. Postage becomes more expensive every year and many companies are sending statements by email or Internet access reducing the expense of paper and postage. Email newsletters save the expense of postage and paper, becoming a paperless or “green” alternative for newsletters. The down side to email newsletters is that they are not normally suitable for printing. However, the increasing amount of people who now have email addresses and the Internet is changing the need for paper newsletters.
Why do you want to do a newsletter? This could be maintaining new accounts, procuring new business, capturing real estate sales or referrals, educating your owners and/or tenants, making announcements. It is important to analyze your reasons.
Who will be your target for newsletters? This could be your current owners, prospective owners, tenants, real estate agents, business contacts, etc. Ask yourself what you want to accomplish with the newsletters you send and this will help determine who to target.
How will you send them? Will your newsletter be more successful with paper newsletters or emails? You will have more insight in this decision if you think about the clientele you decided to target. The world has gone digital but there are people still prefer reading that piece of paper. It may be that the majority of your owners still do not have email addresses – this certainly narrows down how you will send them. It may be that your property owners are very savvy when it comes to email and Internet - they may be the ones to appreciate receiving an email newsletter rather than paper. If you decide on paper, you need to review your printing capabilities in your office or outsource the printing task.
How important is it to your business to convert to paperless? Do you want to show prospective owners that your company is innovative? This is becoming a high priority with many Property Management businesses in an effort to gain more market share in their area and attract referrals.
What will be your newsletter content? You can fill newsletters with articles, announcements, company information, important reminders, etc. This will determine the size or number of pages of your newsletter. Who receives the newsletter will also determine the content.
Who will write your newsletter content? Many people actually start newsletters but fail to continue them because they simply do not have the time to write the articles. Often, there is no one on staff with the time or knowledge to put them together. Therefore, you need to figure out who will write the articles or where to find them.
Who will put the newsletters together? It may be that you can do this in-house if you or one of your staff has the capability of writing, editing, publishing, and printing newsletters. On the other hand, you may need to outsource this to a person or company who does this professionally and can take on the majority of work involved with your input.
Newsletters can be profitable and increase client communication so it is important to take the time to consider all these questions before you proceed.
Jean Storms, MPM®, is an active NARPM® member and owner of LandlordSource, a NARPM® National Affiliate, www.landlordsource.com. Email Jean at jstorms@LandlordSource.com.
Reader Comments (1)
I've found that any tools I can use to increase communication between my company and tenants/property owners helps maintain those crucial relationships.
Another potential use for the newsletter is to partner with businesses that offer similar or complimentary services, such as a mortgage broker - and you can use newsletters to reach each others client base.