Rental Property vs. Developer Sales. Which Marketing Activities Deliver the Results You Expect?

Key Takeaways

• Google Ads and listing portals generate inquiries quickly, because they reach customers who are actively searching.
• Investing in brand pays off best in rentals in the premium segment and on completely new markets.
• Outdoor campaigns are effectively the developers’ domain, helping build mass and local awareness of expensive residential projects.
• Owners of rental apartments should avoid billboards, with the exception of launching large institutional projects in new cities.

People looking for a place to rent often make their decision within days or weeks. Remember that every vacant unit generates cost, which is why rental marketing has to capture people who are actively looking for a place, and do it efficiently. For that reason you need to move fast and give the listing maximum visibility.

In the case of buying a property, on the other hand, the customer’s decision process can take months, or even years. Trying to limit their financial risk, the buyer looks for a developer who gives them a sense that the investment is safe. If you want to sell a property, you have to present the floor area and all the key details properly, but you also have to build trust in the brand and educate the customer step by step.

Before you start any marketing activity, look at the differences that show up within the real estate industry, so that you can match your strategy to the segment you operate in.

Taking these differences into account before you start promoting will give you a better chance of achieving the results you expect.

In the real estate industry, marketing splits into two basic pillars:

• Brand and reach: responsible for things like trust and brand awareness, recognition of the project or the operator, growth in branded searches, and the company’s presence on the user’s shortlist.
• Performance: responsible for phone calls, forms, signed contracts, viewings, messages, booked meetings and reservations.

Without an awareness of this split, it is easy to manage the marketing budget badly, including putting a specific pool of money into an activity that will not be able to deliver your business goal.

Because of the short decision process, rentals put a decidedly stronger emphasis on performance. With a developer, where the customer’s decision requires many contacts with the brand, comparison of projects and confirmation of the company’s credibility, the budget goes mainly into brand activities.

The intent a customer brings to a given segment of the real estate industry is the basis for choosing the right marketing channels. Once you are aware of the differences in approach and in the length of the buying path, you will be able to translate that knowledge into specific communication tools.

For rentals and for developers alike, the channels that capture active demand and generate contacts matter a great deal.

• Real estate portals and Google Search Ads: these campaigns are highly effective because they respond to the user’s exact intent, a query along the lines of “Krakow, Zablocie, studio apartment.”

Do you want to learn more about paid ads? Read our guide to Google Ads to understand what they are and how they can help your brand!

Building organic visibility is evolving, so you have to take care not only of SEO but of optimization for AI as well.

• Traditional SEO and Local SEO: these still play a large role in maintaining lasting visibility for listings, locations and needs, as well as local visibility for profiles and reviews.
• GEO and AISO: instead of searching the available offers on the real estate market themselves, customers increasingly turn to artificial intelligence to do the initial research for them.
  • Rentals: medium priority, agents are there to answer a question such as “Which district in Krakow is best for students to live in?”
  • Developers: very high priority, it matters that AI is supplied with the data it needs, including the data that lets it make comparisons, which directly answers the user’s intent, for example “compare offer X and offer Y.”

For language models to include you in an answer, preparing content for artificial intelligence is key. See how to prepare content for AI agents and get an edge over your competitors!

Social media is the right vehicle for the message that there is a real person behind the listing on the site, which builds credibility and trust in the brand.

• TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook: these let the landlord and the developer show the customer what life in a given location looks like and build a dream.
  • Rentals: focus on a virtual tour of the apartment for future tenants in the form of short videos. A short clip shot on a phone effectively shortens the distance between you and the customer.
  • Developers: social media is a space for educating on organizational questions, creating a vision of future life and presenting 3D visualizations or the construction itself. Lead with expertise, so that the buyer feels the investment is safe.
• Meta Ads: their goal is building reach and remarketing, in other words reminding people about you even after the user has left your site.

The job of traditional media in real estate marketing is to inform the residents of a given city or area about exactly what is going to appear in their neighborhood.

• Radio, press and PR: they build tangible credibility and a sense that the investment is safe.
  • Rentals: for individual apartments this is not a cost effective solution, especially since it does not reach the target group.
  • Developers: although advertising in traditional media builds credibility and trust in the brand, relying on it is only moderately cost effective because of the high cost of promotion.
• OOH and DOOH: these let you build local recognition and credibility. It is a particularly useful solution for developers.

Manually tracking hundreds of emails and messages across different platforms takes a lot of valuable time and money, so it is worth automating that process.

• Newsletter: it gives you certainty that all important messages and updates reach customers.
  • Rentals: you can include information about availability and units becoming free, for example.
  • Developers: this is a good way to stay on the buyer’s mind while they are dealing with formalities or waiting for a mortgage decision. Updates on construction progress or educational content work well here.
• CRM and automation: they support smooth lead handling and qualification. An automated CRM will quickly send the offer to people on the waiting list, which effectively limits the risk of vacancies.

KPIs depend closely on the main business goal and on how specific target groups behave.

Because of the customer’s short decision window, rental marketing should be built around speed and capturing current demand. The largest share and the highest priority go to Google Search Ads, real estate portals, SEO and local SEO, remarketing and CRM. Brand activities take on particular importance for PRS operators, premium rentals and entry into a new city.

For a developer, the most important thing is combining reach with credibility and performance. Here it is worth focusing on SEO, GEO, AI Overviews, AISO and SEM. Real estate portals should not be forgotten either, since they generate leads and support the sale of specific apartments.