Marketing your Mobile Home Park
By: Dave
Reynolds, MobileHomeParkStore.com
When I am
looking to market my mobile home park whether it be to potential residents to
bring their homes in or to sell homes in the park, I believe that the first
contact with the potential customer is key. This first contact may be
via a telephone call to your office, a drive-by by the potential resident, or in
many cases could be a referral from a current resident or some other local
business (chamber of commerce, dealer, broker, etc).
Let's face
it, if you or your manager is rude when they call in, they probably will call
the next park. If they drive in and the roads are in bad shape, the sign
is falling down, or there are dangerous dogs running around, they probably will
turn around and look for the next park. And the same holds true with
referrals from your current customers. If you current customers don't like
living there they will bad mouth you all over town and never refer their friends
and relatives to move in. Continuing on to other local businesses that
would otherwise refer your community to potential residents, you don't stand a
chance if you have a bad reputation.
So I think
the best form of marketing is to build your credibility in your town, keep your
current residents happy, and make sure that those potential customers have a
good first impression whether it be a phone call or a drive-by.
Before
you ever spend one penny on a newspaper ad, a flyer a the local dealer, or some
type of direct mailing to apartment complexes, you should make sure that you
have everything in place to attract good residents once they respond. Here
is my top 5 list of things you need to do first:
-
Focus on
the entrance to the park: A nice sign that says "Welcome to
___________ Mobile Home Community". Also plant some bushes or trees
near the entrance and keep the grass mowed and trimmed nicely.
-
Roads:
Your roads don't have to paved and have curb and gutters, but they do have
to be passable. If there are large potholes, patch them immediately.
If they need graded, grade them. Before a potential resident ever gets
out of the car they will see your entrance and drive on the roads.
Make that a good experience.
-
Park
Office: with the park office you want to make sure that it looks
inviting. I have been to many an office that is not properly marked
with "Welcome" or some other inviting remark. Instead it says
something like, "if your rent is not paid by the 5th it is late" or "take
your excuses somewhere else". Is that any way to greet a potential
resident?
-
Park
Office again: I have also been to many parks that as you are walking
up to the office you are greeted by a fence with a dog inside and you have
to decide whether to enter or not. Other times you knock on the door
and then there are 3 dogs scratching at the door waiting to pounce on you.
I don't have a problem with my manager's home being duplicated as the park
office, but I do think they need to take precautions against scaring people
off with their own dogs.
-
General
Appearance of the Community: once the potential resident enters the
park and is satisfied with the entrance and roads, they will encounter the
rest of the park. If the park is a complete disaster with trash, junk,
high grass and weeds, and so on, do you think this will be a good selling
point for potential customers? At least it is not a good selling
point for the customers you are hoping to attract.
Ok, now that
we have the entrance, roads, office, and general look of the community ready for
new residents, what do we do next? Let's suppose that we are talking about
getting new customers to move their home into our park and that we have 25
vacant lots. Now apply one of the best marketing ideas I have ever heard
which goes something like this. Is it better to do ONE thing 25 times to
fill those lots? Or is it better to do TWENTY-FIVE things one time to fill
those lots? I think the latter is the better approach. Maybe in the
past you could just bring a flyer down to the local mobile home dealer and watch
as he fills up the park. This is not going to happen anymore. You
need to to get the flyer down to the dealer, run an ad in the paper, get
referrals from your customers, join the chamber, and generally get the word out
about your mobile home park.
Here is a
list of some of my ideas that should get you started.
-
Flyer to
all Mobile Home Dealers in a 25 mile radius - On the flyer, offer some form
of move in special (free 3 months, lower rent, etc).
-
Join the
Chamber of Commerce - then in all of your flyers and ads you can put that
you are a member of the Chamber - builds credibility.
-
Entrance
Sign - it works for you 24/7 and make sure to put your phone number on it!
-
Sponsor
a Referral Program to your residents - if they refer someone give them a
nice reward (not a $5 discount on the rent).
-
Talk to
local Real Estate Brokers - if they have a customer that can't qualify on a
house, maybe they will send them your way (give them a referral fee as
well).
-
Advertisement in the paper or papers - make your ad different from the rest
of the ads in the paper - not the simple... mobile home lots for rent, call
???. Instead, try something like... Incredibly Large and
Spacious Mobile Home Sites... We will pay you $1,000.00 to help with
moving costs! The first five callers will also get the first 3 months
Rent FREE! - you get the point, make it stand out and make it
enticing.
-
Start a
Community Newsletter and send out the best stories from your newsletter to
the local paper to have published. Most local newspapers have a
community or local section and are always looking for good stories to
publish. Also, if you get the email address from all potential
prospects, you can send them this newsletter every month so when they think
about moving they won't have forgot about you.
-
Signs on
Vacant Lots - put nice signs on your vacant lots with a phone number for
people to call.
-
Banner
signs at entrance - big move in special or discounted rate or we pay you
$1,000 to move your home to our park type of banners around the perimeter on
high traffic areas of the park.
-
Telephone Book - make sure that you have an ad in the phone book as this is
where many of your potential customers will find you. In the ad, you
might want to include something about your move-in specials or direct them
to your website to find out the move-in special of the month.
Finally,
when you are out there doing your marketing, it is important to test what is
working and what is not working. If you run ads in the paper and get no
calls... then stop running that ad and try a different one. If none of
your park residents are referring people to move in, find out way and up the
ante.
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