Advertisement writing for shop rent
5 Steps to Write a Rental Ad That Works
Before you begin you need to complete your market research. You have to know what your competitors are charging, featuring and saying. You also need to have a sense of who will want to rent in your area and why. Hopefully you did that BEFORE you bought the property – but if you didn’t – you absolutely need to do that before you try to rent out your property. Once you’re armed with the market intelligence you need here’s what you do:
Step 1: Know WHO you are targeting with your rental ad.
The biggest problem with the ads out there is that they are written for anyone. The reality is that almost every property has an ideal tenant who is best suited to live in and love the property whether it’s a single person, a student, or a young family.
Step 2: Create a PICTURE of what life will be like in this amazing home – make it powerful.
Write to that person and help them picture what life will be like when they live in your property. Know what their needs, pains, wants and problems are and let them know how this home will address many of those issues. When you know you’re targeting a family talk about how great it will feel to be able to watch your kids walk to the award winning school down the street, help them picture the cold winter nights curled up by the fireplace with their family or the romantic evenings on the deck with the ocean view watching the sunset.
Step 3: Explain WHAT they are getting with the home
The features of the home need to be included but they aren’t the way you start the ad. Usually I include them in a bullet point list after I have painted the picture (see example below). The important details are the number of bedrooms and bathrooms, parking information, appliances, costs they will incur in addition to rent (utilities for example), location and anything else of interest or importance (for example do you allow pets).
Step 4: Post AMAZING PICTURES
Sometimes this means you CANNOT take pictures when your tenant is there. Many tenants have a ton of stuff and the cluttered place just does not photograph or show well. We often wait until our tenants move out so we can clean up, repair and get great pictures. Most of our tenants stay for years so it’s worth the month of vacancy to attract a fabulous tenant – especially if they will stay for 2 or 3 years at least.
But if you don’t want to wait (I totally understand the pressure to rent it out, it’s just that we are super picky these days and find that most places just don’t attract who we want until they are empty), ideally you have some photos from before the tenant moved in when it was vacant and looking good.
NEVER post cluttered, dirty or badly lit pictures. You will attract the kind of tenants you don’t want because I assure you the good ones are looking for bright, clean and cared for properties.
Step 5: Create an EYE CATCHING headline
This is not an eye catching headline “3 Bedroom, 2 Bath Home Recently Updated”.
That blends in beautifully with every other ad out there. Why not go straight to the pain that has them moving? Or start painting that picture for them in the headline. Here’s a few that have worked really well for us:
> > Sick of Sharing Utilities? This Sparkling Clean Home Is ALL Yours
> > Privacy, Space and an Ocean View! Darn Near the Perfect Family Home
> > Work From Home? This Great Home Has a Perfect Office Plus Space For Your Kids
In every case it is fairly obvious who we are targeting. And it gets the attention of everyone, not just that person because it’s different. Capital letters, symbols and other unique features in the headline also work well because few people use them.
There’s a lot more to renting out your property than just a great ad, but if you aren’t getting calls or showing it to anyone then you’re going to have a really big problem so getting this first step right is going to be critical to your success. A little creativity goes a long way. And if you post a creative ad and you don’t start getting calls or emails right away, double check your rent, and if you think it’s on target, maybe tone your ad down a bit. But don’t be afraid to test and try different things. You never know what is going to get attention and get your place rented!
Here’s two of our ads from 2012 that were top performers (some details have been left off either due to the screen display I could select from or to protect the privacy of our property).