RentSentinel

The RentSentinel FAQ Blog

Andy Hamilton — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 11:31:50 -0500

Q. What goes into the making of RentSentinel?

RentSentinel is constantly evolving. Almost from the inception of RentSentinel 2 years ago we've had pretty good ideas on where we wanted to take the product. Over the last 2 years I think the destination has stayed somewhat the same, but we've taken a number of different detours. We have one of the best development teams in the industry with as many as 13 highly skilled technicians working on the product at one time. The development team focuses on 4 areas:

A Significant Roadmap Destination -- this is like going to see Mt. Rushmore -- a major release. This is where we typically crank out a new service or a major change in functionality. A major release typically requires 8 weeks of development time.
A Minor Roadmap Pitstop -- this is like going to see "The biggest ball of twine" -- a minor release. This is where we roll out a bunch of enhancements to the existing products (i.e. new reports, functionality requests from clients, new features, etc...). We usually roll out a minor release every 6 weeks.
A Roadmap Detour -- "Uh oh, flat tire!" -- bug fixes. Yes, RentSentinel actually has the occasional bugs - they're never our fault, we typically like to blame Eric or Eva. Regardless, if we find a significant bug then we'll roll out a hot fix into production to limit the impact on our clients.
Beverage Breaks and Happy Hour -- To keep our sanity from the previous 3 items we need to do happy hour every few weeks.

Q. Who is this mysterious Kevin Koperski?

First off, Kevin is the only author on our team, and the only one who can do a standing backflip. Equally important, he's RentSentinel's Product Design Manager. For those of you who think RentSentinel is a pretty slick application that is easy on the eyes, you can thank Kevin - it's his vision. Seriously speaking, Kevin manages our major releases. He's that guy who doesn't allow us nerdy programmers to turn our website into something that resembles Pong; he's the one who takes our technical know-how and transforms the interface into something that is visually appealing and easy to use. Kevin will be the first to tell you, he doesn't do this alone. Our entire team is involved from ideas to design to development.

Q. "I see dead ads." What is Ghosting?

"Ghosting" is a non-official Craigslist term for when you post an ad on Craigslist and only you can see it. Get it, only you can see the ghost. It's a brilliant idea by Craigslist to stop spam on their site as the abuser thinks they successfully posted their spam. Craigslist will never tell you that you did anything wrong so unless you're browsing the site to make sure your ad is visible you'll never know. The problem is that often times legitimate Craigslist citizens get incorrectly identified as spammers and start to see their ads disappear from the boards. It can be a frustrating experience but our Operations team of Amy and Eva can help you understand why you might be getting ghosted and how to rectify the issue with Craigslist.

Q. Will RentSentinel ever auto-post ads on Craigslist?

Nope, it's not our thing. In fact, it's a complete violation of the Craigslist TOU and can get you in big, fat trouble. RentSentinel is about enterprise content management, analytics and providing real business solutions. If you want a product for machine gunning Craigslist with ads then we recommend you try a different solution - RentSentinel is not for you.

Q. Is the RentSentinel team working on something big?

Yes.

Thank you for reading my blog and thank you for using RentSentinel. We truly appreciate all of our clients' business, ideas and recommendations.

Top 10 Tips to Optimize Online Classified Advertising

Guest Blogger John Stepleton — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 16:22:36 -0500

Occasionally, we invite other online marketing professionals to appear as guest bloggers on RentSentinel.com. This month we want to welcome John Stepleton of PropertyMarketingGurus.com.

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By now everyone knows the importance of having an effective online classified strategy as part of your property marketing efforts. For many communities, advertising on sites like Craigslist make up a significant share of the total prospect traffic for the property (over 50% in some cases). But how do you know if you are getting the most from your online classified advertising effort?

Over the last year we’ve been collecting a lot of data and helping our clients make the most of their online advertising. Since the first of this year we’ve looked at over 60,000 ads, and have learned a lot about what works and what doesn’t. Here are the Top 10 Tips for optimizing your online classified campaigns:

1. Get analytics. Sign up now for software that allows you to see what’s happening inside Craigslist. We recommend RentSentinel for the most robust analytic tools in the industry.

2. Content is King! Find what works & get the attention of your audience. Start with your titles – make them interesting and change them up as frequently as you can. Our favorite title is “Seeing is believing”. Great titles can generate 2x the number of views within Craigslist.

3. When you post your ads is important. Target the time and day of the week that are most productive. It may be difficult to post around your busy schedule, but it can mean the difference between 3 or more times the views and leads.

4. Good pictures. It’s not enough to get people to open your ad – if you have horrible pictures they could be half as likely to click through. Pay professionals to take property photos. It will set you apart from the rest.

5. Consistency. Some people feel they need to flood sites to ensure enough people see their ads, when honestly, consistency is the key. Post your available units daily and don’t skip a day. Remember, weekends are the most productive days for apartment searches.

6. Identify your core marketing message. Ask your current residents what they love about your community and transform that into your marketing message. Rather than rely on “sparkling pool” or “state-of-the-art fitness center”, use the more boring, however significant, “washers and dryers” to sell your property.

7. Plain ads work better. Although they look nice professionally formatted, those ads don’t generate the same volume of leads. Visitors go to Craigslist expecting a consistent experience – not a corporate sales job.

8. Test your pricing. Not all changes in prices have an effect on your traffic. If you’re using an analytical tool like RentSentinel you can test the change in views and leads for different prices. The results just may surprise you.

9. Don’t bite the hand that feeds you! Remember, sites like Craigslist are a free service and are provided based on a spirit of use. Don’t over post your apartments, and always list units that you have available.

10. Answer the call. It doesn’t do much good to put all that time and energy into this effort if your staff doesn’t answer the call. We recommend you use a third party call center like Level One to answer your initial leasing calls.

These simple tips will help to increase your effectiveness. After all, they’re based on the results of over 5.5 million ad views which generated over 207,000 leads. That is yet another reason why the Property Marketing Gurus are your top choice for Property Marketing Services.

My RentSentinel Shoebox

Eva Panagiotopoulos — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 09:50:12 -0500

Sometimes I can't even remember what RentSentinel 1.0 looked like. Luckily, I have a habit of writing and sketching everything out (ideas, meetings, outlines, etc.). This means I have hand-written notes from each RentSentinel release, including folders with sketches from what the new feature screen should look like to pages of marketing slogans and campaigns, each carrying the scars of cross outs and highlights from trying to decide which worked best. Sometimes when I look back on these I get the same nostalgic feeling you get from rediscovering an old shoe box with notes from High School. No, these folders of RentSentinel notes aren't love letters, but would it be weird if I told you they’re as precious to me as my first Marc Jacobs bag?

Okay, so maybe that's weird, but I can't help it. RentSentinel has grown with me over the past 2 years and I can't help but think of it as my very own Yotaro Baby. As our team moved into a new office last week, I couldn't resist taking a peek into the files of RentSentinel's many incarnations. Suddenly, I began to remember RentSentinel 1.0 and even RentSentinel Beta, and I felt so proud. (If you think this is emotional just wait until my intern Katie leaves to teach abroad in Thailand for 6 months!)

For those of you who don't know me, don't worry, I know I’m not funny. For those of you who have been on a training call with me and have heard me laugh at my own jokes alone, it's *7 to unmute your line and join in!

The point is that RentSentinel has been such a great experience and I'm even more excited about its potential. We've got so many ideas and so many plans to improve it. And yes, the days ahead may be hectic at times, but they'll be exciting, and someday in the future I'll look back like I do now, and I'll be amazed at everything we accomplished. In the meantime, I have a ton more jokes to make on the training calls, so don't forget that unmute option.

Yield Technologies' Eric Broughton Interviewed by RentSoda

Eric Broughton — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 00:00:00 -0500

Eric Broughton, COO of Yield Technologies, was interviewed by the real estate site RentSoda last week, and some of his answers are included as part of the site's recent blog post.

According to Eric Broughton of Yield [Technologies]' RentSentinel product, "The most important global trend is for communities to post their available units on a consistent basis, don’t take a day off from posting an available unit, your competitors aren’t. Equally important is respecting the craigslist community and not posting multiple ads in a short period of time. Never post more than 1 ad in the same hour, and never post for the same unit type more than once in 24 hours. Our analytics show that following these simple rules will provide far greater results than someone that spams a region with multiple ads over and over again."

Read the entire post at RentSoda.

Yield Technologies Names Director of Client Operations

RentSentinel — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 22:32:59 -0500

PRESS RELEASE - (Chicago, IL) - On July 12, Yield Technologies announced the hiring of Amy Grigg as Director of Client Operations. Amy is responsible for leading the daily operational activities for Yield’s premier product, RentSentinel. She will be focused on the management of existing RentSentinel clients and the onboarding of new clients.

Amy joins Yield from SpringCM, a leader in enterprise content management, where she was Director of Sales Operations. She brings over 10 years of leadership experience specializing in client relationship and process management. Her other experience includes serving as the Manager of Sales Operations North America for SPSS and Client Services Manager for Accenture.

"Amy's depth of leadership experience and client relations management is invaluable to our team,” says Andy Hamilton, Chief Technology Officer of Yield Technologies. "RentSentinel is experiencing increased popularity along with a quickly expanding client base, it was imperative to bring in someone of Amy's caliber to join RentSentinel."

About RentSentinel

RentSentinel is the premier tool for managing your online real estate marketing presence. It is a content management system designed to help you create consistent, yet diverse ad content for marketing your apartment rentals or commercial spaces to online classified sites like craigslist, Google Base, Oodle, OLX, not to mention Internet Listing Services like Rent.com, Apartments.com, ForRent.com, and Move.com. RentSentinel can synchronize with all major property management systems including Yardi, RealPage, and MRI to import your property descriptions and photos, and to report real time availability to prospective leads.

About Yield Technologies

Yield Technologies is a leader in the next evolution of Real Estate technology and services that capitalizes on its industry expertise to build actionable solutions that increase overall enterprise profitability and productivity.

As a leader in the industry, Yield Technologies has implemented proven technology solutions including integrated data warehouses, ERP implementations, management dashboards, and revenue management systems solutions to companies across the globe. Yield Technologies has focused on providing companies the visibility of how well their people, processes, and tools work together through the use of various metrics.

Why We Blog: Part One

Kevin Koperski — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 09:36:01 -0500

Hello. My name is Kevin. Most of you don't know me. I like to hide in the RentSentinel offices tapping on my desk, humming, making noises, being creative, and doing my best to distract our awesome team of developers (they pretend to hate it, but I pretend they don't).

I rarely go to marketing conferences. I don't answer many of the support emails and questions we receive. I don't participate in demos or training sessions or customer appreciation cruises in the Caribbean (we haven't had one of those yet, but we should!). To the world at large, my name isn't closely associated with RentSentinel, but here in our Chicago office I've been part of the RentSentinel team since the days of our earliest prototype.

What has that earned me? The right to blog about RentSentinel, of course!

But why blog about it? I'm glad you let me ask the question for you. The answer is threefold, but seeing as how this is "Why We Blog: Part One", you obviously only get the first fold, so on we go...

Every day, we spend a lot of time thinking about how RentSentinel works. We constantly discuss new features and directions, but we also focus on ease of use. As Product Design Manager, my job is to make your experience using RentSentinel as smooth and efficient and productive as possible.

In our first year, we implemented a lot of features, but we often added them at such a rapid pace we couldn't properly analyze how they would be best used or how they could best interact with other RentSentinel features. Some of you may remember the clutter of RentSentinel 1.0 and its myriad layers of obfuscation. Well, we've come a long way, but there is a long way still to go.

Our first reason for blogging, therefore, is to get your feedback and include you in the creative process. After all, without you RentSentinel is nothing, and we want you to love using it. So what do you think works well? What doesn't? What's too complicated? What's inefficient? What tips and tricks do you employ daily that we could incorporate into the tool to make life easier for you? Those are the types of questions we try to ask every day, but our answers are only guesses. You're the ones with the expertise, and we like to learn, so feel free to educate us.

In the near future, we're planning to add the ability for you to share comments right here on the blog. Until then, we encourage you to email us at feedback@rentsentinel.com or use the Contact form within Property Marketer. Let us know what you think. And while we can't always respond to every email, we'll do our best, even if that means drinking more caffeine.

So welcome to our new blog, and thank you!

Now, if you would kindly line up around a large downtown building and anxiously await the release of "Why We Blog: Part Two", maybe we can build some buzz and get on the local evening news. Our parents would be so proud.

Craigslist Spam Scams

Andy Hamilton — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 09:14:42 -0500

Hi RentSentinel Community! This is my very first blog, and I plan to make it a weekly occurrence to share some of my knowledge, experience and cooking tips (that’s not true, I’m a horrible cook).

Let’s get started…so has Craigslist really suspended my account? Or is this true that Craigslist is going to help me with preventing my ads from getting flagged? Doesn’t Craigslist have a spellchecker; they keep misspelling their own name in emails to me?

If you find yourself asking those or similar questions when you receive an email from Craigslist then you can most likely guarantee you’ve received spam. We’ve seen a big spike in these emails over the last 6-8 months, so much so that Craigslist posts messages on their login page warning of these spam scams.

This is actually a serious issue; it’s often times not just harmless spam taking you to Viagra or pharmaceutical websites. Many of these spam scams are phishing emails that are attempting to steal your information.

The spam scam emails come in all shapes and sizes, and some of them are extremely well disguised (they even take the time to spell craigslist correctly). Many of the new scams have a link in their lookalike craigslist emails, and when you click on the link it’ll take you to a login page that is disguised to look just like craigslist. It’s not craigslist. When you log into one of these phony craigslist login pages they are stealing your username and password. Once they have this information they can and will access your craigslist account and post ads as you. More serious, if your craigslist username and password are the same for your business or personal email accounts then they can easily hack those accounts. It’s serious stuff when they get your personal email credentials, and it can lead to your identity being stolen.

The good news is that this is all easily avoidable. I recommend following these tips:

First rule of craigslist emails…craigslist hardly ever sends emails. It’s most likely spam.
Second rule of craigslist emails…craigslist hardly ever sends emails. It’s most likely spam.
Third rule of craigslist emails…you get the point. Simply put, craigslist rarely ever sends you emails. The only craigslist emails you should expect to receive are confirmation emails when you create an account or post anonymously (and since we advise all our clients to post with an account then you shouldn’t receive any emails from craigslist). If the links in the email don’t take you to https://accounts.craigslist.org then it’s a scam.
For ANY emails you receive, if there’s a link in the email and you aren’t 100% positive about where it goes then use all your willpower and don’t click it! It’s that easy.
This is important…HIDE your Reply To when you post your ads. RentSentinel blocks 99% of all spam but we can’t block emails that are sent directly to you.
Read this website about phishing: http://www.fraud.org/tips/internet/phishing.htm

What should you do if you think your craigslist account has been hacked? Immediately stop using the account, and change the password to your email account (if you use the same password). I also recommend immediately notifying craigslist and ask them to close the account.

Lastly, if you just aren’t sure about an email, or you receive an email that is spam and it made it through our spam filter then please forward it to spam@rentsentinel.com.

Thank you for reading and check out my blog every Friday for a new and exciting posting!

Steve Small Attends NAA Conference in New Orleans

RentSentinel — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 00:26:59 -0500

PRESS RELEASE - (New Orleans, LA) – Steve Small, CEO of Yield Technologies, will be attending the National Apartment Association Conference this week, June 23- 25, at the Hilton New Orleans Riverside & Morial Convention Center. Eric Broughton, the COO of Yield Technologies, will also be in attendance.

Yield's focus at the conference will be to show industry leaders the huge advantages of RentSentinel's Check Availability Plus extension coupled with its Portal Skinning feature. Both services have garnered significant attention since their launch at AIM 2010. The Yield team feels their momentum with these services is due to ease of use, competitive pricing and unique functionality.

Portal Skinning is a great new feature offered free to Check Availability Plus customers. It allows a property to choose the colors, logo, and menu buttons on its RentSentinel.com listing pages where potential renters can check available apartments and also create and save pricing quotes.

About RentSentinel - RentSentinel is the premier tool for managing your online real estate marketing presence. It is a content management system designed to help you create consistent yet diverse ad content for marketing your apartment rentals or commercial spaces to online classified sites like craigslist, Google Base, Oodle, OLX, not to mention Internet Listing Services like Rent.com, Apartments.com, ForRent.com, and Move.com. RentSentinel can synchronize with all major property management systems including Yardi, RealPage, and MRI to import your property descriptions and photos, and to report real time availability to prospective leads.

Yield Technologies Releases RentSentinel 3.0 at AIM Conference

RentSentinel — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 00:00:00 -0500

PRESS RELEASE (Huntington Beach, CA) – Yield Technologies presented the newest version of their sophisticated property marketer, RentSentinel, at the 2010 Apartment Internet Marketing Conference on April 28th- 30th in Huntington Beach, California. Using an Ipad, Steve Small, the CEO of Yield Technologies, gave demonstrations and introduced the new check availability and quote portal features in RentSentinel 3.0 with the help of Eric Broughton, the CIO.

RentSentinel proved to be one of the most popular booths at this year’s AIM conference. Andy Hamilton, Director of Professional Services at Yield Technologies, commented on their presence at AIM as “undeniable, our current clients were really excited about 3.0 and we gained multiple new clients from our demonstrations. We knew 3.0 was a success when our competitors started stopping by our booth to see what they were missing”.

On the second night of the conference, Thursday April 29th, RentSentinel cosponsored an event with other AIM affiliates and invited current and potential customers to attend. Eva Panagiotopoulos, the Marketing Specialist for RentSentinel said “Networking is very important at these events and I was happy to finally meet some of our current clients and talk to other professionals in the Multifamily Marketing business”.

About RentSentinel

About Yield Technologies

Yield Technologies’ strong development of management tools has been an essential feature to the multifamily industry and continues to grow and expand its development through modern and innovative technology. The company is led by an elite team of experts that have been hand-picked from consulting organizations throughout the world.