Purpose-built student accommodation is entering a more competitive era, and the difference between "nearly booked" and "fully booked" often lies within the leasing journey itself. 

The UK's first PBSA Mystery Shopping Benchmark report, by hereSAY, shines a bright light on what prospective students actually experience - from first enquiry to viewing and that crucial next step. Mystery shopping is neither a resident satisfaction survey nor a generic customer service check. It is a lead-to-lease performance audit that reveals where sales effectiveness breaks down. 

With more than 110 PBSA schemes shopped and over 500 interactions logged, the benchmark gives operators an objective way to measure response times, tour quality, follow-up discipline and conversion behaviours against the market, rather than relying on internal assumptions. 

At TPMS, we’ve written a number of successful award entries for clients across real estate. We’ve also sat at the judges table for prestigious property awards such as the Student Accommodation Awards and the Co-Living Awards. 

With this in mind, we wanted to share our tips and tricks for crafting the perfect entry. 

In the competitive world of property, reputation is everything. Building relationships and nurturing leads requires effective communication, negotiation skills and relevant industry-sector knowledge.   

From increasing revenue, to building a clear, consistent message, sales and marketing training can help. Here, we explore why it’s so crucial to the real estate sector, and the positive impact it can have on their business.  

Managing multiple agencies can be a great way to bring diverse expertise to your property marketing, but it comes with its challenges. If you’ve got agencies working on different aspects of your business, someone still needs to make sure they’re all pulling in the same direction. Without the right oversight, even the best agencies can go off-course, which can waste your budget and derail your overall strategy.

That’s where a dedicated marketer comes in—whether in-house or outsourced. Here's why having a marketer focused on ensuring your agencies stay aligned. 

We’ve all come across company values listed on websites or in brochures. But here’s the thing: they shouldn’t just be a few words on a page—they should be the very foundation of everything a company does. Values reflect what a company stands for, how they interact with the world, and, most importantly, how they engage with their customers. 

At The Property Marketing Strategists, we're dedicated to clarifying these classifications and exploring whether there is a collective sector/community for networking and collaboration. Crucially, these terminologies often mean little or nothing to the customer. 

You may have encountered the acronyms SEO and PPC, however, we’ve noticed that many of our clients find these terms confusing. To help clarify, we’ve leveraged our expertise to provide a clearer understanding of what SEO and PPC are and how they differ.

SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) and PPC (Pay-Per-Click) are two essential strategies that are often mentioned together, sometimes even interchangeably. However, these terms represent fundamentally different approaches to driving traffic to your website.

Understanding these differences is key for any effective marketing strategy, especially in the property sector.

We’re now living in a time where nearly every company has a presence on platforms such as LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok and even Live Chat. But having a social media account is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to harnessing the full potential of online community engagement.

From posting updates and sharing promotional content to effectively managing interactions to build lasting relationships with your audience—there's lots to be done. Are you truly equipped to manage your online community? Is your social live chat manned 24/7 to ensure continuous engagement and support?

Having clarity in your brand messaging is essential for both B2B and B2C businesses. Our team regularly reviews several websites and ventures into physical market research. More often than not, we find ourselves puzzled — unable to decipher what certain businesses offer, the purpose of their services, or even the role of a building such as a PBSA or co-living property.

Here's our 5 tips we’ve learnt along the way to help sharpen your brand messaging and ensure it resonates clearly and effectively with your audience.