You Don’t Have a Lead Problem. You’ve Got a Quality Lead Problem!

More leads don’t always mean more leases—and sometimes the real problem isn’t lead volume, it’s lead quality.

In this episode of The Multifamily Marketers Podcast, hosts Josh Grillo and Caroline Mills break down one of the most common frustrations in apartment marketing: “the leads are bad.”

From analyzing conversion points to understanding the disconnect between marketing and leasing teams, this episode explains how to identify whether you truly have a lead quality issue—or a follow-up and conversion problem.

You’ll learn:

• Why a lead doesn’t have to lease immediately to still have value
• The key metrics that reveal true lead quality: lead-to-tour, tour-to-application, and application-to-lease
• Why marketing and leasing teams often disagree about lead performance
• How slow response times can turn good leads into lost opportunities
• Simple ways to audit your leasing process through secret shops, calls, and CRM reviews
• When poor performance is actually a marketing issue vs. an operational issue
• Why the full leasing funnel tells the real story—not just lead volume

To suggest a topic, get in touch!

For more multifamily marketing help, connect with us at Resident360.

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TRANSCRIPT

Episode 44: You Don’t Have a Lead Problem. You’ve Got a Quality Lead Problem!

Podcast Co-Hosts: Josh Grillo and Caroline Mills, Resident360

Josh: Welcome to the Multifamily Marketers Podcast. I’m your host, Josh Grillo, co-founder here at Resident360, and I’m joined by my co-host, our director of digital marketing, Miss Caroline Mills. Caroline, how’s it going this afternoon?

Caroline: Hello! Doing great this fine Tuesday. I hear you’ve got a vacation coming up.

Josh: A mini trip to Catalina Island. For those of you who don’t know, I live in San Diego, and Catalina Island is one of our favorite places to go. We had a big sailboat for many, many years, and we used to make the 14-hour journey from San Diego to Catalina and stay on the boat there for a few weeks at a time. We’ve since sold the boat, so now we’re taking the ferry. It’s a quick trip, just three nights, staying in Avalon and maybe going to Two Harbors for a day. If you haven’t been, it’s such a unique, very cool place. It’s hard to believe it’s part of California, right off the LA coast. If you get the chance to go to Catalina Island, definitely do it.

Caroline: That sounds gorgeous. And you were just saying in our last episode that the kids are getting out of school, so they’ll be excited to kick off summer.

Josh: Oh, yeah, it’s all getting going. So, today’s topic, which I like: You don’t have a lead problem; you have a lead quality problem. You’ve lived in the lead world for a long time, right?

Caroline: Yes. I’ve dealt with lead quality on site, on the management company marketing side, and now on the vendor side. So I’ve been through a lot of different stages, which I think gives me a unique perspective on this one. I was just talking about it with a client, and when I mentioned it to Josh, we said, “We should do an episode on this.”

Josh: Okay, let’s take it from the top. I know you probably hear this on calls with clients: “The leads are bad.”

Caroline: Mm-hmm, absolutely.

Josh: When you hear “the leads are bad,” what comes out of your mouth next?

Caroline: Honestly, most of the time, people aren’t sure what they mean, because they haven’t defined it. That’s the real problem: Most people don’t define what “bad leads” actually means. We jump on calls and hear, “The lead quality isn’t good,” or “The leads are bad.” But a lead isn’t bad just because they didn’t sign a lease.

A prospect may still be researching. They might be comparing communities, waiting for their current lease to expire, or relocating in a few months. If you’re a new development, you can stir up a lot of attention in a market, and people might just be curious about what’s going on. Those are still valid leads. They may just not be the kind of lead someone was looking for, and that’s why it needs to be defined.

Josh: So a lead doesn’t have to lease immediately to have value.

Caroline: One hundred percent, and we talk about this with clients all the time. We always want to rent what’s vacant right now, but we also want to keep our pipeline open and stay ahead of our trends and forecasts and everything we see coming down the pipeline. Not every lead needs to move tomorrow. We want to stay on top of our 60- and 90-day game.

Josh: So as marketers, how do we determine whether lead quality is actually good?

Caroline: Good question. I look at conversion points when I talk with people. The first is lead-to-tour. If people aren’t touring, that’s my first flag that something is wrong in the process. It could be lead quality, or it could be something in the follow-up process. Then I look at the tour-to-application rate: What happens once someone gets on site? Then the application-to-lease rate: Once someone applies, how many actually turn into leases? You need the full funnel to tell the story.

Josh: So you’re never just looking at lead volume.

Caroline: Never. Volume without context is meaningless. You want to look at all of it.

Josh: How do I say this? Let’s talk about the elephant in the room. Why do marketing teams and leasing teams sometimes disagree about lead quality?

Caroline: It definitely comes up. We’ve been on calls with both community managers and marketing teams, and I’ve seen it from all different positions. Usually it’s because they’re looking at different parts of the process. Marketing sees the lead generation side, and leasing sees the on-site conversion side. If follow-up is delayed, marketing may feel the leads were strong, while leasing feels the prospects weren’t engaged. Both teams can be partially right, and it’s about finding the middle ground that makes the most sense.

Josh: What’s one of the biggest things properties overlook when evaluating lead quality?

Caroline: Response time and follow-up, 100%. It’s huge. If someone submits a lead and doesn’t hear back for hours or even days, that lead cools off very quickly. In some earlier episodes, we talked about how quickly people move when they’re looking for apartments. Then everyone says the lead was bad, but it’s because you took three days to get to them. Maybe the lead wasn’t bad. Maybe the team was just late.

Josh: Ooh, that’s a tough one. So you could be getting good leads, but the reality is response time matters. How fast should teams be responding, Caroline?

Caroline: As soon as possible. I’ve done leasing training with teams from this side, and I always say as soon as possible. I understand; I’ve sat in that seat, and you can’t always be glued to your computer waiting for the next lead to pop in. But it needs to be within hours, or you need a system that sends something right away, and definitely a real response the same day. Think about when you’re looking for something or trying to make a reservation. You’re not going to wait days to hear back. You’re ready to act right then, and we all live in that kind of world now. That’s absolutely true for prospects apartment hunting.

Josh: All right, if a property manager is listening right now, how can they test whether their leads are actually good?

Caroline: If I were them, I’d do four things. First, secret-shop your own property. Submit a form, call the office, or start a chatbot conversation, and see what happens. Second, listen to your call recordings. Third, review the CRM. Are people leaving notes? What’s happening? How are they engaging with prospects, and how are the responses? And fourth, look at the timing. We know the calls are going well, they’re responding, and they’re leaving notes, but how quickly is it happening? Most of your answers are hiding in one of those four areas.

Josh: All right, but let’s be fair. Sometimes marketing does generate bad leads. What does that look like?

Caroline: That’s fair, absolutely. If you’re a digital marketer, maybe your keywords are too broad, or the ads don’t match the property’s style or the property itself. Maybe you’re attracting people outside your target audience, whether it’s the wrong location or not the audience you’re going after. Maybe concessions are being promoted incorrectly; I’ve seen that one recently. So marketing can absolutely create quality issues. We just need the data to prove it and see where it’s breaking.

Josh: What are some signs that the issue isn’t marketing?

Caroline: High lead volume combined with low contact rates, slow response times, missed calls, and low tour conversions. That usually indicates operational issues. If prospects are raising their hands and nobody is responding, it’s not a lead problem. It’s a process problem.

Josh: Okay, let’s wrap it up with this. A property calls you tomorrow and says, “Our leads are terrible, Caroline.” What’s the very first thing you check?

Caroline: The first thing I check is the lead-to-tour rate, because that’s where I can quickly tell whether we’re attracting the wrong audience or struggling to convert interest into action. That part of the funnel tells the truth first, before I dig into the next steps.

Josh: Beautiful. Love that one. All right, I guess we’ll wrap it up there, short and sweet. I appreciate everybody listening to today’s show. Caroline and I will be back next week with another episode of the Multifamily Marketers Podcast. Make sure to like, subscribe, and follow us for more updates, and we’ll see you next week. Thanks, Caroline. Take care out there.

Caroline: Thank you, guys. Bye!