Should it matter to an MDU owner if your telecom provider(s) are executing on their marketing rights?

Should it matter to an MDU owner if your telecom provider(s) are executing on their marketing rights?

So you have granted marketing rights to one or more telecom providers that serve your property.  Should you care whether or not those providers are executing on those rights?

In my experience, not many providers take advantage of marketing rights and even fewer providers maximize the value of the marketing rights that in most cases they paid dearly for.  If this is the case at your property, should it matter to you?  Yes.

First, let’s review how providers can execute on these marketing rights and why most fail to do so.  Chances are, your exclusive or non-exclusive marketing agreement granted some of the following rights to your provider(s):

·         Right to market services on property, door to door
·         Right to host marketing or sales events on property
·         Right to have sales literature handed out by your leasing professionals

Many providers do a fine job of door to door sales, but proper door to door sales are done through area sweeps.  This means that your property is swept only once in a quarter or more.  Door to door sales is a necessary component in an overall mix of marketing tactics, but unfortunately in most cases, it is the only tactic used by a provider.  

To drive higher service penetration, other more organic tactics are required.  These tactics require more hands-on work by a provider, and more oversight from someone within the provider responsible for driving penetration.  Some of those tactics include hosting onsite events, working with your leasing professionals to ensure they are knowledgeable about products, creating onsite sales campaigns or contests within your leasing staff or insightful direct mail campaigns.  Hosting events onsite can be as simple as handing out bagels, doughnuts or breakfast tacos as residents leave the property to drive to work in the morning or can be as elaborate as you want.  In the end, these tactics serve to form a relationship between you, your resident and your provider.  Sure, relationship might be a stretch, but certainly more of a bond then can be formed in a 20 minute pitch at your front door. 

The bottom line is that most MDU teams at providers are compensated to secure marketing rights, not execute on them.  In fact, I would argue that some MDU sales teams are really interested in securing access to your property, with marketing rights being an afterthought.  Sure, there are a few very good examples of providers that are the exception.  Some go so far as to assign an account manager to a group of properties to ensure certain benchmarks of sales, service and penetration are met, but again, these few are the glaring exception.

So back to my original question, should it matter to you if they execute on these rights or not?  Yes it should,  Not executing on these marketing rights could lead to lower than expected penetration which in turn results in lower than expected revenue share, more unsightly dishes on balconies or dissatisfied residents.  The bigger question is, what role should this play in your decision making process BEFORE marketing rights are granted.   That is a question that will be addressed in a subsequent post.