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Author: Mark Ainely | Partner GC Realty & Development & Co-Host Straight Up Chicago Investor Podcast
I recently joined Stacey Salyer on her podcast to talk about something property management companies are historically pretty bad at.
Marketing.
I will say that as someone who has been in property management for almost 23 years.
Most property managers are busy operating. They are dealing with owners, residents, maintenance, leasing, accounting, and whatever fire showed up that morning.
Marketing becomes the thing they will get to later.
That is exactly why I have always looked at marketing as a competitive advantage.
Today, GC Realty manages around 1,500 units across Chicagoland. Our marketing did not get there because we built a massive marketing department or threw millions of dollars at advertising.
For most of the last five years, the marketing side was basically me and Javier, one remote team member in Mexico City.
Here is what we learned.
Key Takeaways
GC Realty grew to around 1,500 managed units with a very lean marketing team.
Our 2026 marketing budget, excluding labor, is only around $75,000 to $80,000.
We email our audience four times per week, with some prospects also receiving LeadSimple follow-up every five days.
Our email list has grown to around 40,000 people.
We sent more than one million emails in a single month.
One article, podcast, or video should become multiple pieces of content instead of being used once and forgotten.
Marketing can help a property management company grow, but building the entire brand around one person creates key-person risk.
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Most Property Managers Are Not Focused on Marketing
I do not think most property management companies are necessarily bad at marketing.
I think they are too busy to focus on it.
That difference matters.
When I started looking seriously at growing GC Realty, I realized most of my competitors had the same problem. Sales and marketing were not really departments inside many property management companies.
Back around 2018 and 2019, the idea of departmentalizing sales and marketing was just starting to become a bigger conversation in the property management industry.
That gave us an opportunity.
If everyone else was busy operating, we could put more time and energy into being visible.
The other opportunity was even simpler.
Most people did not want to get on camera.
Honestly, a lot of them still do not.
If you are willing to hit record, talk about something you actually understand, and then hit post, you are already doing something many of your competitors will never consistently do.
Our Marketing Budget Is Smaller Than People Think
During the podcast, I mentioned our 2026 marketing budget is around $75,000 to $80,000 after backing out labor.
Stacey stopped me immediately.
I understand why.
To a small property management company doing almost no intentional marketing, $80,000 probably sounds like a massive number.
It is really not when you break it down.
We work with Property Manager Websites through its Market Leader program.
We have used Google Ads.
We have different pay-to-play platforms and services.
Mailchimp alone is around $700 per month because of the amount of email we send.
We use editors and tools that help us create podcast clips and distribute content.
A lot of that $75,000 to $80,000 is really the infrastructure supporting the marketing.
The actual engine is content.
We Sent More Than One Million Emails in a Month
This is usually the number that gets people's attention.
We send four emails per week through Mailchimp.
Some prospective clients are also inside our LeadSimple follow-up campaigns, where they receive communication every five days.
That means some people may get five emails from us in a week.
Last month, we sent just over one million emails.
I know because Mailchimp sent us a notice that we needed to change plans.
Now, before someone reads this and decides to email their 500 contacts five times next week, the frequency is not the lesson.
The content is.
I started paying attention to marketers like Neil Patel. He emailed me every damn day.
The funny part was I kept reading the emails.
Why?
I was interested in the information.
That made me realize real estate companies have a huge advantage.
Real estate is interesting.
Chicago landlords care about new regulations.
Investors care about neighborhoods.
Owners care about rent prices.
People want to know what is happening with leasing.
They care about property taxes, maintenance, zoning, tenant laws, insurance, and the rental market.
Try emailing someone four times a week about windshield wipers.
That is a much harder marketing strategy.
Here Is Exactly What We Email
Our email system is not complicated.
On Tuesday and Saturday, we normally send a simple email that looks like it came directly from me.
It is not a giant designed newsletter.
Usually, I am talking about an article, a podcast episode, or something happening in Chicago real estate that I think the person may want to know about.
On Thursday, our new Straight Up Chicago Investor Podcast episode drops.
On Monday, we send a recap of the previous week.
That email may include our podcast, Chicago Landlord Secrets, new articles, and another piece of content someone may have missed.
We may also include our Free Rent Analysis or another resource.
The important part is that I am not sitting at my computer every Monday morning trying to figure out what four emails we are sending that week.
I will take the content we created over the previous couple of months and build two months of emails in advance.
Same with LeadSimple.
We can load months of relevant content into the follow-up process.
Then it runs.
It took me five or six years to make this feel simple.
I definitely did not start here.
One Piece of Content Should Not Be Used Once
This was one of the biggest marketing lessons for me.
You spend hours creating an article.
You publish it.
Then what?
A week later, it is buried on your website and you start trying to think of your next idea.
That is crazy.
Take the article and email it.
Talk about it on camera.
Turn one section into a LinkedIn post.
Discuss the issue on a podcast.
Create a short video.
Two weeks later, talk about it again from another angle.
The end goal and call to action may be exactly the same.
We are just presenting it differently and putting it in front of people in different places.
You do not need seven social media platforms and seven completely different pieces of content.
You need one useful idea.
Then you need to distribute the hell out of it.
Chicago Gives Us an Unlimited Amount of Content
We have two major advantages in our market.
Chicago has a lot of real estate investors.
Chicago and Illinois are heavily regulated.
Those two things give us an almost unlimited amount of content.
One weekend, we put out five articles.
Four were about regulation.
The fifth was about why Chicago passing on the 2026 World Cup may have actually benefited real estate investors when you consider the public money other cities are spending.
There is always something happening.
We can talk about rental regulations.
ADUs.
Leasing.
Evictions.
Property taxes.
Rental licenses.
Tenant screening.
Neighborhoods.
Investor opportunities.
Maintenance.
Flooding.
The rental market.
We are not creating random content because someone told us Google wants another 1,500-word blog.
We are paying attention to the questions Chicago landlords and investors are already asking.
Then we answer them.
For Years, Our Marketing Team Was Basically Two People
People sometimes assume GC Realty has this giant marketing department.
We do not.
For the last five years, Javier, our remote marketing team member in Mexico City, and I have done most of this.
Two people.
We recently hired someone local in Chicago because we saw another gap.
I cannot be the person walking around the office recording everyone.
I should not be the one trying to get a quick client testimonial when someone stops by.
I should not have to personally organize every local video or piece of footage we need.
Having someone physically here can help us bring more of GC Realty into the content.
But I bring up the size of the team for a reason.
You do not need 15 marketing employees.
You need people who can execute.
There is a big difference.
At 1,500 Doors, Growth Becomes a Math Problem
Marketing also changes as the company gets bigger.
Our big goal has been 10,000 doors in 10 years.
Will we hit exactly 10,000?
I do not know.
If we end up at 7,500, I am not going to sit there disappointed.
The bigger point is we want to keep growing.
But at 1,500 doors, growth gets harder.
Let's use 10% churn as a simple example.
At 1,500 units, 10% is 150 doors.
You need to replace those doors before you even start growing.
If your churn is a little higher, now you may need close to 200 new doors just to stay around the same size.
That changes how you think about leads.
It changes how you think about marketing.
You cannot say, "We want to add 200 units this year," and generate enough leads to sign 200 units.
You may need those 200 just to replace what naturally leaves.
The bigger you get, the bigger the hole is at the beginning of every year.
That is the math some property management companies and larger roll-ups eventually run into.
Marketing Created a Different Problem for Me
Here is the part I have been thinking about more over the last six months.
Key-person risk.
I went to an Alex Hormozi event a couple of years ago, and there was a lot of discussion about risk and what impacts enterprise value.
Operationally, GC Realty is not built around me.
My partner and CEO, Cliff, runs the operation.
Most owners probably do not even know who Cliff is.
He is not out generating referrals or trying to be the face of the company.
Operationally, that is a good thing.
Then I looked at marketing.
I am on the podcast.
I am in the videos.
A lot of the emails sound like they come directly from me.
My personal social pages are part of the content engine.
That can create a perception problem for a future buyer.
What happens if Mark leaves?
I do not think owners hire or fire GC Realty because of me.
But a buyer evaluating the company may still see the risk.
Perception affects value.
The Answer Is Not for Me to Disappear
I do not think the answer is to suddenly pull my face out of everything.
Especially after spending years telling people to get on camera and create more content.
That would be a little hypocritical.
The answer is to get more people involved.
Maybe I continue doing the same amount of content.
But someone else at GC Realty does 20% of the reps I am doing.
Then another person starts contributing.
We get more people on camera.
We share more client experiences.
We show more of the actual company.
We make GC Realty the brand instead of making Mark the entire marketing department.
That is one of the big things I am focused on now.
I Run GC Realty Like We May Buy Someone or Someone May Buy Us
We have looked at buying other property management companies.
Nothing has come together yet.
But the process has changed how I look at GC Realty.
I try to operate with the mindset that we may buy another company or someone may eventually buy us.
That keeps certain priorities straight.
Processes matter.
Pricing matters.
Contracts matter.
Your URL even matters.
We learned some of this the hard way.
At one point, we had something like 56 different property management agreements.
Everyone had their own changes.
You want to redline the agreement?
Fine.
Change that section?
Sure.
Initial here.
It was impossible to scale.
We had to unwind it.
We also realized we were way too cheap.
Like every business owner, we convinced ourselves that if we raised prices, everyone would fire us.
We eventually raised the prices.
A couple people left.
They were basically the same clients we wanted to fire anyway.
Six months of worrying about it, and six hours after sending the new agreements, we realized almost nobody cared.
A Cheap Property Management Company Can Be Hard to Acquire
This is one of the problems we have found when looking at acquisitions.
GC Realty is probably one of the more expensive property management companies in Chicago.
That means we have to provide more value.
The client has to feel safer.
I use vendors the same way.
Sometimes I know someone costs a little more, but I trust that they are going to get the job done.
There is value in that.
When we look at another property management company, sometimes the revenue per unit is so far below ours that we would need to dramatically increase what their clients are paying.
Now you have churn risk.
You buy the company.
You increase pricing.
Clients leave.
That makes the acquisition a lot more complicated.
A property management company is not automatically valuable because it has a lot of doors.
What is the revenue per unit?
How profitable is it?
How standardized are the agreements?
How dependent is the company on the owner?
How strong is the brand?
Those things matter.
If I Had to Start Marketing Again, I Would Start With One Thing
Do not look at our four weekly emails, podcast, blogs, livestreams, videos, and social media and think you need to recreate everything tomorrow.
Start with one thing.
One platform.
One useful topic.
Then do it again.
The biggest thing is reducing the friction between creating something and publishing it.
I used to make social media way too complicated.
Record something.
Send it to someone.
Wait for edits.
Get it back.
Review it.
Approve it.
Post it.
At one point, I was basically paying someone $200 per post when you really broke the cost down.
Then I watched a guy come into our podcast studio, take a couple pictures, and post them to Instagram in about 30 seconds.
I remember thinking, what the hell am I doing?
The process had too much friction.
Now posting is part of my morning.
Gym.
Duolingo.
I am over 900 days into Spanish, and please do not take that as an invitation to have a complicated conversation with me in Spanish.
Then I post.
Instagram.
Facebook.
TikTok.
The process is simple enough that it actually gets done.
That is the goal.
Frequently Asked Questions
How big is GC Realty's marketing team?
For most of the last five years, the marketing side was primarily Mark Ainley and Javier, a remote marketing team member based in Mexico City. GC Realty recently added a local marketing team member in Chicago to help create more company and team-based content.
How often does GC Realty send marketing emails?
GC Realty sends Mailchimp emails four times per week. Some prospective clients are also inside LeadSimple campaigns that send follow-up approximately every five days.
How large is GC Realty's email list?
The email list is around 40,000 people and includes contacts who have interacted with GC Realty, podcast and resource leads, real estate professionals, and other real estate-focused audiences.
How much does GC Realty spend on marketing?
Mark estimated GC Realty's 2026 marketing budget at approximately $75,000 to $80,000 excluding internal labor. The budget includes website and marketing partners, paid channels, email software, content tools, editing, and distribution support.
Does Mark Ainley use AI to create content?
Yes. Mark uses AI as part of the content process, but the tone and final message still need to sound like him. The goal is to use AI to reduce the time and friction involved in turning real information into useful content.
What is the biggest marketing advantage property management companies have?
Most property management companies are busy operating and do not consistently focus on marketing. A company willing to regularly create useful content, appear on camera, and distribute information can build a significant competitive advantage.
Build the Company, Not Just the Marketing
Marketing helped GC Realty grow.
But the next challenge is making sure the marketing itself can scale.
The company cannot depend on one person.
The operation cannot depend on 56 custom agreements.
Growth cannot depend on Mark waking up every Thursday and remembering an email needs to go out.
You build the system.
You document it.
You make it repeatable.
Then you improve it.
That is how I look at marketing today.
Honestly, that is how I look at the entire company.
At GC Realty & Development, we manage around 1,500 units across Chicagoland. Our goal is to help rental property owners buy back their time, lower their risk, and protect their investment with a property management company built around systems and accountability.
Looking for property management in Chicago or the surrounding suburbs?
Get your property management quote here: https://www.gcrealtyinc.com/propertymanagementquote
Or see what your property could rent for with our Free Rent Analysis:
https://www.gcrealtyinc.com/free-rental-analysis
Don’t Go At This Alone
This is a lot of information you need to know if you plan to invest in the Chicago market and it may seem overwhelming, but real estate investing in Chicago is a team sport. Who is on your real estate investing team? Do you even have a team? GC Realty & Development has a team of resources and we are willing to share all of our 20+ years of experience in both real estate investing and property management in the Chicago market. We will do this whether you hire us or not.
What gets me up in the morning and keeps me going 12+ hours a day is the ability to add value to Chicago real estate investors. If we connect, you will hear me say that our goal as a company is to add value to everyone we come in contact with. In return, we hope one day you will hire us for our Tenant Placement or Property Management Services. You can also refer us to someone you know that needs Tenant Placement or Property Management services, or I will take a simple 5 Star Google review. We love the opportunity when we get all three from the current and aspiring investors we get to help!
Reach out today!
Partner / Co-Host of Straight Up Chicago Investor Podcast
