Mark Juleen's Blog

People make bad decisions.  This is reality.  Unfortunately, when people take to the internet to proclaim their dissatisfaction (due to a bad decision) it can become a PR nightmare for a company today.  Papa John’s took an absolute beating the past few days since the “lady chinky eyes” racial slur debacle.  Here’s a bit of the story:http://www.cnn.com/2012/01/08/us/new-york-papa-johns-receipt/

It seems like these situations are rarely handled well, and a PR superhero has to try and swoop in to save the day.  And when they do we see little success as the damage is already done.

So what do you do if this happens to you and your company?

Duncan, Mike, and I were discussing 2012 and what we’re looking forward to.  I will tell you that we don’t predict for the world to end, but we may see some things begin to fall off that seem tried and true today.  Enjoy my 2012 marketing predictions and listen live to our podcast 12/20/2012 at 5:00 p.m. EST to hear more.

Social

Niche social sites (ie- Instagram, Pinterest, Path, Quora, etc.) will gather more momentum, but stay niche much like Tumblr.  Facebook currency may take on another dimension, but more importantly Google+ will finally become something that we can’t afford to ignore.

I was chatting with Mike Whaling yesterday, and we both agreed there are definitely some quick wins out there to help optimize your brand, stores, properties, etc. online.  It can be time consuming, but claiming your business's pages on Google, Bing, Yelp!, etc. can be quick ways to get some SEO juice for your websites and help promote your business on those additional channels.  Where I struggle from there is with a content strategy ongoing.

Here’s the honest truth, you can’t half-ass it anymore.  Search as we know it today is changing, and if you aren’t trying to be part of or help create conversation then I will predict that drive-by may become your best lead source.  OK, that could be extreme, but the algorithm is changing from a keywords model and more value is being put on conversation and connections with real people to a brand.  Criticize Google+ all you want, but even if that doesn’t do exactly what they hoped it most definitely highlights how Google is giving more credit to social connections.

It seems like the debate continues on and on regarding which ILS model is the best.  At the recent NMHC Tech Conference people were tweeting about it.  At a recent Apartment Guide conference people were tweeting about it.  It seems that at every conference people are tweeting and talking about it in recent years, let alone all the blog posts and discussions online about the topic.  So, I’d like to set the record straight by saying:

We’re all a bunch of suckers when it comes to buying leasing traffic.

Yes, you read that correctly.  We’re buying gimmicks, and I’m guilty myself.  It sounds so great on the surface.  ”Pay only for what you get” is the promise.  I have to ask though, what exactly do we get?

At the beginning of October we held one of our bi-annual training sessions for our leasing teams at J.C. Hart.  As part of that process we generally ask everyone prior what things they are looking to learn and if there is anything they would like us to focus on.  One of the topics consistently mentioned was “Resident Retention”.  As this training was mainly geared toward the leasing process, answering the phone, and building rapport with new prospects we didn’t have time to cover this particular area unfortunately.  However, I did begin to think about that topic and instead of pushing off the idea until the next training I took the opportunity to share my perspective on “Resident Retention” with the group.  It actually didn’t require an entire session to discuss and review, but I do think we can go further down the rabbit hole with this as we move forward.  Here’s my position on “Resident Retention” and why I think this works for any type of business.

1.  It’s about all the in-betweens – What’s that mean?  Once we create a strategy, method, or process for anything then it becomes the status quo.  The customer expects us to do those things as a minimum.  It’s no longer a surprise to them and the value of the strategy or process get reduced.  We bring value by surprising the customer in-between all the process driven interactions.  Of course the basic blocking and tackling is necessary, but what are you doing in-between the standard protocol and how are you keeping that fresh, new, and full of surprise?

2. One-to-one beats mass - “We create as much information in two days now as we did from the dawn of man through 2003.” –Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google  Think about that for just a minute.  We have to filter so much content and information today that we instinctively seek out recommendations for what to read, what to buy, and what to do next.  There is so much clutter in our world now that the most effective way to communicate with people is one-to-one.  Give someone your personal attention and it will go so much further than the next mass message you send to them.  Think about all the opportunities you have to communicate one-to-one and expand on the last mass message you sent or create an in-between moment.

In listening to phone calls I wondered how often we get the question, “How much are your 1/2/3 bedrooms?”  I can tell you from the calls I’ve listened to that it happens a bunch.  The problem is, so many people want to just answer that question for the customer right away.  Here’s why I think you should redirect that question when you’re talking to a prospect on the phone.

1.  They already know your price.  We know they found your website, an ILS listing, or some ad that shows your pricing.  What they are looking for is to confirm what they found in those listings is accurate (including other information beyond price).

2.  They really want to know if you have one available for their moving date.  Again, they are looking for some type of confirmation on something they may or may not have found in your listing.  This is actually more important to them than price, again, because they already know your price.

First off, if you don't use RentSentinel for their Craigslist posting tool then you are really missing out.  Also, just because you have a tool like RentSentinel, it doesn't mean that it's being used consistently.  It needs to be monitored and measured for success.  I had one of my late night work sessions last night and started digging into the analytics that RentSentinel offers.  All I can say is, WOW!

Here are a few of my discoveries:

- It's no surprise that posting more often can drive more traffic.  We have one property that has posted nearly 2000 ads on Craigslist in the past year.  No wonder they haven't dipped below 94% occupied all year long and are currently trending to 99% occupied.  All while pushing rents 5-6%.

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From the minds behind The Resident Connection comes the official 2012 Apartment Marketing Checklist.  Budget meetings coming up?  Trying to move around some marketing dollars?  Be sure to download the checklist and make sure you have your bases covered.

So, who's getting the biggest slice of the pie?  As budget season approaches I'm doing my mid-year study of marketing data that we collect here at J.C. Hart.  In the past I have mentioned how I think it's important to not just review data month over month, but to also look at it year over year and over a series of years.  I typically will look back 4 years and also pull year-to-date numbers to see if we have any trends for the current year as well.  What's most interesting about my analysis this year is that 2007 was the last year before our big shift to online and social media.  We'd always had a company website and we've listed on numerous ILSs for years, but we really began to shift our marketing investment in 2008. The following data is a summary of all J.C. Hart Apartment Communities leasing records for 1st marketing source cited by a new move-in.

Back in 2007 you will see that Print Guide marketing contributed a little over 10% of our leasing, and the ILSs contributed nearly 20%.  Unfortunately, nearly 60% of our marketing spend was going to Print Guides and ILSs.  At this time, Craigslist was barely a blip on the radar, but we saw the majority of our leases coming from good old Drive By and Referrals.  When I looked at these numbers back in 2007 I remember thinking to myself, "Self, why do we spend most of our marketing $ on these sources and nearly nothing on Drive By, Referrals, or our own Property Websites?"  It was somewhat of an epiphany for me.  What else could we do with that money?  We did have property websites in 2007 (that I thought were great at the time), but they were only cited by 1.4% of our new move-ins.  Something definitely needed to be done there.  Bottom line, the spend seemed oddly weighted, and I knew there had to be a better way.

It's super easy today to click "Like", accept a connection, follow someone, or now put someone in a circle, but that's just scratching the surface.  It's those next steps that really begin to make connections.  I was listening to a Gary Vaynerchuk keynote presentation last night and a statement he made really stuck with me.  I'll paraphrase a bit, "with social media marketing it's not about the presentation, it's about being a part of the cocktail party."

As marketers, we've become comfortable with the idea of a campaign that has a beginning and an end.  We build up to it, run it, and then celebrate the spike in activity.  It's been this way for years and years, and we're comfortable pushing messages at people expecting a certain level of return, leads, sales, etc.  But for some reason, when people look at social media for business it's like we're dogs tilting our heads striving to understand what the other person is saying.  Why is this?  Why isn't a social strategy more clearly understood for business?

I think it's because we're looking through the lens with our head tilted.  We're looking through the lens of "status quo" and "that's the way we've always done it" (which is exactly the lens we should be looking through).  However, it's the perspective that's off.  We're not thinking about why it's just as important to connect with everyday customers as it is to go play golf with a banker.  Why it's just as important to connect with everyday customers as it is to go out to a steak dinner with a client.  Why it's just as important to connect with an everyday customer as it is to meet up with friends.  Why it's just as important to connect with an everyday customer as it is to give your mother a birthday card.