Capturing Renters & Retaining Residents Through New Media Channels;

Highlights From the 2010 NAA Education Expo

I was so excited to be chosen as a speaker for the 2010 NAA Educational Sessions in New Orleans. Although I have been speaking to management companies around the country for years, I knew this was would become an unforgettable experience. I was right!

Pulled from his Twitter update last week:

It comes as no surprise that the rental market has changed significantly along with the volatile economy of recent years. While some areas haveweathered the financial storm better than others, landlords in many regions have found themselves in a market with new rules and considerations. Though things are looking up (according to an April 2010 article in The Wall Street Journal, apartment rents rose during the first quarter of 2010 for the first time following five consecutive quarters of decline), some areas have found themselves in a market that is nonetheless different than it was before. Over the next few weeks, we’ll look at some areas that have experienced market changes and examine some strategies for navigating the new markets that have emerged. First up, sunny San Diego.

According to WSJ, San Diego came in third (behind Portland, OR and Las Vegas, NV) for the steepest rent decline at the beginning of 2010.WSJ attributes the decline in this area to “ … an uptick in home-buying activity, particularly… from first-time buyers and investors.”

When given the choice between doling out rental income every month and having the opportunity to make a long-term investment, most will choose the latter option whenever possible. And although the home loan process is currently more selective and arduous than it has been in recent history, the fact remains that the increased number of foreclosures and home deals makes it possible for new buyers who find themselves in stable job situations to enter the homeowner market.

It is a common ritual in our business – the call-around or “comp check”. Once a week, maybe only once a month, a leasing agent from your property sits down at the phone with the list of the competitors in your market area. They pick up the phone and start dialing. How valuable is this ritual? What do you do with the information? How can you rely on facts when you aren’t sure of the credibility of the source?

I have always been an advocate of sharing this information with my competitors. For those of you who have been in the business for ages, like myself, we know that we all end up working for each other at some point anyway, so why not share and share alike? Good marketing directors, supervisors and on-site managers know just how important this information is for multiple reasons. We should be sharing it, and we should encourage our comps to work with us and share as well.

Pricing and specials

Foursquare's gorilla marketing has turned geotagging into marketing juice for local businesses. More than 3 million people have become active players on Foursquare, with over 20% pushing their "check ins" to their Facebook page and Twitter accounts. This is one of the most powerful "local" social media tools available. I downloaded Foursquare to my iPhone and have really gotten caught up in the game. I find that it has awakened the sleeping "girl-scout" in me. It has been a long time since I have earned a badge and I was quite thrilled when I did!

We, in the United States, have been blessed for the last fifteen plus years of enjoying essentially free internet. As a business, a company could purchase a domain for a few bucks and upload some html and the business was "in business". Initially, we had some digital islands, or groups, like Compuserve and AOL that made you purchase access to their hubs. Then Yahoo, MSN and other free hubs came around and eliminated the need to "pay to play". We started to once again enjoying free access to explore and search the internet. And then we fell in love with Google. Google over the last ten years gave us the power to quickly explore the millions then billions of websites just by adding in a few key words to a search. This search became very powerful, so powerful that Google realized their ability to "sell" keyword searches and bought out groups like DoubleClick to better understand the people that clicked through. Adwords, Google's primary revenue source, auctions keyword phrases that made sense to business for a certain dollar amount and business, realizing the opportunity, gobbled it up and started hiring companies or people to handle their new online ad spend. Well, this happy marriage between Google and business continues, but then emerged social and mobile technologies. 

During this time period, MySpace, Napster, Friendster and eventually Facebook sprung up and created social networks, or new versions of digital islands, to connect people to each other b/c of like mindedness. As you are aware, it swelled to gigantic proportions and people began to use these digital islands and not the Internet to explore and communicate their likes or wants. In addition, pretty Apple, with all its shininess, developed the iPhone, a universal interface that allows for companies, like mine, to develop applications and advertisements for businesses to better interact with either other businesses or consumers. These applications, also digital islands, gathers people and isolates them away from the internet and solely into their application. 

While all this is happening, multifamily housing marketers and executives are trying to find ways to get in front of people. They start by getting their website live. Then they pay to promote their communities on ILS's and promote through Craigslist. Then, they play with PPC on Google and realize it is important to be seen through this massive search engine. Which makes them realize that, "hey better to be on the ORGANIC search related side than the PPC sponsored ad side". So, then they hire SEO specialists to keyword their websites, set up link backs and tag their sites to get the best possible outcome from organic search. What they don't realize right away is that OTHER ILSs and competing websites are doing the same thing. Which prompts them to take advantage of BLOGGING with a blog page and go SOCIAL with their facebook pages, Twitter accounts, YouTube channels, Flickr galleries all for the attempt of getting seen and potentially engaging with a very active resident fan base. And I can tell you all this worked...until Google introduced Instant. 

Alright... just one more time with the gimmicky top 5 title.  I promise.  For those that didn't read my post last week I talked about ways to generate more leads.  If you followed my advice you should now be seeing a significant increase in your web leads and any vacancy troubles have all but evaporated.  (Okay that might be overstating reality somewhat).

I hope you'll come along with me over the next month or so while I talk about all the steps from lead generation to move-in.  I think I have some insights to offer and hope you will agree.  At the minimum I can help you waste 5 minutes now before you do something that might be considered important later. 

Unless you’ve been living in a non-WiFi-enabled cave for the past few weeks you have heard about Google Instant, the latest “innovation” from Google. (I say “innovation” because Yahoo actually tried to do this in 2005 but couldn’t pull the trigger on their main site).

I just wanted to scratch the surface of what Google Instant is and how it could impact how you choose what keywords to use  for your site.

Essentially, Google Instant renders search results as you type, attempting to predict what it believes you are looking for. The common consensus is that rankings have not changed as a result of the Google Instant. It’s more to do with how the results are displayed. Google Suggest was the precursor for Instant and was the part responsible for that drop-down of suggested phrases that would appear as you typed. It seems like Instant now acts as the visualization of what results are sitting behind each suggestion and that the rankings for that suggestion have not changed.

  STOP ask yourself do you do your follow up calls or thank you cards?!?!?!?

 By Jolene Sopalski Leasing Specialist WRH Realty Services

If you answered no to that question then I want you to hold up your right hand and pledge the following “ I will  start following up with my prospects no prospect will go un-followed up”. Good now if you are one of the ones that said yes I do my follow up calls and thank you cards I want to give you a big hug so just picture me giving  you a hug.