I Believe in the Separation of Church and Steak

I spoke to my mom a few weeks ago on a Sunday, and even though my mom has never been the sort to bargain hunt, she had to tell me about a great deal they just got. A steak place in their small town had some bandit signs out front that said “15% DISCOUNT WITH YOUR CHURCH PROGRAM!” So my parents made a concerted effort to bring the program to the restaurant, and they did indeed get the discount. My first response to her was that I was a firm believer in the separation of church and steak.

But my next response was, what a great idea! Now of course we can’t do this exact idea in multifamily because of fair housing issues and the intricacies of discounting over a lease term, but it definitely got me thinking about other creative ways to tie-in one business to another, to get a community’s name and image in front of people in another way.

I have always been a big believer in this concept. Even though I got started in the apartment industry by publishing my own print guides in West Texas, I have never thought it was healthy for the industry, or the ad budget, to solely rely on advertising as a means of promotion. As we have seen over the past few years with the emergence of social networking, the world seems to agree with that idea. But instead of just transitioning your effort from print to online, why not think about your own creative idea? Why not “steak” a claim?

A number of years ago, a property of mine in Palm Beach county was trying to find ways to improve its image and get more traffic. South Florida has always been a competitive market, and with each and every property looking surprisingly “resort-like”, it can be quite challenging to set one apart from the crowd. But this property did have one feature that we could, well, exploit. The property was ringed by a 4.5 KM jogging trail. One of the real nice ones with tiny crushed gravel that those health-nut jogger people seem to like. And it was beautiful – lit every twenty feet, surrounded by palm trees, hibiscus and for a portion, even a shimmering stream! Okay, I will stop writing an ad for you. But the point was we had a pretty awesome feature, but one that would only appeal to a particular clientele. It needed to be marketed differently, uniquely. So I had an idea. Our property manager was a breast-cancer survivor, but her older sister had not been so lucky. Understandably, she was an avid supporter of the Susan G. Komen Foundation, the people behind the pink ribbons and the Race for the Cure. South Florida already has a large running community, and the “real” Race for the Cure happened in downtown West Palm Beach. So why not have a practice run? Get all of the planned participants together for a trial. Give them stuff. Get noticed.

Back then, West Palm Beach still had some major crime problems. My theory was that if we let the press know about something like this, something positive and human-interest related, we would get some coverage.

So we planned to have a practice run three weeks prior to the real event. We got two sponsors, one to provide t-shirts and water and another to take photos of the runners and make matching donations from our residents who ran. And we invited the press. The story made it to two local stations evening newscasts!

Long story short – we had great coverage from the event. We supported a charity, and we got our name out there. Not bad for a Saturday afternoon. The point is, be creative when trying to differentiate your property. Don’t just rely on advertising. What does your property have that you can easily tie-in with something else? Have a dog park? Align with a local animal shelter. Have a basketball court? Link up with a midnight basketball league. Charity works both ways - have your steak and eat it too.

COMING NEXT WEEK: What do right-handers and pet owners have in common?

 Christopher Higgins is The Apartment Guy, a professional speaker and owner of multifamily assets with 19 years of experience in the field. His latest session, entitled Flip the Switch: Transitioning from Recession to Recovery is now available for firms and associations.