STOP BABYING AROUND
Things have changed, right? But don’t we hear that all the time? Perhaps a better question to that statement is; have you changed with the times? Are you willing to change the way you are marketing apartments?

Folks want to refer to themselves as “change artists” or “change agents”, but are those just popular buzz words to make it appear you are ahead of the pack.
I am met an old marketing friend for coffee last week. Not all that significant I suppose, except he fired me as a client several years ago. Our relationship continued for a while after the firing, but was never quite the same. Perhaps it was because we moved on and figured out how to build a Brand, Solo, We went it Alone absent another marketing agency.

IN HOUSE HAS ADVANTAGES
Now to be clear, I have nothing against marketing agencies and studios. They can serve a purpose, and can provide value. One thing my friend pointed out in our conversation was that today, their marketing studio competition is no longer other marketing studios, it is the freelance creative sitting at Peneria

It made me further think about how we are doing things. Today, anyone with photo shop can mostly be a graphic designer. Assuming you have the various files required, it is a matter of cut and paste. What used to cost $750 for floor plan collateral brochures can now be produced In House and emailed to Kinko’s for printing for a total cost of $39.

THE STAGE IS LARGER
Need a new logo? Need to add some freshness to your collateral material? You can really compound your efforts if you find that creative free lance resident. When you “look within” the chances of creating resident evangelist increases exponentially. Or toss it out to a larger stage at one of the dozens of open source web sites where you set the price you will pay, and graphic designers from all over the world send you submissions. You can even set up a voting mechanism.

When we started our business we paid $5,000 for our logo to be designed, and I thought it was really cool. A couple of years ago, a resident asked me if he could submit a new logo design for Urbane Apartments that more aligned to what the Brand really was. Note that the resident know more about the Brand than we did. Remember, your Brand isn't what you think it is, it is what your Resident thinks it is. What they designed for us with the the blue background city scrape and new logo design he came up with blew me away. So did the price, $250 total, a nice benefit of being fired.

BUT WHAT ABOUT PR
Perhaps the best piece of the new change is the ease of distributing the message. Every company wants to get published, or you should. It really helps juice your Brand, and helps your Google Rankings. Start Blogging and start doing some of your own Press Releases. Start to create your own Long Tail. I encourage you to start today, you cannot buy a block of Long Tail from the local marketing store. It must be built over time. But when you do take the time to carefully execute a strategy, folks start talking about you, one story at a time, as they did with us at Business Week Magazine, Builder Magazine or Multifamily Executive.

Need some help laying out your Social Media Marketing Plan? Give us a ring. We have already done it, and can save you time and a whole bunch of dough. You need to start your Long Tail now,