Student Housing

No matter what our role is within the multi-family industry, there is always one word which is used more than any other; “community.” Some of us own communities, some of us develop communities, some of us design communities and others of us lease or operate them. And chances are that many of us live in an apartment, condominium or townhome community as well. So then why is it that there is so little ‘community’ in our communities?

When it comes down to this failure’s root cause, it can really only be one of two choices;

a.       Either the management team does not expend their energies in a manner that creates a welcoming and vibrant atmosphere that encourages interaction, or

It seems like over the past five years or so, an infinite number of marketing channels have emerged. We bought pages on listing sites, then we created our own property websites.  Now web pages are generated for our property just by having a resident “check in” on Facbook or Foursquare.  Seriously!

 This makes it extremely challenging for an apartment community to have one coherent brand on the web. So what’s a marketer to do?

Let me begin by wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah. For those of you who regularly read my scribbles, you are used to some pretty meaty topics. In light of the Holidays, this one will be a bit frothier. In each blog that I write there are certain themes which remain pretty consistent. One of my favorites is that real estate development is about the coolest industry on the planet. After all, our job is to make the world a better, more usable, more beautiful place.

Often my intended audience is the real estate developer (my hope is of course that there is some part of my subject matter which translates to my non-developer audience- or at least helps you better understand those temperamental developers who constantly tell you ‘We can’t afford that.’). Today, I would like to remind us all of something that is very easily glossed over as we perform our day-to-day tasks.

With the holiday spirit all around, this is a great time of year to get your residents together and show them your appreciation.  Here are a couple fun ideas that you can do around your apartment community:

1.       Resident gifts:  A small gift for your residents is an easy way to say thank you for living in your community and the holidays are a great time to surprise them.  Order T-shirts or sustainable bags with your branding on them for each resident.  Print some festive notes to say Happy Holidays and put them in your resident mailboxes.  Each resident can use the note to redeem their gift from the leasing office.  This would also be a great time to have them update their contact information with you.  Your residents will love their new swag and your branding will be all over the city.

When I first created my Twitter account, I hated it.  The posts were too frequent, too confusing and there was way too much junk floating around my news feed.  For months, it sat with that infamous egg as a profile picture.  My home page would have jumped for joy at the sound of a cricket.  Just when I thought I’d never log in again, a friend planted a seed that wouldn’t stop growing.  I started out simple at first, but it soon turned into a full blown obsession.  I was determined to lease my first apartment via Twitter!  It was that obsession that now allows me to share how to effectively increase occupancy via Twitter Mind Control.

1. Did you know that you can search for people hunting for apartments in the city of your choosing?  You can find people who might be looking for apartments but they don’t even know it yet, they’re just putting signals out there to their friends, family and anyone else who may be reading their post at that particular moment in time.  Are they looking for someone to comment and say hey I love where I live, go there?  No.  They’re looking for some kind of engagement (as any person is on any social platform) and most times, if you look at the post, they really don’t get it!  Now this doesn’t mean that you should only search apartment hunting or looking for apartments.
2. Create a list of keywords to search daily.  The key here is not only to find those actively searching, but also to discover and engage those that are giving off passive buying signals.  Some of my favorite searches are high electric or gas bills, noisy neighbors, long commutes and horrific roommates.   Once you find a relevant post, should you comment on that and try to sell them?  Absolutely…NOT!
3. Never, ever sell your community on your initial contact!  Instead, scroll through their tweets over the last week and find a relatable post.  This could be something as simple as a movie they just saw, a restaurant they just ate at, or even a sporting event they are tweeting about.  Comment on that.  Be human.  Your community will sell itself.
4. Don’t get discouraged if people you’re contacting don’t respond.  How often do you entertain a cold call?  That is essentially what you’ve just done.  The difference is, everyone looks at their @mentions, EVERYONE!  The connection you just made has now subliminally put your community at the top of their list.  When they start looking and you pop up on an ILS or Google, they’ll say “hey that looks familiar, I think they tweeted me….about a … movie?  I’m sure it’s still in my twitter mentions somewhere…..”  Now hopefully you’re twitter page doesn’t look like a bunch of cold calls all lined up like ducks in a row.  You need to have other content as well.
5. Search for your community often.   Tweets can be the best form of testimonial money can buy.  Why?  Because they’re FREE!  There’s this wonderful little button called “RETWEET”.  Learn it, love it and live by it.  When you’re searching your list of keywords every day, throw in your community name.  See who’s talking about you.  Give yourself the opportunity to retweet the positive and reply to the negative.  This will paint a vivid picture for anyone looking at your page.

There was an amazing segment at Brainstorming that focused on transparency.  You may have seen theChapStick fiasco…yikes.  That is an epic transparency #fail!  How about  live reviews for Dominoes Pizza flying across the jumbo screen in Times Square?  Can you say #winning?!  The growing trend of word of mouth marketing is making and breaking businesses as we speak.  Attention spans are shortening and tolerance for conventional marketing is dwindling.  Today is the day we look for products our friends and family endorse.  We look for the product with the highest rating or the most positive reviews.  A well maintained Twitter page can help.  Start searching today or yesterday’s tweet could become tomorrow’s lost lease.

Learn how to use descriptive language to spice up your marketing!

I’m all about saying something in a unique way when marketing apartments, but sometimes I find myself  with a brain cramp and it takes me a while to get those creative juices flowing.  How many times have you found yourself in the same situation while in a time crunch to get your copy out a.s.a.p. and all you can come up with to describe your community pool is “Sparkling”? 

Can you believe it’s October already?  The leaves are changing, Pumpkin Spice Lattes are back and Halloween costume stores are popping up around the country.  Like other holidays, this is a great time for you to have some fun around your apartment community!  Here are some ideas to get your residents together for a spooky, good time:

1.       Lobby candy – If you have a large apartment community, it can be difficult or even impossible for trick-or-treaters to ring your residents’ doorbells.  Instead of disappointing all those little Ghosts, Sarah Palins and Hippies ask your residents to donate a bag of candy for the lobby.  Have your security guard or leasing agents greet the trick-or-treaters and hand out candy on behalf of the entire building.

By Munveer Garcha, Policy Expert, London, UK