Apartment Marketing

Social media is a crucial tool to incorporate in your apartment marketing plan.

Duh.

We all know this. It's 2021. Everything is on social media. I just bought some yoga pants off of a targeted Instagram ad, got some running tips from a Facebook group, learned a new dance on TikTok and sore thumbs from mindlessly scrolling Twitter. And I haven't even finished my coffee yet!

Goodbye, 2020! See you never.

I know we're all eager to drop this year like a failed sourdough starter. But if you look back (you might have to squint a little) there were actually some positive trends for multifamily that came about.

It’s no secret that the pandemic has limited traffic to apartment communities. On top of that, the weather also limits traffic to multifamily communities in the winter. But what shouldn’t be limited during the colder months is traffic to your website.  This past year has challenged leasing teams to take their apartment marketing strategy to new heights. You may have seen an uptake in traffic to your apartment communities during the warmer months due to your hard earned marketing efforts, but now, you may be questioning why traffic seems so low. Or what are some ways to increase the traffic to your property, and how do you market vacant apartment units? Luckily, you won’t have to keep asking these questions for long if you follow these tips to increase traffic for apartment communities.   How to Get More Traffic to Your Apartment Community It’s not only important to market your multifamily communities online but to take it a step further, and market your properties in a real and transparent way. This is where prospective residents can learn more about what your apartment community offers and get comfortable with wanting to take a next step. By 2022, online videos will make up more than 82% of all consumer internet traffic — 15 times higher than it was in 2017. So how do you increase traffic to your apartment community through video?   Video Tours One of the best ways to attract prospective residents during the colder months is through your website. Be sure to c......

With 2021 just around the corner, you’re likely thinking about your residents’ plans for the new year — specifically, are they planning to move?   Along with going to the gym regularly and forming better communication with long-distance friends, moving to a new apartment is often one of the changes renters decide they want to make in the new year.    While it’s not possible to keep a resident forever and there are many circumstances where a resident has to move, there are many opportunities to save leases. Sometimes it can be such a small reason a resident decides to move, and with your efforts, you can eliminate it.   Here are a few highly-targeted marketing tactics to re-engage residents and encourage them to renew their lease with your property:   Utilize Residents’ New Year’s Resolutions It’s a safe bet that many of your residents’ New Year’s resolutions surround health, money, and relationships. In fact, 50% of Americans stated exercising more was a New Year’s resolution in 2020. As well — saving money (49%), eating healthy (43%), and losing weight (37%).   Knowing this, you can lean into it and utilize it in your apartment marketing strategy.   For example, you can increase the marketing of your on-site gym or fitness center. You can show your residents how they can meet their new fitness goals at your property. Here are a few ideas to help get their attention:   Offer complimentary training or group classes Create downloadable individual exercises or an exercise plan that ca......

I know what you’re thinking — again? The Instagram algorithm has changed again?   Yes. It has.   But once you know and understand what has changed, you will know what you need to alter in your Instagram strategy to maximize your growth and success on the platform.   I will also take this moment to say if your property doesn’t have an Instagram account or you have one but you don’t use it regularly — you need to! Why does a change in Instagram’s algorithm matter for your multifamily property? I understand if you’re wondering why how the algorithm works matters for your apartment.    On the surface, the algorithm update can seem like a change for “influencers” to worry about, but it’s something property managers and marketers should take into consideration as well.    Let’s say your apartment’s Instagram has 1,000 followers but each post only receives 10 likes and maybe a comment here or there. This might seem even more puzzling with the fact that the average user spends over an hour each day on the app.    Is this because you share bad content? Likely not.    It’s because most of your audience isn’t even seeing your posts in their feed.    Paying attention to the changes in what Instagram values and adjusting your strategy accordingly can increase the number of your followers that actually see your posts.    This means more eyes on your upcoming lease deals, open units, new amenities, property updates, and so on.  The 2020 Instagram Algorith......

Social media contests are a great way to increase engagement, boost your following, and share your products or services. These social media tips and contest ideas for your apartment can help take you to the next level in your social media strategy. 24 social media contest ideas for apartments: Attend our resident event and post a picture with a custom hashtag to be entered to win Answer a trivia question about your community or city  We’re raising a glass to favorite, local restaurants. Fill in the blank to be entered to win. My favorite local restaurant is:  Follow us and tag your future roommate below Balcony/ patio decorating contest Pet of the month Caption this! Best comment wins Spot the difference between 2 photos Comment with how many of something you can find in 1 photo This or that: vote for your favorite. Baking/ cooking contests – show us your Gordon Ramsay skills Photo scavenger hunt Holiday & seasonal social media contests: Show us your pet for National Puppy Day to win a gift basket from the local pet shop Use an emoji below to tell us your favorite springtime activity to be entered to win Spread some festive cheer and show us your holiday home décor Super Bowl Sunday: comment with your predicted winning score Pumpkin carving contest A pot of gold and all of the green beer your hands can hold. Use an Irish name generator and share your name below to be entered to win a 6-pack of green beer. (21+......

What better way to step up your virtual touring strategy than to host a virtual open house? Hosting a virtual open house enables your team to expand its reach and impact while catering to those unable to tour in person for a variety of reasons. Furthermore, these virtual experiences instill trust and transparency into the leasing process while allowing your team to be safe and more efficient — meaning fewer tours and less face-to-face time required! Let's take a look at some of the best practices for hosting a virtual open house, and a simple 5 step process to ensure that your virtual open house is a success for everyone involved!  1. Schedule Ahead In order to have adequate time to prepare and promote your open house, be sure to choose a date at least one week in advance! As virtual open houses begin to grow in popularity, consider planning out a series of open houses as needed to cater to prospective residents schedules. 2. Promote! After you have created a link for your virtual open house, it is time to spread the word! The promotion possibilities are endless. At the very least, post visuals to all of your property’s website and social channels. Be sure to include the link to register as well. By having prospects sign up, you will be able to check periodically to see how many people have registered and keep pushing posts accordingly. The more attendees, the merrier! In addition to your public marketing channels, send a d......

I remember several years ago, Houston got a wonderful snow storm, and as you can imagine, that's not a very common occurrence.  So of course, I begged and pleaded for all my Houston multifamily friends to immediately do a photo shoot with their community blanketed with a beautiful shimmering coat of white snow.  How unique would those marketing pictures be!  Unfortunately, I don't know if anyone took me up on it, but today I ran across a home listing that reminded me of the idea.  Yes, it's not multifamily, but I don't think it matters - It showcases how amazing the space is in all seasons, and is something we can do with our own communities!  Have any of you all taken the time to do winter photo shoots of your property?  Autumn?  Maybe spring as the flowers are just about to start blooming?  What about sunrise versus dusk?  What about nighttime with Christmas lights and a warm glow emanating from the windows?  There are so many opportunities, and I'd love to hear what you all have done!

 

We all know that driving potential residents to your apartment website is just half the battle, the other half is keeping them there.  I’ve found that many apartment websites will have high entrance traffic but also an equally high exit or bounce rate. Unfortunately, getting a lot of people to your property website is meaningless if they don’t stay long enough to absorb the important information necessary to take the next step. This next step could be scheduling a tour, adding the property name to their list of potential rentals, or keeping the tab open to return to the website at a later time.  You may be viewing your homepage and thinking that everything looks good, which it probably does, but there could be small things that aren’t keeping people on the page.  Here are the top reasons I have found as to why potential residents leave an apartment website quickly: Reason #1: They don’t quickly see what they’re looking for. One of the major benefits of the multifamily industry is that our “customers” are almost always searching for our “product” with a very high intent level. One doesn’t often browse for apartments the way you scroll through the on-sale shoe page while procrastinating on work. When a user enters your property website, it’s because they are looking for and/or need a new place to rent, usually within the next 3-5 months.  That being said, high intent does not equal patience.  Even if the need to move to a new apartment is urgent, if a poten......

  I was asked to team up with Mike Whaling of 30 Lines and Greg Isaacson of MultiHousing News to share our top 5 takeaways from day 2 of the OPTECH Conference.  I hope you find these takeaways meaningful!   1.       Explosion of Service and Experience-Based Amenities During day 2 of the conference, physical amenities within individual apartments gave way to a dramatic shift towards service and experience-based amenities.  In a convergence with hospitality, more amenities were focused on the overall community and how the residents interact with it.  Here were some examples we heard: Shifting job roles to provide concierge-based services Towel service and food delivery at the pool Building a personal profile of each resident to understand their individual preferences, and then cater the service to those needs Expanded event planning, such as ski trips, book clubs, and wine clubs Weaving technology into the amenities provided, especially for signing up and reserving amenities Note:  I only covered Day 2, so amenities within the apartments may definitely have been on display in other days.   2.       Coworking While coworking had been a growing amenity in multifamily, COVID has caused this amenity type to completely take off.  With so many offices shutting down temporarily, or even long term, communities are shifting to coworking to provide a space for residents to work from home.  This includes the ability to reserve offices on an hour, day, or monthly basis to provide additional revenue, or providing social spaces for coworking, residents have begun to......