There are plenty of great apartment marketing ideas out there. In fact, just Google “how to market apartment complexes” or “fun marketing ideas for apartments” and you’re bound to find a few things that work. But, how do you change your approach if you’re marketing multiple properties at one time or multiple phases of the same community?
In the world of multifamily real estate, that can often be the case. Unlike marketing roles in other industries, corporate marketers in the multifamily space often act like a full-service apartment marketing company or agency having to promote all of the properties in their portfolio. They need to successfully market each property as a standalone client with its own unique brand, messaging, audience, needs, etc. That’s a LOT for one person, or even a small team, to have on their plate.
So, what are some of the ways those corporate multifamily marketing professionals or teams can streamline their work? Here are some apartment marketing ideas to help marketers scale their time, perform well across their entire portfolio, and provide a custom experience for each property at the same time!
Consider Each Individual Audience
For each individual property, the ideal resident and what they are looking for will likely vary. Who are they? How can you reach them? Apartment open house theme ideas or apartment social media ideas for one property may not translate to the another. If one audience is looking for luxury living, then you should focus on marketing ideas for luxury apartments or luxury open house ideas. Likewise, if they are students or young families.
The key to managing these different audiences? Figure out the outreach marketing ideas for apartments that, with tweaks, can work across multiple audiences. That way you don’t have to come up with completely new and different apartment marketing ideas for each community. Just adjust the messaging and branding for those methods proven to work best. One such idea is partnering with local businesses near the property to host an open house, workout event, cooking class, or other fun ideas based on the businesses in that area. It’s the same base idea, but customized to each individual property / area.
Understand and Promote the Unique Aspects for Each Property
One of the key things for corporate multifamily property marketers to understand is that each property comes with their own unique vibe and value proposition. Their apartment marketing slogans, multifamily social media marketing, even apartment open house ideas must reflect that. So, take a moment and consider what makes each property unique? Is it the great location? Luxury style? Huge floor plans? Close to amazing schools? Great closets?
Once that analysis is complete, then it’s time to determine how to best communicate those differentiators to your target audience. And, one of the best ways is video marketing. You can take one set video strategy and roll it out across all of your properties to showcase what makes them great. That way, you create one defined plan and by capturing your property’s highlights on video, it’s instantly catered and customized to them.
Using Live Video Tours
Speaking of video — video tours are among the top apartment marketing ideas out there. Video appeals to nearly every audience of prospective resident. And nothing caters more personally or allows for customization better than live apartment video tours. Does the ideal resident care most about the unit’s large chef’s kitchen? A live tour allows that aspect to shine. Are they more interested in the community areas like the resident lounge or fitness center? Great!
Since each property, and target audience, is slightly different, it’s important to be nimble enough to personalize video for those needs. However, here’s where things can get a bit complicated, if you allow it to. While all those videos are individual, they still need to reside under the brand guidelines of the parent company. That’s where having the right video leasing software can be a time and resource saver for corporate marketing teams.
Invest in the Right Software
Having the right software not only applies to your video leasing solution, but all of your marketing efforts. To effectively market each individual property, it will be necessary to empower onsite teams to do certain things on their own. They’re the ones at the property on a daily basis, so empowering them to capture and create videos or quality photos for social media and marketing purposes is an absolute must these days. Having the onsite team work with residents for quotes and testimonials as well is one of the biggest bang for your buck apartment marketing ideas.
In order to easily facilitate those sort of marketing efforts across an apartment portfolio, you’ll want a platform that allows for quick and easy video creation, personalized for each property, saved to the cloud, and easily cataloged and shareable. It’s not just the video creation, storage, and sharing that’s important though – it’s also the brand compliance. Ensuring that all videos and marketing materials at each individual property are using the same fonts, colors, logos, etc. is an absolute must. And the right apartment marketing platform will allow for all of that.
Lean On Your Property Team
While equipping your onsite team with the right technology and training is the absolute first step to take before empowering them to be an extension of your multifamily marketing team, it’s also important for you as the marketing leader to make them feel empowered to be a part of the vision and direction of the marketing. Your onsite team is literally the face of the community they are staffing, so make sure to let them and their personalities shine through some of the marketing that you are doing in conjunction with them.
Your property management team are the closest to the current and prospective residents. Take advantage and ask them for input and insight into what will resonate. If they come up with a crazy open house idea, it may be worth the risk. Or, let them assist with social media marketing for apartments. Then, you can lean on them to help advise your path while also keeping the goals and standards of the company as the foundation.
As you likely know, running point on marketing for multiple communities is no easy task. You will have to be an excellent multitasker, extraordinarily well organized, and an efficient leader. But, by focusing on the apartment marketing ideas that really work, then tailoring those for the individual audience, you’ll be able to be successful in some pretty streamlined ways. Don’t be afraid to take some risks and lean on your team for help though.
Are there any specific tips or tricks that you’ve learned over the years as a multifamily marketer? Anything new that’s come into the space that has transformed the way you work with your teams to market your properties?
Until next time…keep it real!
