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Free Toolkit: Apartment Marketing Tools for Video Tours

Inside the toolkit:

  • Learn how to record an apartment video tour that converts.
  • Watch our step-by-step unit recording best practices video.
  • Download our 9-point cheatsheet for future reference.
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About the Guide

Promoting a multifamily property in the modern leasing landscape presents some unique challenges. Prospective residents are busier than ever, may not be able to travel to the property prior to leasing, are most likely looking for an authentic experience, and, on top of that, there is more noise from competition in the market than ever before. So how do you stand out from the crowd and make your leasing life easier? Turn to video!

Using this toolkit, you’ll learn how to use live or recorded video to overcome the problems of geographical distance, busy schedules, and a lack of easy, transparent communication with your online, typically remote, audience. Afterward, you’ll be able to create a truly authentic experience that will make your videos and community stand out. If you enjoy the toolkit, sign up for a demo of Realync’s video tour software. With Realync, you’ll be able to create polished, professional, cloud-based videos, and host live video tours that are simple, welcoming, transparent, real, and, most importantly, authentic.

Apartment Marketing Tools

The rapid acceleration of technology has created an overwhelming number of potential apartment marketing tools. No longer is apartment marketing simply listing an apartment in a newspaper and hoping for the best, but rather a full-funnel strategy to drive a prospective resident from awareness, consideration, conversation and ultimately, loyalty and advocacy.

Some of the popular tools and strategies today center around search engine marketing, social media marketing, apartment photography and videography, email marketing and online display retargeting strategies. With all of the possible tools and channels for apartment marketing, it’s vital to focus on strategies with a proven return on investment.

Simple put; many of the marketing ideas for an apartment lease up ultimately will work if executed properly, but this does not mean you should use them all for your multifamily property. When evaluating the return on investment, you must appropriately consider your time and your team’s time in using the tools. Some popular apartment marketing tools take days of training to get started while others are time intensive or overly technical. Selecting platforms that are user-centric like Realync allow you to launch strategies and tools successfully without these becoming a huge time commitment or workflow interruption. Because Realync uses familiar hardware (your smartphone) along with a user-interface that makes using the software simple for even mildly technical users, the learning curve is flattened.

Apartment Marketing Ideas

The number of apartment marketing ideas that exist today are endless and as mentioned before, many have a strong digital component since digital tactics are easier and cheaper to test and track than offline metrics.

However, there are still fun marketing ideas for apartments that are not overly technical. One of top apartment marketing ideas that your team can easily pursue is partnerships with consumer businesses near the property during the lease up phase, especially if your property is still heavily under construction.

This could be a happy hour at a nearby restaurant, a complimentary manicure party at a nail salon, or sponsoring a free workout class at a boutique fitness studio for prospective residents. This approach does several things well, including starting off a great relationship with your future business neighbors and sharing the neighborhood vibrancy and amenities. It also is an incredible way to get outside of your leasing center to build your audience of prospective residents, have existing residents invite friends, and more.

Another opportunity when it comes to apartment marketing ideas for fall is to host a small-scale Oktoberfest beer festival in your lobby or common space, inviting several local brewers to sample their beers. As far as apartment marketing ideas 2020, this is one of our personal favorites as it can serve a dual purpose for prospective and current residents. Breweries are often happy to sample beer and sell pints of beer (depending on local laws) to gain new customers themselves. So creating this exclusive event has the opportunity to create buzz for their businesses and yours, while differentiating your multifamily property in competitive markets.

While there may have been many apartment marketing ideas in 2019 that were offline, the real magic happens when you take these ideas and also activate them digitally. This could include capturing a variety of videos using Realync to share later on social media, via email campaign, or even on your website, as well as encouraging social sharing throughout your events. Lastly, these events can be a great opportunity to capture some early apartment photography or authentic photos to utilize on social media.

Apartment Leasing Software

While there are many large apartment technology companies that offer a variety of products tailored to apartment leasing and management, there are a rare few dedicated leasing software platforms integrated into the multifamily technology stack that support and streamline multifamily touring. With the growing popularity of recorded virtual tours and live virtual tours, these leasing technologies should be a key component of how to market and lease apartment complexes. Dedicated touring solutions, like Realync, are focused on continuous product enhancements and are able to provide additional coaching on best practices and how to create the best video tours for your property. When evaluating the best leasing technology for your community and onsite team, make sure to look beyond just the nuts and bolts of the product, and evaluate the entire package, including training, integrations, and ongoing support.

So how does apartment leasing software impact apartment marketing? First of all, any strong marketing program will be integrated into your leasing efforts. So having the best leasing software that seamlessly integrates will allow your prospective residents to also have a seamless experience from inbound lead to touring to signing a lease and move in. Beyond being a seamless process, the content that you produce on your video leasing solution can help build a cloud-based library of apartment marketing materials that can be used across various marketing initiatives Your apartment videos can be a great start to further build out your brand and visual identity on your website, social media, in email campaigns, and more. In addition, leasing software often has strong analytics to help you better understand the behaviors of your prospective residents which can help you continue to refine your marketing message and how you are reaching your target audience.

Outreach Marketing Ideas for Apartments

Outreach marketing is defined as, “the practice of seeking out individuals or organizations that have a shared interest in what you or your company has to offer.” When it comes to multifamily outreach marketing, it is vital to deploy several tactics both to ensure you reach prospective residents where they are, as well as, to continue to show up in their lives—either with offline tactics or online, digital strategies.

If a prospective resident keeps seeing your multifamily property across platforms and in a variety of ways, there is a higher likelihood they will take the next step into considering the property. This multi-touch strategy is the best way to have a slow drip of information in various forms of media available for your audience to engage with. Applying all of your time, money, and effort to just one tactic, form of media, or platform will likely result in not reaching some segments of your ideal prospective resident audience or losing out on converting some leads that simply needed a bit more information.

There are many outreach marketing ideas for apartments, but the one that is arguably the most successful, cost-effective, and simplest to do is apartment social media advertising. While the overall popularity of Facebook has dropped slightly in recent years, it still boasts a network of 2 billion (yes billion with “B”) people logging on each month. And now you can also reach Instagram users through the same, sophisticated ad platform. With potential audiences this large and easy to use targeting tools for your geography and many other factors, it is a safe assumption that many of your prospective residents are active users that you can get in front of in creative ways on Facebook. Facebook ads allow for nearly pinpoint audience creations that provide the opportunity for you to pick your ideal audience based on parameters of income level, family size, geographical location, and the list goes on. These ads are a great way to reach your desired audience and track their interest level, all while sitting comfortably behind your desk.

Building relationships with other companies is another effective outreach marketing idea for apartments. By developing a good relationship or a mutually beneficial relationship with other local businesses such as self-storage companies, moving companies, real estate agents, and brokers you will be able to reach an additional audience that you otherwise may not have access to and with a more personal, direct referral, you are also likely to have higher conversion rates.

Outreach marketing ideas for luxury apartments require a bit more work. Often times these potential residents have agents that are seeking a unit on their behalf. Reaching out to a real estate brokerage and offering to sponsor their next meeting, complete with doughnuts and coffee or a lunch is a great way to get your foot in the door with local leasing agents, brokers, and brokerages. If your goal is to target the prospect themselves, hosting events either on or off-site is a great way to get more people involved. These events can range from using your lobby as the location of an art show to sponsoring a cocktail hour at a local upscale bar to more exclusive events such as throwing a party for a current resident and their friends to target their guests that attend. The options are endless when it comes to effective outreach marketing, but don’t forget to first determine your audience, then get creative with your efforts and have professional marketing materials to back it all up.

Apartment Advertising Ideas

Advertising across social media platforms has become more and more expensive in recent years. Facebook specifically has increased their advertising costs and the overall CPC (cost per click) has increased as well. The average CPC for the real estate industry on Facebook is $1.81 (slightly higher than the overall average of $1.72 ). There are some ways in which you can help to lower your CPC that work well for multifamily advertising. With only 6% of ads on Facebook being shown to PC only users, it is clear that optimizing your ads for mobile phones is a great way to begin. Another big factor in reducing your cost and improving your overall ad success is by effectively narrowing down your audiences. By targeting a much more specified group of individuals you reduce the competition from other companies who are running similar ads. You are essentially bidding against others to reach your prospective residents, so you want to make sure you are bidding to the exact type of prospect and not wasting bidding dollars on other viewers or clicks.

Setting up a Facebook pixel, which is a piece of code, on your website can assist you in reducing your CPC as well by helping discover your ideal target audience based on site visits. The pixel allows you to create audiences based on visitors or visitor actions on your website. You are then able to target those people directly on Facebook with your ads. Facebook even provides an option to create a look-alike audience that can help you grow your target audience.

Paid advertising costs will only continue to increase over time, so another way to increase your multifamily digital advertising effectiveness is by creating original, desirable, organic content. There are many ways to do this from blogging to being present on and consistent across multiple platforms that your prospective residents are on. If you are focusing on Facebook specifically, one of the best ways is to populate your “stories” section. These stories are becoming more effective at reaching your audience than your actual newsfeed content. Video is also one of the best ways to sky-rocket your organic reach. With 87% of online advertisers using video and 45% of people watching an hour or more of videos on Facebook or YouTube a week, the key is providing the type of content that is getting engaged with. Videos on Facebook garner bigger impression shares and therefore a lower CPC. Using the Realync video leasing solution, you can create video content that will generate organic interest and views, and subsequently lower your online advertising costs.

Apartment Social Media Marketing Ideas

Utilizing social media in your marketing plan is no longer just a suggestion, but is table stakes for effective apartment marketing. In order to reach your target audience you need to meet them where they are and using their preferred method of interaction. And oftentimes that is Facebook, Instagram, and social media platforms. Social media marketing for apartments has become a competitive task, therefore standing out and getting creative is key for achieving multifamily social media marketing success.

Posting engaging content consistently and providing your audience with useful and relevant information is always the backbone for a property’s social media success.here are some fun apartment social media ideas that can provide a unique boost to your social media interactions. An example of a fun and interactive apartment social media marketing idea that can help to spur conversation is to post a poll. Most people like to share their opinion and a poll can help get people clicking on your post and improving your ranking against the social media algorithms.

These polls can be anything from posting two interior design photos and asking which one people prefer, to asking if people are dog or cat people. Anything to get your current residents and prospective residents involved on your page and your posts is a positive step forward. It also helps to bring out the brand’s personality and convey to your audience that you are not constantly trying to sell to them and instead humanizes your community and team. The more you can personalize your brand by showcasing personality and authenticity, the more prospective residents start to trust you. This can be achieved most easily by utilizing video content to truly give prospective residents a view into the property or by putting your team in front of the camera to showcase your community, events, and more.

Apartment Marketing Slogans

The goal of apartment marketing slogans are to highlight your brand and be memorable. Human brains are wired to remember catchy, creative phrases. You are likely familiar with popular slogans such as “Melts in Your Mouth, Not In Your Hands” and “Just Do It”. When creating the best property management slogan you will want to consider what benefits, amenities, or unique value that your multifamily property has to offer. It is best practice to stay away from negative words and instead aim for upbeat and motivating vocabulary. These slogans should capture the essence of your property and take into consideration your ideal customer profile (or more specifically, your ideal prospective resident profile).

The best way to come up with a slogan is to test out a few different ideas and measure the reaction or effectiveness. For example, if you were attempting to create pet friendly apartment slogans you may say, “Bridge Run Apartments here You Are Barking Up the Right Tree.” This slogan conveys the message that animals are welcome, but is also catchy and memorable.

There are also seasonal opportunities to create timely slogans that utilize a holiday or event as part of a temporary slogan or campaign. For example, Valentine’s Day apartment marketing slogans can be a fun way to get your message out. Some of these include “Love is just around the corner at River Run Apartments”, “Love, Luxury, & Location”, “Find Your Forever at 29th & Vine” or “True Love Is Just Around the Corner.” Whatever the holiday, you should find something relatable, catchy, and memorable to grab the attention of prospective residents.

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Ready to Get Real?

Accelerate Leasing

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    Speed Up Lease Up

    by providing construction updates and showcase your space without having to do hard hat tours.

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    PRE-LEASE OCCUPIED UNITS

    by ‘showing’ them without having to physically tour the space by sending pre-recorded videos.

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    CONVERT A HIGHER PERCENTAGE OF YOUR LEADS INTO LEASES

    when you receive notifications when prospects are viewing videos to cater your follow up.

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    SPEND LESS TIME TO CLOSE EACH LEASE

    by removing roadblocks and barriers in the leasing process.

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    INCREASE SIGHT-UNSEEN LEASING

    by making it a breeze for out-of-market leads to choose your community.

Improve Community Engagement

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    PROMOTE YOUR PROGRAMS BETTER

    via pre-recorded videos by linking via social media or internal apps.

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    DECREASE MAINTENANCE REQUESTS

    by creating maintenance videos.

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    REINFORCE COMMUNITY RULES

    by receiving notifications when residents are viewing videos to know who has seen a message and who hasn’t.

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    REDUCE REPETITIVE QUESTIONS

    because consumers retain 10% of a message when reading it via text, but 90% of a message when viewed in a video.

More Than Software

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    Virtual Training

    is available for every property utilizing Realync.

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    Make your video efforts consistent

    with one set, standardized process and platform.

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    TRACK ENGAGEMENT And Usage

    across your entire portfolio.

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    Partner with the Realync Team

    to create a personalized training program to be rolled out across all properties.

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    Are you Ready to Get Real?

    Talk with us today to see how Realync’s platform can 4X your lead-to-lease conversion!

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