Finding engaging and innovative apartment marketing ideas to make your property stand out can be a struggle in today’s saturated marketplace. And finding great lease up marketing ideas can be even trickier for a variety of reasons. First, let’s take a closer look at what a lease up period is and how to market it.
A lease what?
Let’s start with what is a lease up. When a multifamily property is in lease-up, it refers to the time period from pre-leasing, meaning leasing prior to the building delivery, through stabilization, or when the community hits the magical stabilized percent occupied. That is typically between 90-95% depending on the property. In other words, a lease-up is the critical time when communities work on signing as many leases as possible as quickly as possible.
The question of how long does it take to lease up a building can vary from community to community and market to market. But, the hope is that it should happen fairly quickly. The timeline is typically anywhere from 6 to 15 months depending on the size of the community. But that time period is critical because, without a successful lease-up period, the cashflow, financing, and longevity of the community will be at risk.
That sounds important.
It is. Plus, it’s not just about getting as many people in the community as possible. It’s all about getting the right people into the property as well. Those first residents will set the tone and reputation for the community.
That level of importance makes coming up with creative marketing ideas for apartment lease up phases even more critical. It’s not just about getting people interested, it’s about getting the right people interested. Before you start to panic about where to even start, don’t worry – we’re here to help! The good news is that there have never been so many ways to reach your audience. And with more technologies available than ever before to get prospects across the finish line for a successful lease up experience.
Here are a few of our favorite lease up marketing ideas that can help increase traffic and conversion quicker than ever before.
Lease Up Marketing Ideas
The Website
When the physical presence of the community isn’t quite up to snuff, one place to turn to for lease up marketing is the digital space. A lease up website for the property is a must and it should be high up on the lease up checklist. Your website is likely the first introduction prospective residents will have to your property. Even if you have an established brand, if this community is new, you’re still introducing it.
So, make sure you do it right. The tone, look, and feel of the site should be reflective of the look and feel of your property. That’s critical in terms of pulling in the right type of prospective resident and not wasting their, or your, time if the property is obviously not going to be a fit. The content on your site should be engaging and provide enough information for the prospective resident to reach out and learn more. One way to make sure that happens? Video.
Video Tours
Video content is always on list after list of apartment complex marketing ideas. And for good reason! Video is a great way to share content and let prospective residents see what the community offers. Using video for lease up marketing can be a little more complicated, particularly if the property looks a little more construction zone than peaceful home.
However, using live video technology like Realync, those working at a lease-up can walk prospective residents through the community, even when unfinished. They can paint a picture of what it will be like to live there in an authentic, real way. That will instill trust and transparency into the process when those things tend to be inherently lacking. That can also be the key to quickly going from prospect to signed lease during the lease up period. Every property has their lease up goals. Live tours can help reach those goals faster since all a prospect has to do is just hop on a tour on their phone instead of having to schedule an in-person tour and struggle with hardhats.
Social Media
Social media can be a great tool to get traffic in to meet those leasing goals and objectives during a lease up. Using social media channels to strategically promote and share some of those great videos we just mentioned is a great way to get prospective residents engaged. The type of video content that wins on social? Construction updates throughout the process. After viewing a Realync video of a new community during pre-leasing, the eventual resident responded stating how beneficial the tour was and that “we live in an HGTV world – people understand construction and want to be a part of the process!”
Social channels can drive traffic to the website or allow for initial contact and questions from your prospective residents as well. While social media tends to be a preferred outreach marketing idea for established apartments, it’s also a great one for those in a lease up period. The point is to drive traffic and awareness of the property. Then, use the aforementioned video tours and 1:1 interactions to bring them “home.” Don’t have enough followers? Sponsor your posts and create quality apartment social media ads to help build you audience on social channels.
The lease-up phase is a crucial time in establishing a multifamily community. Making sure the right lease up marketing ideas are in place can help move this challenging period along. In addition, make sure you’re meeting your lease-up goals through regular communication with staff, vendors and prospects, and focus on SMART goals as a team. All of those things combined can help reach stability quicker than anyone expects.
Until next time…keep it real!
