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. And what better way to showcase your community than through a virtual tour creator such as Realync. 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 create relevant content detailing your floor plans and community amenities. However, when prospective residents express interest in your apartment units after taking a look at your website, it’s important for your leasing team to be equipped to send video tours of your property that are personalized to that specific prospect. This is especially true when a prospect doesn’t live near your local community. And this is where virtual tour software comes into play. By offering a way for prospective residents to see your apartment units virtually, you can:
- Increase traffic to your multifamily community during the colder months.
- Qualify prospective residents before they visit for an in person tour by sending a playlist of pre-recorded video tours to confirm their interest.
- Increase lead-to-lease conversion rates with prospective residents.
- Decrease sales cycles to help close deals quicker.
Host Virtual Open Houses
Looking to truly engage with your online audience and drive some interested traffic for your community? Hosting a virtual open house enables your team to expand its reach and impact online by connecting with a large audience in real-time. Additionally, live virtual open houses can cater to those unable to tour in person for any 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!
One of the biggest things to focus on with your virtual open house efforts though is using the right platform. Facebook Live might be an attractive way to engage your Facebook audience, but is lacking in some key areas for being a true lead gen activity for your community. A virtual leasing platform built for multifamily touring will be to your benefit to allow you to actually capture lead information before, during, and after your open house to then follow up with your prospective residents after your virtual open houses. Following up on the prior point about video’s impact, consider sending a personalized video over email as a follow up to tour attendees with your information attached, so they can learn more about your community and take a next step.
Post Videos on Your Social Sites Consistently
In the slower winter months, leasing teams need to be taking their properties to prospective residents versus waiting for them to come to the properties. By posting consistently on your social media sites, it’s a great way to attract the right prospective residents to your communities. The key to success on social media is actually giving your prospective residents a feel for your community. Make your posts impactful. Create real and authentic videos to showcase and engage with your community. Think resident testimonial videos or highlights of your resident events or quick shots of your amenities, an overview of the surrounding neighborhood, and so much more.
Before pouring yourself into your social media efforts though, make sure that you have a strategy for growing and reaching your target audience via social media. If you are posting incredible video tours and apartment overview videos, but are reaching the same 50 residents that follow your account, those efforts won’t result in much from the lead generation standpoint. Don’t be afraid to sponsor posts with $20 to reach a specific targeted audience in your area and hit hashtags to grow your following that will end up joining your virtual open houses and viewing your videos.
Ideas on how you can get creative when marketing your apartment units
Add DIY Videos to Google My Business
When you update information about your local apartment communities on Google, this plays a huge role in driving traffic to your website. However, you want to make sure it’s the right traffic. So optimize your local listing by adding videos to your Google My Business account to showcase what your community has to offer. Giving this search engine traffic a quick glimpse of your community can be crucial in getting them to click and convert.
So what videos should you add? You could create meet-and-greet videos of your leasing team or videos of your amenities. The key here is keeping the videos short and to the point to highlight key details and features that would make someone want to click and dig deeper. And if prospective residents are interested, your website is there to provide additional steps on how they can learn more.
Amplify Self-Guided Tours
Another way to increase traffic to your apartment community is to offer self-guided tours. Self-guided tours are at an all-time high given social distancing mandates. Self-guided tours allow prospects to tour apartment units on their own. While they do have drawbacks in still requiring the physical presence of the prospect and inability for your leasing team to be their guide and answer their question / give your sales pitch, there is a way to make self-guided tours into a leasing engine for your team. ,
If offering self-guided tours, let QR codes be the guide. By creating signage throughout the tour path, you can include QR codes that link to videos that the prospect can scan. These videos are your team’s way to add your voice to that self-guided tour experience. Highlight your differentiators and key selling features. Try to proactively answer questions your prospects might have. And keep it real – humanize the tour experience and let your team’s personality shine through. Everyone likes a personal touch!
If you have yet to implement self-guided tours, it’s a great way to save time while also safely allowing your community to work for you. Leasing teams can then focus on other tasks, like hosting virtual open houses, while prospects are able to tour apartment units conveniently and safely.
There are many ways leasing teams can get creative this winter to increase traffic to their multifamily communities. The key is focusing on the ways your community is unique, and being as real and transparent as possible. Keeping it real makes your team and community relatable, and relatable wins in these virtual leasing options. By implementing the right marketing strategies, winter doesn’t have to put a freeze on your success!
Let Us Help You!
Close more leases, market more effectively, engage with residents and, as always, keep it real. Do you have a question or suggestion? Or want to learn more about what you read? Email us at contact@realync.com. We’d love to hear from you!
