What Changing Seasons Mean for Apartment Complex Marketing
If you want to win in the apartment marketing game, you need to be a “brand for all seasons”. Here’s what that designation means. Perhaps you’ve heard the old joke about auto mechanics telling new drivers that they need to add more “blinker fluid” or replace the “summer air” in their tires with “winter air?” If you tell someone who doesn’t understand the apartment rental space that you need “summer marketing” and “winter marketing,” they too might feel that you’re having a bit of fun at their expense. The truth, however, is that apartment marketing is highly seasonal. To do it effectively, you need to be a brand for all seasons. Let’s take a closer look at why apartment marketing is seasonal, and some relevant strategies you can employ each time the weather changes. Why Apartment Marketing is Seasonal If you’re wondering why marketers need to vary their approach by season, the answer is simple: Because buyers vary their behavior. Most leases end in the spring and summer, which means that the market experiences its highest volume of prospective buyers during the warmest months. If you’re a savvy marketer, you prepare for this influx of interest. It’s also important to understand why rentals peak in warmer months. The start of a new college year, for example, results in a rush for new rental accommodations. Marketers need to be aware of this and tailor some of their offerings to the college demographic. Other reasons rentals spike from May to September include: Wedding season Better weather Higher birth rates, necessitating new living spaces Marketers who are ahead of the curve consider all of these elements and calibrate their campaigns accordingly. Additionally, when interest drops off in fall and winter, marketers can adjust their approach as needed. If too much inventory remains unrented, marketers can design campaigns with special incentives to encourage prospects to move sooner than they were planning to. Some On-trend Ideas for Apartment Marketers 360 degree videos and virtual reality. Today’s apartment renters are extremely tech savvy. They use popular real estate platforms to explore properties and neighborhoods from the comfort of their couch, taking full advantage of tools such as Google Maps and Street View. Smart marketers understand that “couch browsing” has become an unofficial national pastime. 360 degree walkthrough videos show off a property in a way that static photography simply cannot match. By providing 360 degree videos and VR/AR walkthrough content, you can differentiate your offering and give browsers exactly the type of experience that excites and intrigues. Offer seasonally targeted marketing initiatives involving your complexes. Is it spring? Then partner with a local college to co-sponsor a gardening class. Is it fall? Then organize pumpkin carving or trick or treat experiences within your complex. Is it winter? Then build a massive snowman outside of your complex and add an advertising sign to go with his corncob pipe and button nose. No matter what season it is, be fun, creative and relevant. Create a YouTube channel with interesting content and do-it-yourself tips for renters. This is a great way to engage with people and build awareness, but it’s important to make a commitment to produce strong content on a regular basis. Additionally, you should make an equal commitment to optimizing your video content so it’s seen by large (and geographically relevant) viewers. Finding the Right Apartment Marketing Partner At Bigeye, we’re the apartment marketing specialists. Contact us today to learn how we can help you maximize your marketing potential — in any season.
Geofencing is here & will revolutionize multifamily marketing
Update, November 2019: Geofencing for Real Estate Marketing: Three Techniques for 2019 and Beyond We hope you found our geofencing post informative. To help you put what you’ve learned into practice, let’s drill down to some specific geofencing techniques you can use to generate real estate leads. Build geofences around local banks and mortgage lenders. You’ve heard the old joke that “criminals rob banks because that’s where the money is?” The same logic can be applied to leads; people who filter in and out of banks and brokerages are the perfect target for real estate marketers. If you’re looking for people who are motivated, you can’t find more promising locations. Geofence around real estate developments offering new construction. Again, this is an excellent technique for serving ads to people who have extremely high interest and intent — you just need to shift that interest away from the site they are visiting and toward your own properties. Geofence individual homes for sale. This technique might not generate the foot traffic the other two approaches do, but it is even more highly targeted. People visit banks and new developments for lots of reasons — but they generally only tour an open house if they are an interested buyer (or nosy neighbor). Why Geofencing is Poised to Become Even More important While geofencing is a great method for generating more and better leads today, the future is even more exciting. The looming introduction of 5G will radically extend the power of geofencing. The introduction of 5G has the potential to transform marketing. Instead of offering a moderate speed boost over today’s 4G networks, 5G will deliver speeds up to 100x faster. This will enable near-instant downloads of many files while allowing the true power of virtual and augmented reality to be unleashed. Geofencing, meanwhile, will become vastly more accurate and flexible. By partnering with the right creative agency for multifamily developer communities, you can create a significant competitive edge over your competition — and push your occupancy rates to even higher levels. ——————————————————————————————————– Geofencing for real estate, multi-family properties, commerical real estate and more is finally here. Whether you use beacons, GPS tracking, or self-identified geo-targeting (such as checking in on social media) to create the “fence,” it’s all just a fancy way of of saying that you’re creating a set of digital triggers based on where your potential customers are located. Imagine that your multi-family property is a local sponsor of concert series in the park near your building. As the property manager, you can set up a customized Snapchat filter for these events welcoming attendees and inviting them to stop by your sales center for a swag bag or drinks. The filter will only be shown to users within several hundred feet of your property and the event, making it a great way to organically generate foot traffic. Or, imagine a couple walking down the street near their favorite coffee shop. They are considering buying their first home together and want to browse listings near by. Their real estate agent has set up geo-fences around his listings so they get notifications when they are near by potential matches. The couple can browse properties based on their desired budget, amenities, and neighborhood at their leisure before setting up a formal walk through when they are ready. This frees up their time to browse when they are already in the area, and their realtors’ time from constantly sending new listings. Emails are out, push notifications are in. Geofencing isn’t as difficult to set up as you think: Geofencing is already being done (we know you’ve used a customized Snapchat filter already, don’t lie). Whether you’re a building owner, property manager, or real estate agent, you can leverage tools that use geo-based information to create geofencing for your business. To get started, you simply need to understand the technology, then take a walk in your local neighborhood or around your property and consider how geofencing might work for your brand. If you’re having trouble brainstorming, we know a few highly qualified creative minds that would be happy to help. Hint: they’ll also help you balance geofencing marketing against your other campaigns so you get the most bang for your buck. Ready-made platforms such as Trillow and Snapchat are a great place to start, but you may also consider a proprietary app or program that tackles something new. Either way, we’ll help you identify the right tools and put a plan in place. The benefits of geofencing for real estate marketing: Geofencing gives power to the consumer to find information organically when they are ready and interested in learning about your property or consuming your content. Today’s real estate shoppers expect this level of transparency as more and more people are initiating home purchases and leases on their own, or with only minor support from their real estate agents. As an agent or property manager, this gives you the tools to empower your target audience and help the right tenants and buyers find you — rather than using a lot of energy to find them. Geofences help you create qualified leads by using geography and other qualifiers, such as socioeconomic demographics and preferences linked through self-identified data collection, that signal when a potential customer is viable and valuable. Instead of spending time and resources on unqualified leads, geofencing helps your business understand who you should target first and gives you the freedom to invest in them rather than the “spray and pray” marketing model that targets anyone nearby. As an added bonus, geofencing also allows buildings and communities to alert residents of amazing local events, or to share important notifies and updates about weather or nearby incidents. The possibilities are endless….and while we prefer to advocate building bridges rather than walls in your actual community, these are one type of fences we can get behind. Contact us today and see how real estate geofencing might fit into your 2019 marketing strategy.