Apartment Marketing Ideas
Apartment Marketing: Where is your money going?
While 2010 has been the year of dipping more than just your toe in the SM waters – it looks like 2011 will be a year where mass adoption might be a more appropriate description as it relates to small business taking the plunge.
As it pertains to Apartment Marketing – I would say the trend is in concert.
Apartment Blogging
When I started blogging in 2003 there were very few Multifamily types in the space – today, it seems like everyone has a blog and Twitter is a near household name. We were also early adopters of MySpace as a way to market apartments [back then we were still in post your floor plans, features and benefits mode].
Apartment Facebook Marketing
At the time, I recall seeing very few people participating in that space – today Facebook rules and the masses are adopting the platform as a way to market. [As an industry we still have to work on setting it up via FBs TOS]. Nonetheless adoption is happening and now the dollars are flowing that way as demonstrated by the stats below. All that being said, I still think it is interesting to see newspaper with such a high mark -That is not to mention that five out of the seven spends are print media related…
Enjoy the stats – would love to hear your thoughts and I hope the balance of your week is compelling!
Survey Says: Businesses Spending More on Marketing, Tech – AOL Small Business
Forty-two percent of small-business owners are likely to spend more on marketing and advertising this year, according to the latest FedEx Office Signs of the Times national small-business survey. So where will most of their money go?
* Improving online presence (46 percent)
* Print materials/newsletters/direct mail (44 percent)
* Brochures (43 percent)
* Yellow Pages listings (39 percent)
* Fliers and signs/banners/posters (37 percent each)
* Social networking sites (36 percent)
* Newspaper advertisements (32 percent)
Apartment Marketing: How to Use Facebook Like Pages to Lease Apartments
I love emails like the one below -but before we go there:
Over the past few weeks we have started to quietly roll out some of our Facebook Like Pages as we gear up for the Get Social with Mills Initiative . One of the issues we’ve run into with this slow roll out is anxious PMs and MSs like Teresa and Mike at Park Clayton Apartments. They were ready to run – so, we let them go and in just over two weeks they took the like numbers from 7 to North of 225.
How to grow Your Apartment Facebook Like Page numbers
How did they do it? To make a long story short Mike brought an orphaned stuffed yellow duck to the leasing office for Teresa to see and each time they tried to put the duck away – residents asked to have it back as a mascot. With that T and M – [I often use the first letter of peoples names – with that T is for Teresa and M is for Mike] decided to have a – Name the Duck – contest . In conjunction with that contest they decided to give away a few fun prizes for the resident who yielded the biggest number of Likes to our page in a weeks time.
The Apartment Like Page Results
T and M put on North of 200 Likes inside of two weeks time. Not only that – they yielded something much more important in my opinion – check out the page and I think you will quickly discern what I mean. That point brings me to the email below –
How to use Facebook Like Pages to Rent Apartments
I will let the email speak for itself –
Have a compelling weekend – M
—–Original Message—–
From: Park Clayton <parkclayton@millsproperties.net>
Sent: Thursday, June 03, 2010 12:55 PM
To: ‘Mike Brewer’ <MBrewer@millsproperties.net>; ‘Tracy Seubert’ <TSeubert@millsproperties.net>
Subject: Great news!
Hey guys,
I have some awesome news about our facebook fans. One of my residents came down to tell me that his friends in Taiwan are watching us on facebook and they think it’s great that we do resident events and have contests. He says they told him they want to move here when they get to town just because of what they see online!
Also, he brought down his laptop and we spoke with a couple of his friends in Taiwan who want to move here in August. The program they use to chat/talk internationally is called, “skype.”
Teresa Richardson
Property Manager
Park Clayton Apartments
photo credit: blog.hubspot.com
Apartment Reviews – This Wall was Not Made for Conversation
See this wall -it’s the Mills Properties Kudos Wall in our central office in Clayton, MO. Only one problem, it’s calendar year 2010 and I can’t converse with the people that took the time to write out their thoughts and mail them to our office.
I am certain that many of you can imagine the missed opportunity. My hope is that there are not others out there that have walls like this one in their offices. My plea to you if you do is to get digital fast –
We will be doing as much as we kick of the Get Social with Mills Initiative. Keying off what others have done in the industry, we feel it will be a necessary and fruitful piece of our on-line branding presence going forward.
Would love to hear your thoughts –
Apartment Search On: Google Commercial
I read about this a couple of weeks ago and just found the time to check it out. It might be a colossal waste of time or a uber-cool thing to share on one of your social networks.
If you recall the Google commercial that ran during the Super Bowl you will have a really good sense for what this is. Google has created a way for you to mimic their Search On commercial. It’s really ingenious if you ask me. And, simple to do.
Here is a link to the site where you can build your own. And, here is the one I built for Mills Properties:
New Media Apartment Marketing: Random Thought
Just a quick post for your Sunday reading pleasure.
New Media Apartment Marketing: Experience
I am vacationing in Denver this weekend. I am taking some time away from the day to day work I do with Mills Properties in Saint Louis to recharge the batteries. It feels great to get away to refresh the mind, body and soul. This morning as I was sitting in a coffee shop grabbing a quick cup of Joe and something to eat I overheard a conversation that intrigued me. The two people communicating wore bright red clown noses and looked to be having a great time. But, that was not the intriguing part. They were talking about random topics when the following comment caught my ear,
What experiences would you like to get out of that trip?
It came on the heels of another question and a subsequent comment. One clown nose man asked the other, “where would you like to vacation if money were no worry?” The response was, “Somewhere in the Bahama’s.” This is where the inquisitive clown nose asked the above question.
New Media Apartment Marketing: Question
It made me think that we should be asking that question of all of our constituents be it Mills Properties employees, residents or otherwise. Answers to that question could yield some pretty cool information as it relates to both online and offline experiential marketing efforts. It could assist in tailoring both inhouse and outsourced initiatives along with in general work practices.
It’s not to suggest that we don’t practice some form of information gathering that is rivals this question. But, the thing that really caused me pause was the pause it created in the responding party. For all intents are purposes the question was not normal and it caused the man to think before he responded – something that is losing it’s common place anymore. And, when he responded, it was with mindful thought in lieu of random generalness (if that is a word).
I will let you know how it goes….
In the mean time, let me know your thoughts on the subject and have a compelling Sunday
