Apartment marketing
We are Still in the Apartment Business
Today’s piece comes from our over-the-top amazing Marketing Director at Mills Properties – Melissa DeCicco She rocks!
Lately we have been told we are in the media business or is it the relationship business? Both from wonderful, brilliant people who know a lot more about the apartment business than I. While they are both correct, I think it is just unnecessarily muddying the water. Make no mistake about it, we are still in the apartment business. Think about it. We, as consumers, are all doing our best to avoid all types of media (at least of the marketing variety) these days. And, when was the last time you wanted an actual relationship with a service provider? Really? The apartment piece makes us different. It is something that we can be proud of and something that we can become experts in. We are in the apartment business. Our goal is to help people find apartments.
So what should we be doing in the apartment business to continually earn and retain customers?
Do you remember the last time you thought that your salesperson actually had your well-being in mind instead of the commission you represented? I can’t think of a single instance. How refreshing would it be if people looked back at this point in marketing history as the age of ‘doing the right thing.’ When marketers/salespeople really just focused on helping the consumer to find the best possible fit for them, knowing that their product might not be the answer. It’s what good customer service is all about but it is never executed the right way or for the right reasons.
I recently attended the Social Media Marketing World Conference put on by Social Media Examiner. It was incredible. One thing hit me particularly hard. The closing keynote was from Marcus Sheridan who owns an in-ground pool company and happens to be an incredible marketer. His business was literally drowning and he brought it back to life. How? He made it about people and being useful.
The headline in the New York Times magazine article about his efforts was “A Revolutionary Marketing Strategy: Answer Customers’ Questions.”
Revolutionary, huh?
We are all people and desire real interactions that are not drowning in sale-speak. The answer? Write about your business online to teach and get the word out but never directly sell. Then become helpful/useful to the point of exhaustion. Customers ask a question, we answer. Sheridan aka “The Sales Lion,” suggests that we break down our marketing/sales tasks to this small list.
1. Listening
2. Communicating
3. Teaching
4. Helping
All day, every day. This is the future of business. Not media. Not fake relationships. People helping people in a genuine way.
Your tirelessly working on being helpful marketing maniac,
Melissa DeCicco
Photo courtesy of The Sales Lion Closing keynote – SMMW2014
Bad Grammar No Hire
I typically see two camps when it comes to bad grammar. The call-you-out-on-twitter-in-front-of-the-world-grammar-masters-of-the-
universe. And the people-who-couldn’t-care-less-on-Tuesday-after-5p-masters-of-fluidity. Count me in that group for the most part. It’s just not something that rings my bell. It doesn’t make me think more or less of you if you can use the word circumlocutory property in a sentence. Or if you misuse its where an it’s should be. I don’t judge your ability to be exact or precise based on your ability to put to words together in a sentence. But some people do.
I ran across a post over at Harvard Business Review titled I Won’t Hire People Who Use Poor Grammar. Here’s Why. and it took my head spinning in a thousand directions. No offense to the author but I did hurl some insults. Not attacking him personally but rather self-remarking on his premise. A premise which is very sound by the way. At least as it relates to the line of work he hires people for. But the article is not the truly interesting part. The sum 3000+ comments the article has loaded up is fascinating to me. They are all over the board grounded in both awesomeness and masterfully inane anti-brilliance. I really urge you to click over and read a few hundred of them if you have the time.
What Would You Do
I’m not the first to admit that grammar is important. More well put, it would likely rank very low on my list of qualifying attributes for deciding to hire someone. Call me crazy but some of the hardest (smartest) property management people I have ever worked with or for are grammatically challenged. That is up and down the chain of command if you believe in such a structure. And I would not deduce it to lack of attention to detail. They just have a challenge with the written word.
How about you? Would you take the hard-line approach that the author of the article takes:
On the face of it, my zero tolerance approach to grammar errors might seem a little unfair. After all, grammar has nothing to do with job performance, or creativity, or intelligence, right?
Wrong. If it takes someone more than 20 years to notice how to properly use “it’s,” then that’s not a learning curve I’m comfortable with. So, even in this hyper-competitive market, I will pass on a great programmer who cannot write.
Or do you take a more relaxed all-encompassing approach in your hiring decisions?
Your really curious about the grammar conversation multifamily maniac,
M
Apartment Marketers, How Are You Trying to Influence?
Apartment marketers, how are you trying to influence team members, prospects, residents, and business partners? How about current and future clients and investors?
Marketing apartments is an always-on activity.
Regis McKenna sums it up like this:
If you are marketing apartments in a multifamily community, it involves every touch point from curb to commode, and continuously.
Additionally, it affects every constituent, from the porter to the CEO, to future business relationships.
Every marketing team member must understand the audience and frequency to be successful, and that marketing is everything, and everything is marketing.
Mokriya Craigslist
Mokriya Craiglist is an uber-cool app that you should check out. It really beautifies the Craigslist experience on your mobile device.
Putting all the legal mumbo-jumbo aside – Mokriya went about developing this the right way.
And the user experience is very fluid.
The good news for users is that the app is free and mimics Craigslist search conventions and categories in every way — while still debuting an intuitive design that makes sense on a small smart phone screen. The app also offers a map view (in addition to list and thumbnail views), calling or emailing a seller with one tap (goodbye, copy/paste) and ability to jump between categories and regions.
Here are a couple of screen shots I took from my iPhone:
This next one shows off a quick search I did to find housing in St. Louis:
And here is a listing from one of our Mills Properties in downtown St. Louis – The Laurel:
I could see this app catching on – what about you?
Your really liking what I am seeing from this app Multifamily Maniac,
M
What it’s all About
One of my absolute favorite things to do in the multifamily business is visit site teams. In my head, it’s what it’s all about. You’ve read it here a million times. Organizations are put in place to serve the people who serve it. And getting out to see the teams is front and center in that proposition.
There is an old axiom in real estate – location, location, location. I would posit a new axiom – people, people, people. For some it’s the tough stuff. The touchy feely soft side of business that you can’t capture on a spreadsheet. It is the part of the business that I love.
We manage a property in Edwardsville, Illinois called Cherry Hills. It’s made up of five unique properties ranging in size from 32 units up to 100 units. The market has been hit by overbuilding and lagging unemployment. It’s been really tough to say the least. But this team is all over it. They are getting their lemonade out of the lemons so to speak.
And, here is what I mean by that – love the simple stuff…
