Apartment marketing

We Care

Mike Brewer · October 17, 2012 · Add Comment

How can we show that – We Care:

1. Sweep your crib lines – every curb line

2. Paint your curbs – all cribs that have or need paint

3. Blow off your sidewalks and entry ways daily – all sidewalks

4. Power wash sidewalks and entry ways weekly – except in the winter months where there is a chance for freezing (don’t want to create a slip and fall situation)

5. Vacuum all common area carpets daily

6. Use smell good stuff in the common areas – daily

7. Conduct a ‘road map’ meeting every morning

8. Answer on the third ring – every time

9. Stand and greet everyone – vendors included

10. Smile

Your remembering that the smallest details have the biggest impacts multifamily maniac,

Predictive Analytics in Apartment Marketing

Mike Brewer · August 24, 2012 · 1 Comment

Our good friend Jonathan Saar from The Training Factor wrote a piece a couple days ago that got me thinking about the next steps in apartment marketing. Certainly not to suggest that we have all mastered the last steps but it is fun to dream sometimes.

This is a pure prediction post. No basis. No foundation. No practical application. No case study.

Just sayin’.

Predictive Analytics

Wikipedia defines the term this way:

Predictive analytics is an area of statistical analysis that deals with extracting information from data and using it to predict future trends and behavior patterns. The core of predictive analytics relies on capturing relationships between explanatory variables and the predicted variables from past occurrences, and exploiting it to predict future outcomes. It is important to note, however, that the accuracy and usability of results will depend greatly on the level of data analysis and the quality of assumptions.

The most common use of predictive analytics comes from the credit card industry. Brass tacks – with a few bits of information, companies can predict your propensity to pay on time.

My Early Predictive Analysis Tells Me…

…It is headed to an apartment marketing conversation near you. By this time next year, we will all be talking or will have been talking about the manifestation of predictive analytics as it relates to harvesting big data. Big data to include mining the likes (no pun intended) of Facebook, Twitter, ratings and review sites, surveys (be them third-party or self-administered), property management software (although predictive analysis suggests no chance on that front!), your screening company and other relevant data bases. And, our mathematical models will take all that data to make predictions for us.

They will create and align the perfect personas with the perfect properties that fit those personas and they will send the perfect messages, with the perfect frequency at the optimal times. All behind the scenes.

Your really likes the idea of predictive analysis as it relates to marketing apartments multifamily maniac,

PicProps: vjeran2001

Here it comes: Predictive Analytics to Impact Multifamily Operations

Using Social Media to Market Apartments Redux

Mike Brewer · August 1, 2012 · Add Comment

Back in 2009 I penned a post about using social media to market apartments. Back then the groundswell was happening and everyone had an opinion about it. And, over the past three years, I think we have all learned a lot. Some of it good. Some of it bad. Some have taken the lessons and left the conversation. Others have bet the farm. While others dipped their toe in, listened, learned, participated, grew and are now providing real value. And, while we were all quietly churning away in our social media bull pens another more than mentionable groundswell was taking place. Fewer multifamily starts and a generation ripe with numbers that we have not seen since the baby boomers hit the scene.

Fast-forward to the second half of 2012, the coastal markets are booming again while the somewhat insulated Midwest lays in wait. In St. Louis specifically, most sub-markets that have hit bottom and are now bouncing along. Some city central, mid-city and west county properties are sporting occupancy gains and rent growth they have not seen in three years plus.

Get these two things (marketing apartments using social media and the near perfect storm of fundamental metrics) in a room together and you have the makings of a home run. At least in my opinion.

Not Using Social Media to Market Apartments?

Now might be a good time to rethink that position. Don’t take my word for it. Take a look at this recent post over at Business Grow (a great blog by the way – subscribe and read every word). I pulled out a quote that I think speaks to my real point.

If you think about, using social media at the university level is the perfect test case for what all our organizations may be seeing just a few years from now:

Its primary audience uses the social web as its primary tool for communication.

It is an essential strategy for connecting with, and nurturing, its “customers.”

The relatively low-cost effectiveness of social media fits with programs under constant budget pressures.

Assiduity and The Why Behind the What

How many of you knew what that word meant? Me either. But, I fell in love when I looked it up. Assiduity – constant or close attention to what one is doing. As I read the word then the definition and then the word again it made me think – get off your ass-n-do-it.

To the point: your near now, now and future residents are growing up digital. Miss the point and miss some real opportunity.

Your big believer in using social media to market apartments,