Apartment Marketing
Apartment Interest Graph Marketing
To preface, this post is likely several years off in terms of being really germane to apartment marketing.
I have been reading a ton about Interest Graphs as of late. An interest graph is akin to a digital map that captures and demonstrates everything you like or frankly don’t like. Be it coffee, tea or me – it takes everything you like about your personal adventure through this world and packages it up into one nice comprehensive picture of you. Think Pinterest – the red-hot picture pinning site. In my estimation IG’s are a marketers wildest dream come true.
Apartment Marketing a Few Years Hence
Imagine with me for a moment – if you will. Tomorrow morning you walk into your office, pop open your email and you read:
Hi all,
Today we are embarking on a new marketing initiative. As such, we are completely revamping the information you commingle to make up your demographic set. But, unlike many of our other initiatives, for this one you don’t need to do a thing. In fact, this thing is so brilliant you are going to have a tough time keeping up with the new-found demand we intend to create.
You see, we have crafted a quasi-quant algorithm that constructs your apartment communities Interest Graph. That is to suggest that your community has a personality (and, a friend making ability) and we have found a way to define it based on the premise of how moving it is. Then – get this – once we have defined that personality, we are going to align it with people with like kind personalities or Interest Graphs.
Confused? That’s okay, it will all make sense at some point –
Stay tuned,
Your Marketing Team
Fish Where the Fish Are 2.0
As the internet becomes more and more fragmented with special interest groups (not to be mistaken with those who lobby politically), the more specific we can get with where we have our conversations. And, we can be more precise about what we say and don’t say. Today, we know we have to have a website, a blog and we have to get connected on Facebook. Tomorrow, we will still need those things but now we will be able to find and converse with exactly who we are looking for in the exact place where they don’t mind sharing and talking. Because the conversation will center around the very things they love and cherish as represented by their interests. So long as we are patient and exercise all the simple lessons Dale Carnegie taught us – we will open the flood gates. That is don’t be a stalker.
I see a day when we know exactly who it is that we want to rent our apartments, who will actually rent them, when they will actually rent, and how much rent they are willing to pay. All by simply defining and promoting our communities Interest Graph and coupling them up with people who have like kind interests. In my head, it’s akin to creating personas of the people who you want your marketing messages to speak to but much more amplified and much deeper, richer and more compelling. Much more intimate. It will bring together a like hearted and like-minded apartment community that will attract like kind people. And, that my friends will likely be the lead into the beginning of singularity.
Your Apartment Interest Graph Marketing Junkie (at least this week),
M
Pic Credit: Robert Scoble
Multifamily #Trust30: Greatness
Moving past the halfway point with day 16 of the #trust30 challenge –
Greatness appeals to the future. If I can be firm enough to-day to do right, and scorn eyes, I must have done so much right before as to defend me now. Be it how it will, do right now. Always scorn appearances, and you always may. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Trusting intuition and making decisions based on it is the most important activity of the creative artist and entrepreneur. If you are facing (and fearing) a difficult life decision, ask yourself these three questions:
1) “What are the costs of inaction?”….
2) “What kind of person do I want to be?”
3) “In the event of failure, could I generate an alternative positive outcome?”
Multifamily greatness
We recently purchased a property from a lending institution who had in turn taken it back from a previous ownership interest. When completing the due
diligence phase of our process we discovered roughly 40 units in various stages of disrepair. Units we classify as down. Down to mean not habitable absent some major rehab.
It spoke loudly to the point of the first question – inaction. Banks are not property managers. And, in lieu of spending $25 to $30k to replace the roofs, they left them alone. Result of that inaction? Several hundred thousands of value wiped away.
Greatness starts with forecasting the consequence of in-actions. In this case, it would suffice to say that some back of the napkin math would have yielded an ROI that would have driven a decision to replace the roofs.
What kind of company do we want to be
At Mills Properties, we ask that question a lot. As of late it has been in the area of branding, marketing, digital footprint and the such. We have been slow in moving toward what we want to achieve part and parcel because of near 50% growth in community and unit count over the past four years. And, in part not having a real plan.
Fast forward to today. We have taken the time to craft a 40+ page branding/marketing plan that includes everything from font types and size for all thing forward facing to big ticket strategies to dominate the St. Louis Apartments on and off-line space. It lays it all out and captures how everything from curb appeal to lease contract signing ladders up into an overarching message for the neighborhoods and communities we serve. And, in advance our striving to make a splash nationally at some point.
It all starts with asking the right questions.
Multifamily failure
I think the best way to overcome failure is understand that it going to happen from time to time. In fact, I like what Tom Peters has to say about it, “reward
failure.” If you are not failing, you are not trying, you are not learning and thus you are not growing. Equity Residential cements this in their 10 ways to be a winner – one being ‘take educated risks.’ The expectation is that you gather every piece of information you can to include the counsel of others before you pull the trigger. And, if you fail, you simply have a group postmortem where you examine the facts and the various action points to see what could have been done better.
Off for a float trip
It’s Saturday, it’s raining and we are headed out for camping and a float trip. Should be loads of fun. I say that with lots of hope in mind.
Your hoping you have an amazing weekend contributor,
M
Apartment Forums
I will likely be publishing a ton of thoughts on this subject over the next few weeks so I apologize in advance to those of you that have no interest in the subject. I will try to lace in tidbits on other topics to keep the discussion fresh.
That said, here is the first point that I think all owners have to consider if they tread into the blogging and or forum arena. You have to be front and center in the discussions. You have to be a voice in as many discussions as you can. If you think you don’t/won’t have time, let me suggest to you that the consumer of your product has time and they can and will exercise it.
Now I’m not suggesting that you have to respond to everything and or start every conversation and in the same breath I would counsel you to take part in a meaningful way.
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