multifamily
Apartment Marketing Idea: You are not Your Apartment Prospect
I think one of the easiest traps to fall into when marketing to apartment prospects or residents is to think that they want what you want and they will like what you like. It is really easy when you don’t take the time to understand who your customer is and what they value. In order to that you have to be willing to spend time asking questions, trying new things, testing new theories, crushing sacred cows and refining your successes. All in the name of your client’s changing tastes.
Always done it that way
We have all heard the statement that if you keep doing what you have always done expecting a different result – you get the definition of insanity. It’s as true in our space as it is in different industries across America. We keep at it year after year because it’s easy. It’s really hard to go against the grain. It’s really hard to convince the powers that be that giving up tried and true processes is a good thing. Problem with this is that change, if not embraced, will free up your future sooner or later.
The ABC’s of change
In selling ABC stands for Always Be Closing, in understanding that you are not your apartment customer it stands for Always Be Changing. With the advent of the internet came the rapid acceleration of change. In one fell swoop we had every piece of information we could every want at our finger tips. That is not to suggest that it has not taken time to morph our imbued information gathering habits but it is to say it’s not your older brothers world anymore. If you don’t like change you will like irrelevance even less and that is your prize for standing still today.
How do you keep up with your customer
Tom Peter’s popularized the phrase Management by Walking Around [MBWA], defined by BusinessDictionary.com this way;
Unstructured approach to hands-on, direct participation by the managers in the work-related affairs of their subordinates, in contrast to rigid and distant management. In MBWA practice, managers spend a significant amount of their time making informal visits to work area and listening to the employees. The purpose of this exercise is to collect qualitative information, listen to suggestions and complaints, and keep a finger on the pulse of the organization. Also called management by wandering around.
I think it is a fair way think about how to keep up with your customer. We should be interacting with them both on and offline. Here are just a couple of ideas on how to do that;
- Ask for their opinion any time you see them
- Hang out where they hang out
- Eat where they eat
- Read the magazines, blogs and tweets they read
- Read the books, ebooks and ezines they read
- Ask permission to enlist them on your Facebook, MySpace and Tweet pages
- Participate on their Facebook, MySpace and Tweet pages
- Shop where they shop
- Read what they review
- Ride the buses they ride
- Frequent the places they work
- Experience the products and services they like
- Work out where they work out
- Ask what keywords they used to find you
How about we call this Creating Experience by Walking Around [CEWA]. The real key to remember here is that you are not your customer and in order to understand your customer you must engage and participate with them. And, make it easy for them to do the same with you.
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Realfacts Q4 data
Mike Brewer · · 1 Comment
NATIONWIDE DECLINE IN RENTS
Posted Monday, February 2, 2009 by Realfacts
The release of the Realfacts 4Q08 data provides the first comprehensive
assessment of the rental market in 2008.
Renters looking for an apartment at the beginning of 2009 will have more
choice and be able to get a better value for their rent money. A study of
nationwide rents just released by Realfacts, the Novato data specialists
who are marking their 20th anniversary, shows that rents declined in
nearly every MSA in the country between September and December of 2008.
The year end survey found the highest rate of decline in Miami-Ft
Lauderdale FL (2.4% in the 4th quarter), Riverside-San Bernardino CA
(2.4%), San Jose CA (2.0%), Oxnard‐Thousand Oaks‐Ventura CA
(1.8%). Rents also went down by 1.6% in Orlando, Phoenix, and Los Angeles.
Nationally, the average rent for an apartment once again dropped below
$1,000 declining from $1002 in September to $993 in December.
The decline in rents was matched by a decline in occupancy. The occupancy
rate for apartments in the United States dropped to 92.2% in December,
down from 92.9% in September. That decline in
occupancy meant that 10,000 apartment units were vacant as the year
closed. The Realfacts survey covers an inventory of nearly 3.2 million
units of rental housing in 60 MSAs. In 2008, only 9,248 units
were added to the supply. This compares to an average for the previous ten
years of about 65,000 units per year of new construction.
The decline in rents and occupancy is certainly good news for renters. For
people who have invested in income property, the news is less welcome. In
essence, while income from rental property remained flat in 2008,
inflation drove costs up by 3.85%. This gap is reflected in a smaller
number of sales transactions during 2008. The Realfacts database shows
just 386 sales of apartment complexes larger than 100 units, which is
about one third of the previous three year’s volume.
This data for 2008 indicates that the year’s widespread economic problems
have finally affected the rental market by the end of the year. The choice
to invest in income property for the last several decades has been based
on the assumption that rents would continue to growth. In 2009, investors
are likely to evaluate rental properties based on current income alone.
via an email I received today.
Mike Brewer, Realfacts, Q408 apartment data
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What I am thinking about….
“Apple built a design driven culture that knows how to connect with its customers in a deeply emotional way. Apple products are portals to an amazing menu of of continuing experiences that matter to a lot of us.” – Robert Brunner and Stewart Emery
My three year old daughter, Kate, said to me, “Daddy – guess what!” I said, “what?” She said, “I love you.” I asked, “Kate, what is love.” She said, “it’s when your heart is happy.” It made my heart happy to hear that my three year old grasped the fact of love. Hat’s off to @sbrewer10 for that.
I say all that to ask this, “what makes your resident’s heart happy?” If their apartment is the portal to amazing experiences then what are those experiences that bring peace and happiness to their heart? It’s deep and it’s key.
Mike Brewer, Multifamily, Apartment
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2009 A Year of Opportunity
I came across the following quote on the blog Customer Experience Matters today. The quote originally came from the Harvard Business Publishing site where they were showcasing a book called “The Forever War”
extraordinary in itself, and next to it a man named Juma Khan Gulalai.
The field was bright and green. Gulalai was a butcher and he’d set up
his table there, his apron and knives at the ready. Every day, Gulalai
explained, a goat would wander into the green grassy field to graze for
its meal and step on a land mine and blow apart. Gulalai would walk
into the field and retrieve the carcass–braving the mines himself as he
did–throw the old goat up on the table and carve up its meat for sale.”
What will it take to grow revenue in 2009
I tend to think about things from 30,000 feet and many times miss or overestimate the logistics of ripping off a cool new idea. In that respect I tend to do better at visualizing things as opposed to hammering out the details. I say all that to say this. 2009 will be the year of innovation in the multifamily space. I think we will see a number of new and exciting technologies come to fruition one of which will be that our various property management systems will finally talk to each other. Hats off to the MITS initiative. Moreover and really where I am looking to stoke up some conversation is innovation around the various social technologies we employ today and how we can use them to add value and subsequently more revenue.
As it stands each of us are trying to find our way with social technologies. Some of us are doing better than others while many are still sitting on the sidelines waiting for the right time to participate. I applaud those who have at very least put their toe in the water. Conversation is really the premise of our uses today. We are looking to engage our residents, prospects and vendors in conversations that add value to their experiences and more importantly their lives.
What will tomorrow bring
How do you see the use of social technologies bending the way we lease apartments, serve residents and stay in touch with vendors? I am looking for ideas beyond the conversation. What will each of the aforementioned parties add to the multifamily space or your community specifically? Innovation will be key and it will be collaborative by the nature of the technology we employee. So, what will it yield? Will each of our communities have its’ own specific rating structure built into its social mediums? Will we each have our own [communityname] rating link built right in? Will it be video driven and text supported? Will we see instant interaction with the raters? I think the possibilites are endless.
In closing I think 2009 will be an absolute amazing year to be alive and involved in the multifamily space. I look forward to participating with each and every one you. And, like Juma Khan Gulalai, let’s find the opportunity in an otherwise bleak circumstance.
M
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Multifamily Revenue Management
Mike Brewer · · 1 Comment
Interesting site I ran across this evening, multifamilyrevenuemanagement.com
I will say having worked for Equity Residential for nearly ten years and having experienced the roll out of a revenue management system, it does work. Big time! I did, however, have the unique experience of building my very own revenue management system that outperformed the big ticket model. That was short lived and not well publicized by our pricing analyst. That aside, the site above offers some good video sound bites along with some other good content. Check it out if you have a few extra minutes.
multifamilyrevenuemanagement.com, revenue management, multifamily
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