Property Management
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)
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Apartment Community Amenities: Promote Mystery
About two months ago we decided to install a dog park at Brookside Apartments – one of our student properties in Carbondale, Ill. In lieu of printing, posted and plastering the thing all over our social media streams – we just let the process play out.
Power in Mystery
After working through the logistics and contract negotiations we settled on a spot and let the construction begin. What happened next was pure entertainment – are you building a pool? Are you building a new building? Volleyball courts? – Wait, it’s too big to be a pool! Arg, what is it? All the common questions begin to filter through the wifi lounge, the community and into our leasing center. That is until we could not take it any more and we disclosed.That said, we learned a real time lesson as it relates to WOM.
Apartment Marketing Stimulants
Tell them but don’t tell them. We have a number of other amenities and improvements that we are doing to this property over the next one to three years with each one major in scope. Taking the lesson from the dog park mystery – we will leave the community to – guess it out – if you will. I can see some cool social media apartment amenity mysteries playing out over Facebook and other social platforms. In the spirit of – give them something to talk about – mystery takes a front seat. And, besides who doesn’t like a great guessing game or mystery? Who can resist talking about it with their friends, family and otherwise? Which is part of the point, right?
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Apartment Marketing: Invite the Thirty and Learn the Dirty…
I love what Mack Collier had to say a couple days ago in his post titled: The next evolution of social media for business is…
The following quote from his post struck me most…
Here’s the twist that makes this event so interesting to me; The 15 customers Dell will meet on the 15th are customers that have issues with Dell, and want to voice those issues to the company. The 15 customers Dell will meet on the 17th are evangelists of the company. So over the course of 2 days, Dell will be meeting with 30 of its most passionate customers, from both ends of the spectrum. I think this event is also an example of the next evolution of social media for companies.
Invite thirty and learn the dirty
The dirty little chatter that could work to make the your apartment living experience [read: offering] one that escapes the hand-cuffs of commodity. More times that not we as operators gather our troops in our conference rooms across this great land and decide on the next best thing for employees, prospects and residents alike. Imagine if we brought the thirty in like Dell is doing? That is once we have taken the time to understand who they really are.
Being a part of something bigger than yourself
Play along with me on this for a second – remember the last time you felt compelled – really compelled as a result of something you participated in something bigger than you? Remember how you felt leading up to, during and after the event? Do you still talk about it to this day? Did it shape your view of the world? Do you feel compelled to share not only the event but the organizer or organization that put on the event?
There is, innate in all of us, an underlying need to belong, to feel appreciate, to feel heard, wanted and important. As marketers – it’s not our job to exploit that but rather harness it and use it for a greater good.
Is it possible in our business? You bet it is. The questions is – are we willing to get those people in a room where there is no monitor to hide behind – where canned corporate speak is left to improv at the risk of authenticity and transparency? The second half of the thirty could be fun – it’s the first half I would be anxious about.
We have done our fair share of surveys and focus groups over the years but never did we go after the downside hardliners. Mack and Dell have me thinking hard about the obvious value of doing so…what do you think?
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Apartment Leadership – Lessons from THE CALL
Much has been written and much will be written about the perfect game that was not –
I see a major leadership lesson in the action that rocked the baseball world just a few nights ago.
Lesson #1: Admit
How many times do we as operators and managers drop the ball? I would be humble enough to suggest that I employ the super bouncy ball dropping method of dropping balls on a near daily basis. I exercise such strategies as forgetting to write it down, ignoring the reminders I have set in my phone and laptop and plan old fashion ignorance. All that being said, I have come to understand the power of Admitting the shortcoming.
As it relates to THE CALL – I admire what Jim Joyce had to say after he viewed the replay:
“I just cost that kid a perfect game,” Joyce said. “I thought he beat the throw. I was convinced he beat the throw, until I saw the replay.”
“It was the biggest call of my career,” said Joyce, who became a full-time major league umpire in 1989.
Lesson #2: Apologize
I read a book nearly ten years ago titled: All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten by Robert Fulghum – one of the lessons described is the ability to say – I’m Sorry. How many times do we launch into the why-for’s and what-not’s – siting policies, procedures, protocol and make-it-up-on-the-fly alternatives to simply saying – You know – I apologize that we gave cause for you to drive 27 miles to our corporate office to meet with upper-management over the fact that your faucet has been leaking for over a month now and despite 33 requests to fix it – nothing was done. I agree that that is far from the service you should expect in exchange for the biggest check you write out each and every month – faithfully.
As it relates to THE CALL – I admire what Jim Joyce did and said later:
DETROIT—Armando Galarraga squeezed the ball in his mitt, stepped on first base with his right foot and was ready to celebrate the first perfect game in Detroit Tigers’ history.
What happened next will be the talk of baseball for the rest of this season and likely a lot longer.
Umpire Jim Joyce emphatically called Cleveland’s Jason Donald safe and a chorus of groans and boos echoed in Comerica Park.
Then Joyce emphatically said he was wrong and later, in tears, hugged Galarraga and apologized.
Lesson #3: Acknowledge
The end all be all mother load of goodness played out the following night:
In a classy gesture meant to show the world the Tigers had moved on from the night before, manager Jim Leyland had pitcher Armando Galarraga — instead of Leyland or a coach — bring the lineup card to the home-plate umpire.
All I can say is -WOW! Class Acts All The Way Around. I often joke that watching baseball is like watching paint dry – and if given a choice I ask that the color be multiple shades of red and black preferably in a satin finish. But, this episode has given me a whole new perspective of the game – namely the people who played it well over the last two nights and the actions they exercised despite the wholly emotionally loaded circumstances! Yeah – for the kids old enough to understand what happened – that is where it mattered most.
Have a smashing weekend. – M
Photo credit: NJ.com
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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 –
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