Are you out of apartment marketing ideas to increase your occupancy and profit? Read on for ways a professional property manager can help turn things around.
Managing an apartment complex is a tough business, especially if you lack marketing know-how. If you’re struggling to find decent renters to live in your multifamily units, then it’s time to switch gears.
If your current advertising methods aren’t working for you, then it’s time to put some new apartment marketing ideas into effect.
One way to do this is with the help of a professional apartment property management company. They have the tools and knowledge to help fill your vacancies.
Here’s a quick look at some of the apartment marketing methods that can help find better-qualified residents and create more targeted traffic.
Custom Video Walk-Throughs
Today’s renters are using the internet to look for a new place to live. In many cases, these individuals don’t want to waste time and gas visiting properties they won’t like.
One way to give renters peace of mind is a video tour. This is a great way for potential applicants to see the interior of the apartment before visiting.
And even better, a property manager can create a tour of some of the community amenities to enable viewers to walk through the property. It’s an interactive way for renters to get a feel for a property like they can in person.
This is also an opportunity to meet some of the on-site staff that becomes part of your every day community once you decide to become a resident. Many prospective resident feel that the on-site staff is a very important component to the quality of life in a successful apartment community living experience.
This alone can increase the chances of renters applying for your apartments as opposed to competitor properties and also liking your property once they come to visit in person and see it firsthand.
Optimizing Social Media
There are two ways you can use social media for apartment marketing – paid and non-paid.
Social networks like Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter offer paid ads that can be customized to show to only specific audiences. For instance, you can design campaigns for a particular age group, geographic area, and income brackets.
This level of ad campaign customization makes it easier to find qualified leads for your apartment complex.
What’s great is that the budget you set controls your ad campaigns. Your property management team can ensure your campaigns remain within the advertising budget while still remaining effective.
There are also free online resources to optimize listings and improve search engine optimization for your apartment properties. It’s important to properly customize and optimize these listings to not only fit the personality of each of your individual properties, but also to properly work within algorithms of search engines. Good SEO is an art.
Make it Easier to Do Everything Online
Many renters today are millennials – the first generation raised on the internet. This group is expecting everything to be accessible on the web, including the ability to find and apply to apartments.
Many also want the ability to pay their rent using an online portal. In other words, the more convenient you can make your set up, the better. A professional property management firm can implement platforms to allow prospects to fill out applications and pay the app fee completely online.
By making everything internet-accessible, it can also make it easier to track paperwork.
Marketing Via Search Engines
Google is still one of the leading search engines for renters looking for an apartment to rent. So it makes sense that you optimize your Google listings as search engine marketing tool. There is often more to this than meets the eye. There are other apartment search engine sites including rent.com, apartmentguide.com and many others. A skilled apartment property management firm can help you select what fits best for your demographics and optimize your website and property listings for search engines so these attract the right prospects.
Search engine optimization (SEO) takes a longer time frame to generate leads than paid ads do, but consistent work on SEO optimization can provide cumulative long-term results. This can be important since many apartment residents don’t to stick around forever. By the time a one-year lease is up, optimized SEO can often provide a steady flow of traffic from other prospect channels.
Managing Your Online Reputation
It’s key to be proactive in managing your online reputation. Review sites carry tremendous weight with potential apartment residents. Online reviews drive consumer interactions so it’s essential to maintain a good online reputation. This includes asking satisfied residents to leave good reviews for your apartment complex and responding promptly to reviewers to rectify any concerns. There are multiple review sites and depending on your particular property and market area, some will suit better than others.
Social media and SEO are also great for making your apartment property more visible. Publishing valuable content will help gain the trust of prospects and give your SEO a boost. Create valuable content. Don’t just post regurgitated articles from other sites or pictures of your lunch or date night. Post things that show what a fun and safe community experience that one can expect when moving in to one of your apartment properties.
Posting Rental Ads in Popular Online Listing Sites
Expecting rental prospects to find your website during a web search can be wishful thinking, especially if your listings or websites are nonexistent or not optimized. While some potential residents may randomly land on your site, the majority of your leads will come from optimized popular listing sites and targeted traffic drivers.
Your property management team can assess your target market and determine which sites will ideally reach your target markets the best. The ads and listing can then be crafted to get the best conversions.
Posting professional quality photos of your apartment property to Pinterest and Instagram is powerful. The saying goes: A picture is worth a thousand words. That goes for both good and poor quality photos. Poor quality cell phone pictures can equate on line to a poorly managed property. Spend the time and the money and invest in professional photography for your properties. It’s a one-time invest that will pay for itself over and over again as these photos can be used for multiple marketing purposes.
Excellent Customer Service
How well you treat your residents, applicants, and prospects can help or hurt your reputation. Many property managers have excellent customer service and consistently respond to residents and prospects promptly and with kindness. The renewal rates on leases show this.
Responding quickly online looks good on social networks like Facebook, which displays how fast your business replies to messages. People like prompt responses. The more responsive you are, the more likely people will reach out to you.
Using these Apartment Marketing Ideas
As you can see, there’s a lot that goes into managing digital marketing for your apartment properties. While often tough to go it alone, with the right help creating marketing ideas for apartments, this can be a seamless and productive process.
A professional property management firm with expertise in the nuances of online and digital marketing works day in and day out to fill your vacancies using creative apartment marketing ideas. Ideas like these can add tremendous value to your bottom line.
Are you an apartment owner that is ready to take your multifamily property to the next level or do you own an existing apartment portfolio that needs a performance boost with creative apartment marketing ideas?
Would you like to have a custom performance review performed on your portfolio with suggestions on how to improve processes and improve return on investment?
Or, are you thinking about becoming a multifamily investor or adding Texas apartment properties to your existing portfolio?
Click here to see the variety of apartment services we offer all under one roof at Better World Properties LLC and the Better World Family of Companies.