Apartment Marketing Tips and Ideas

Secrets

In life, there really are no secrets. The idea of easy money, getting rich quick, or turning a fast buck are in my opinion myths, shams, and illusions we rationalize into reality only to suffer disappointment.

So, rather than dwell on the impossible let's focus on the possible by attending to what we can learn, can know, can change, and therefore can accomplish through study, focus, determination, and diligence.

Provide great tenant information

There was a time not long ago in the apartment industry where the key sales factor was physical location and visibility. While these attributes are a great advantage even now, the Internet has altered this paradigm. Now the internet creates a new "road sign" that can provide very high prospect visibility and convenience unrelated to physical location. A well positioned web presence allows owners, managers, and leasing agents to capture the attention of prospects who in the past might never have considered your location or specific property attributes.

"Since 2004, leasing prospects beginning their search on the Internet has grown from under 40% to over 50% for all renters. For prospects moving in from out of town this jumps to over 70% as of 2008." - National Multifamily Housing Council, John Helm, 2008

Accomplishing this is more complicated than throwing up a great web page. Achieving the maximum result requires a coordinated2 assault on the Internet. This implies a focused, methodical approach to a website, use of Internet Locater Services (ILS - like Apartment Finder), using services like Craigslist, Google Maps, Google Ads, etc.

An organized managed approach that addresses the necessary facets can be difficult for most apartment complexes and even portfolio owners as they don't have the resources, skills on staff, or inclination to invest resources in the effort to institutionalize these items and efforts. If complexity wasn't hurdle enough, the
industry is plagued by high staff turnover that undermines the ability to have onsite staff and even corporate staff's to focus on the issue.

The good news is www.apartmentmarketingsolutions.com and other sources can provide all or part of the elements needed for you. Also, you can accomplish much of the same with a combination of other service providers and perhaps relatively minimal internal staff support. Nevertheless, understanding the tools and resources to accomplish the end is important.

So what are the steps / activities you need to put in place:

Create a dynamite Apartment Marketing Site (AMS)

Develop a structured plan for ads on Craigslist, Google Ads, etc.

Assure you are posted on all of the free info sites (tough because the list keeps changing) such as White Pages, Superpages, Google Ads, etc.

Develop and train your staff to respond promptly to online contacts.

Provide an ability to respond when you aren't in the office.

Create structured, detailed, and online friendly response packages.

Maintain an online application to capture interested renters instantly 7X24.
Customer Follow Up

Develop training and staffing techniques to assure that all of the above are performed consistently regardless of attrition or staff turnover.