The 5 P's that Jennifer mentioned are super helpful.
Two other types of analysis that can help when you are putting together a marketing plan are a SWOT analysis and an STP analysis.
The SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) is a nice way to present an overview of how your community currently fits in the market and the direction you think it needs to go in to stay competitive.
The STP analysis (Segment, Target, and Position) focuses on understanding the renters in your market, deciding which types of renters will be most interested in your community (focus on psychographic not demographic targeting here so you stay in compliance with EHO), the channels your target audience uses, and the messaging they are likely to engage with.
This is a free tool you can use to look at the population segments in a local market (this includes psychographics):
www.esri.com/en-us/arcgis/products/tapes...mentation/zip-lookup
Channels: Organic and paid Google search traffic is often the biggest and best source of traffic on a community website. Facebook ads, Instagram ads, and Display Retargeting campaigns can also generate leads on apartment websites. Display ads do a good job of driving organic Google search sessions.
Make sure to include a marketing goal and a way to measure your success against that goal. Ex: If you want to get to a certain occupancy level, then use metrics like # leads, # tours and conversion rates (% of leads that became tours or % of tours that became leases). Incorporate good lead tracking early on so you can figure out which campaigns are driving results and allocate your budget accordingly.