Your Guide to Incredible Apartment Marketing!

Let's try a fun little project! We're going to write a guide on great apartment marketing tips, tricks, and ideas. I'll start the first phrase of our chapter, and then the next person add one sentence/phrase that fits after my sentence. The person after that follows the 2nd person's sentence, and so on, so it flows as a cohesive paragraph. Here goes!

(You can submit as many times as you want, as long as there are a couple of people between your posts)

When planning your apartment marketing program, you should first consider

UPDATE: If you want to start a new "paragraph", just start your sentence with "New Paragraph: ".

...who your target market is based on what your community has to offer.

and who your major competitors are.

Success begins with understanding your position and what your market opportunity is so that your marketing is designed with a specific target.

Remember that you are also providing a basic necessity in life, "Shelter" -- and promote to prospective residents that you offer a nice, comfortable and friendly place to live.

Create value for your product, find what sets you apart and focus on it!

. . .consider

asking your staff what they thing should be part of the program. They are the folks on the ground~~they know what is happenning in their market!

...forget listing the "top 20 reasons" prospects should live at your community. Instead know the three most important reasons your current residents choose to live at your community and drive those home repetitively your marketing efforts. They obviously worked!

Always consider your budget and remember not to put all your eggs into one basket. Marketing is about reaching the most out of your target audience at the lowest cost.

Maximum exposure is essential for any product. Create a co-op program and hit the pavement in search of local business partnerships.

New Paragraph:

Chapter One: Creating Partnership Marketing Opportunities

Creating relationships with local (and even national) businesses can be a great source of publicity and prospect awareness. The first thing you should consider when making your Partnership Marketing Plan is


(Note to everybody: The sentences should flow logically from the person before you to your sentence, so it ends up reading like a guide! I realized it might be hard to stay cohesive with one long section, so I thought having individual "chapters" might make it flow more logically...)

. . .identifying where do your current residents and prospects work and play. Take the top 10 (or 100!) and use for outreach marketing, advertising exchange, preferred employer dicount program.

Make sure to also invite these outreach prospects to sponsor events at your community for your residents as well as prospective residents with events like pizza parties, wine and cheese tastings, jewelry shows, etc.

As a rule of thumb, do not only write in days to "Go Out Marketing" on your calendar, but also write in "Prepare Marketing Materials" the day prior to your scheduled outreach. By doing so, you will prevent any last minute mishaps (such as printer mysteriously stopped working, phones were ringing constantly) which could potentially get in the way of you having the opportunity to go out marketing.

Oops a few messages came through while I was typing..

Create a "Preferred Employer Program" with the businesses within your area. Target businesses that offer services your residents would benefit from. For example...car repair shops, restaurants, clothing stores, etc...If they would extend extra incentives or discounts to your community residents you would do the same for their employees. We offer an additional $100 off move-in costs, 1 waived application fee and waived security deposit, OAC. Create a list of willing business for your leasing consultants to refer too. Set up marketing flyers with your community information as well as their logo that they can give to their employees. Make sure to add on the flyer that they must present the flyer at time of initial visit as well as a restrictions clause and the fair housing logo. If you have rack cards or display cards already printed for your community ask if they would display them in their lobby for their customers to enjoy. The extra exposure is always appreciated and you would do the same for their business if they have marketing collateral by showcasing them at your community in your newsletter, in new move-in packets or ask them to become a fan of your FB page. I always add my pitch of, "You would be able to reach over (# of units) families at our community. Now who wouldn't want that marketing opportunity?" Make sure to remain in contact with the business by periodically popping in with a goody bag to say hello, ask if they are in need of more flyers, have any new and exciting specials and of course to see if this business relationship has created more traffic from your community. This works....and it "breaks the ice" when outreaching!

We tell our Leasing Specialist to avoid the "marketing blitz" approach of hitting 50 businesses in a single day. Rather, identify 20 businesses and approach them 1-2/week every week. We have found that local businesses will only refer customers your way after you have been in 5+ times.

Do a market study to see what your demographics are, then have a satisfied family go down to a park or some meeting area outside of your community with fruit, cheese and crackers and a t shirt with the name of the community on their back and have them get involved with strangers telling them where they live and how great the community is. They can give out some of the cheese and crackers, all wrappings should have the community name on it.