100 Apartment Marketing Ideas In 100 Hours

Are you all up for a challenge?! Let’s put our heads together and create a list of 100 great apartment marketing ideas, and to make it more fun (and catchy!), let’s do it in just 100 hours! The clock is ticking – what do you got?

1) Stable jobs equal stable renters! For your city, find out what the most stable and in-demand jobs are, and that is your target market! Once you’ve done that, find out who is hiring and give them preferred employer status with special perks.

(For every new apartment marketing idea, number your idea!)

(Also, share this post with your friends to make sure we hit 100 ideas in just 100 hours! So share on Facebook, Twitter, and email!)

NOTE: Looking for even more apartment marketing ideas? We have an upcoming webinar with Kate Good on " Your 2014 Marketing Playbook ", and you can get all her great apartment marketing ideas for only $29.99!

2. Once you dedicate a target audience market survey that market to find what is important to them in a community and focus on those items in your marketing flyers, advertisements, and during the tours!

3) Take the corporate marketing idea a step further for larger employers. Create a page on your website just for them, ex. www.villasofwildwood.com/statefarmemployees and encourage the HR department to bookmark and share as often as possible. On this page show the special preferred employer incentives for State Farm employees, a map showing the proximity of Wild Wood to State Farm and other nearby locations such as parks, shopping etc. These days its hard getting past the guard gate or front desk of these large employers with your stack of brochures and candy. A website link makes it easy for State Farm to share your information with anyone, anywhere at anytime. It also shows them that they and their employees are indeed a special client. This can be very powerful tool to gain interest from out of town new hires moving into an unfamiliar city.

4) Find out if your prefered employers have a Charity that they team with and then offer to donate $200 to that charity everytime one of their employees moves-in.

5. Be DIFFERENT! Stand out! Mobile billboards are always eye catching. Why not spice it up a little? Drive around with a mascot poking out of your sunroof while he/she holds a clever sign that says 'follow me to your new home'.

6.) Advertise at your grocery store and put your signage on the carts themselves! Most stores sell the advertising space at low costs and rotate them out every three months. Every time you plunk down your child, purse or bananas and bread into the top seat of the cart you and every other customer could be staring at your potential sale.

7) Free resident t-shirts! Provide each resident upon renewal or move-in with a free wacky t-shirt that has the property name and number. The shirt can say something like, YEP I got a FREE t-shirt at Highlander Apartments for just living there! come move-in to get FREE STUFF! (This is walking marketing), I would wear it to the stores on my day off or to go to the park! WHY NOT???

8. If your property has some unique design elements, host a photo walk.

9. Provide office snacks for your preferred employers: Decorate a large basket with bright ribbon and line with colorful tissue paper. Print personalized 2x4 labels with your property logo and a slogan like "ABC Apartments loves(Business Name)!" with a short list of your preferred employer benefits. Put these labels on snack sized packages of chips, cookies, etc. and fill the basket. This is an excellent way to get the info into the breakroom or HR office and directly into people's hands!

10. Create a partnership with local pizzarias and offer to help promote them in your Resident move-in packets (EX: It's your moving day so dinner is on us tonight. Enjoy 1 free pizza from ..." As a trade off request your flyer to be placed on the top of all pizza boxes (pick up & delivery).

11. Instead of the usual renewal form letter, take lunch to your resident at work!

12. Make it Bundt Cake day in your area!! Make small Bundt cakes, put in nice little decorated box with community info on it. Take it to your preferred employers. A little goofy and fun!! It makes folks smile!!

13. With summer fast approaching get a bunch of sunblock and put a lable on it with your community name and special. Like " Sizzlin $99.99 Security Deposit" and hand these out to day cares, community pools, the beach ( seriously very diversed group of people) and public community events, I would even try a dermotologist office.

14. Remember that Marketing is internal as well!! First Impressions Count!! The prospects first impression begins as soon as they enter your property. This initial impression will be built upon throughout their stay. If a prospect gets a bad first impression of the property, it will be very difficult to change her/his opinion. It is vital that the first impression be a good one! Not only your grounds, model/mini model, but your staff are all part of marketing. Have a code when you are touring a prospect that can be said over the radios. That way EVERY staff person on site can wave & say hi to your future residents!! Be NICE and be MEMORABLE!

15. Host a radio remote - Hire a local radio station to broadcast live from your site... This can cost any where from $1500 - $3000 but 2 leases and it pays for itself!


I am 15 because Jolene was 13 and Gerry should have been 14

16. Instead of the boring paper flyer you're planning to hit the parking lots with this week, do something different and more personal. Get some plain cards from the dollar store, write a message like 'We LOVE your car! It would look great in our parking lot this fall!', draw a big red heart on the outside and use that instead. Flyer a car every few rows and hit the lots a few times during the week. This way it actually looks like you're targeting one car instead of all of them.

17. Take 5 minutes to do basic on page SEO to your community website:

1. Make sure the city name, state abbreviation and the words apartment and rent are in the title tag. Make sure these show up somewhere in the page's content.

2. Make sure your Meta description is a good ad for your community. If you show up in the search results, you still need to make renters click through. The Meta description is no longer thought to be part of the search algorithm but it is used as part of your Google results.

3. Get rid of bad meta keywords. Delete the entire tag or if you simply can't bring yourself to do this, get rid of any word that does not appear in the text of the page (i.e. what your user sees when she browser the page).

18 (I think). Use QR codes anywhere you can in areas that get a great deal of public traffic (but....have the QR code lead to some type of "call to action" ex. a landing page that is an e-coupon for something (doesn't have to be rent...a small gift card for touring,etc)):

1) (Brent...stealing this one from you from that Webinar) on the inside of bathroom stalls in a hip restaurant/bar (won't work for all demographics, but will work for some)

2) Window vinyls

3) Transit oriented advertising (bus shelters, metro, etc)

4) Sidewalk decals

5) Table tents (food court advertising)

6) Coasters

7) At any exterior doors to your leasing center

Of course keep (or start) using them in your ads, on business cards, on flyers and brochures, etc.

9) Get creative!

19) Resident Services: Add Skype to your business center: It is free and only overhead is a camera for the computer ($30), Have a pet park? Host a pet adoptathon and invite a local shelter, invite vendors to donate food, even invite a local auto dealer to showcase a car at the event at your entrance- it will draw traffic!
How about personal video tours: Hand your prospect a flip cam and offer them to video the tour: Once you wrap up the tour send the tour to the prospect- they might forget other communities but not yours! LRobertson Riverstone Residential

20) Take advantage of all the tour traffic you receive every day. Incentivize them to check-in on Facebook at your location to receive discount on setup fee or some small giveaway item like a candy bar, etc. Make the check-in location not just 'Washington Villas' but 'Washington Villas leasing office' so that all their friends know they are looking to lease there.

21) Feng shui right before renewal time. People get bored in their apartments because they never redecorate. Offer a free redecorating service to residents where they can make an appointment to have someone come and move around their heavy furniture, then they do the rest. Right after this, slam them with a renewal incentive. Those good feelings about the new feeling on the apartment will lead to higher renewal rates

22) We love using vista print to get cheap marketing material. Our favorite and most successful is to print business card size Marketing cards.

Businesses are more likely to let you leave business cards and they are great to tie to goodie bags or jars of candy to give to HR directors, etc...

When we really want a push on traffic we send a team of 4 to 6 people out to cover the market area over the course of two days. The last time we did this we got 16 leases in 8 days,all from the marketing cards! I call that a good return!!

23.) Use your residents as an extended marketing team. They can be some of your best sales people! Have resident referral cards printed for them to hand out. Make sure to leave a line where they can put their name on it. Once they have sent someone in that leases and moves-in, make sure you reward them quickly!! Have a check cut and take it with balloons or goodies to their office.

Update!

23 Apartment Marketing Ideas in 29 hours - we are just off the pace!

This thread has been seen over 1,000 times already! (For all you lurkers, take a moment and share an idea - we'll get there in no time!)

24) Create a E newsletter or hard-copy one if you can afford it. The aim here is to advertise market assets in the surrounding community such as new restaurants, gymnasiums and jobs. Keeping tenants aware of the value they have received, heightens the likelihood that they will not only stay aboard, but advertise your projects to friends.It also mitigates vacancies as you highlight more job options.

25. Have coasters printed with your logo and of course a QR. Contact your co-op restaurants and ask them to put them around. If they hesitate, remind them how many people are seeing their flyers in your move in packets!

26. Use testimonials in your advertising! One of the most creative ways I've seen is to take a quote from a social media post. Go to search.twitter.com to see what people are saying about you. People love to see their tweets retweeted - can you imagine the excitement if their handle was featured on a giant billboard?! Of course, you should ask permission first... Check out the Chobani Yogurt campaign.

27. With Spring upon us and summer looming in the air...An Open House Ice Cream Social
seems just the affair. Bring down your current residents and mingle with the potential new ones, this will bring a real 'Community' feeling abroad and those just thinking about a move will want to be a part of your 'Community'. Your residents can sell better than
anyone. They will tell of the great services you provide, the wonderful staff you have, the great neighbors that they have there. If they fill out an application during the Open House they pay NO appplication fees....Keep some applications close by!

28. Try marketing, "We are worth the trip!" Offer every client that visits your community and takes a tour a free $5.00 gas card! You can team up with a local gas station and see if they will give you so many free gas cards for a large purchase. We were able to get 5 Free $5.00 gas cards for every $200 in cards we purchased!

29. Free Lunch Fridays! Pick a restaurant in your area and tell them you would like to pick up the lunch tab of one of their guests that day. In return, you make a menu insert that both advertises a dish (for the restaurant), advertises the chance at a free lunch, and of course, includes your community info!

I would stipulate that the person chosen to win was 1) Not affiliated with the restaurant, 2) Did not order alcohol, and 3) Was chosen after 1pm to get a longer exposure.

There is a fairly good chance that they will want more for the deal, so I would then offer to share their information in your move-in packet, in your newsletter, or some other option that makes it a fair trade.

30. Marketing Idea: "Dash For Cash" or " YOUR COMMUNITY'S NAME- MAD MONEY" Hide fake money in your vacant ready apartments. Give ewach leasing agent a stop watch and tell them that each one of their clients who tours the vacant unit and decides they want to rent either that unit OR a unit of the same floorplan has 90 seconds to find as much money as possible inside that apartment. The money can be used to come off move in costs. We hid $150 in each unit and our clients (future residents) had so much fun searching for the money--even if they were still looking at other communities--they remembered the fun they had at our community and CAME BACK! The only stipulation to this marketing campaign is that the apartments have to be VERY clean--you gon't want clinets searching and finding a dead bug or dusty closet shelf--it can be the death to this campaign. This special also requires about a week of prep with hiding money and creating "Certificates of Winnings" and a little bit of extra training, but it is so successful, it is worth the extra effort!

We went with Mad Money in our Advertising and used the tag line "Go Mad With Savings" and decorated with Mad Hatter Decorations/Tea Party Theme. People loved the bright colors and general excitement of the campaign! We also hired a college student to dress up as the Mad Hatter and pose as a human directional at the entry to our community! We had people drive in just to see "what was up" with the funny guy at the front entrance!

31. Marketing Idea: Get More for Your Money!
Instead of offering per month discounts or upfront discounts off rent, offer upgrades such as accent walls, new light fixtures, new or resurfaced countertops, new tile floors, cabinet varnishing or cabinet resurfacing, and New medicine cabinets! Your apartment may not need these upgrades however your clients will love the thought of getting NEW STUFF in their apartment to match their new stuff they intend to bring or buy! We have been running this campaign for 2 months now and seen a HUGE and positive response! We have even offered it to our renewing residents if when they sign early on a 12 month lease term and take a full increase in market rent!

32. FOLLOW UP is the key to success! Use 123 Greetings to send out personalized animated thank you cards to your visiting guests! You can also use these cards for confirmation of an appointment 24 hours before the appointment with a "Thinking of you card". You will get a confirmation of when the card was viewed and your client will get a e-card that is sure to brighten up their day; sometimes they even send a card back thanking you for yours!

33. Answering Machines
We would love to answer all calls in person, however, that is not always possible. This is why our messages need to be good. Really good! And unique! What about a short trivia question to be answered by a resident or prospect for a $5 gift/gas card. Or a 'secret' word, again with a small prize for the prospect or resident that mentions the word. Change your messages often! Be memorable!

34) Have models that excite your leasing staff. We know good models help entice prospects...what about the value of having models that your leasing staff is excited to show prospects. If you have ever unveiled a sharp new model to an existing leasing staff you know what I mean. There is value in that excitement and the pride that is reinforced when prospects comment on how awesome it looks and feels.

35. Partner up with your competitors and get them on board with referring prospects to each other. Stop by and take the staff a little something nice, donuts, cookies, etc. and meet everyone, especially the leasing agents. Ask for some business cards or info you can give to people when you don't have an opening, or if someone is looking for something in a different price range, etc. This pays off for both properties and creates a friendly atmosphere of sharing when it comes to market surveys, etc.

36. Buy individual tissue packets and put a label on each of them that says: Compliments of...and then put your complex name, and contact info...

Put a basket of tissues in local doctor offices or around town in other offices...with a sign that says "free, please take one"...

37. Plant flowers at your local park or town office building and get a sign that says the flowers were donated and planted by you complex name and have your contact info on the sign or ask the local business that you planted flowers for if they would mind handing out a couple flyers for you if anyone asks about the flowers...

38. Sponsor a local bike safety program...in my area the local police department will come to my property and teach youngsters about bike safety...I invited not only the residents but the local Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, 4-H clubs, Schools, etc.

I did up flyers and handed them out all over the place so everyone knew about it...We marked off a section of parking lot and while the parents waited, I had cold water in bottles with a homemade label on them (that said: Compliments of...etc...) and when the program was over, I had snacks and water for the youngsters and the policemen also...

39. Offer to be a drop off site for organizations like Toys for Tots. Most publicize their drop off locations well and add incremental foot traffic.

40. Hold focus groups! Invite current residents, prospects and all of their friends. Advertise it at the local chamber of commerce, invite business owners from the neighborhood, and put an ad in the local paper. This gives everyone involved a sense of ownership. Especially if you use some of the ideas! It also will help overcome possible objections in the future. Ask them what they think about common objections and how you can make things better. For example: When a future prospect says 'I'm not sure about having to pay for laundry.' You can say 'We held a focus group and THEY said it would help educate about the importance of conserving energy and water.'

Look for help from within your own team! Tell your team in advance that you are holding a marketing meeting- mandatory for everyone including maintenance. Bringing breakfast helps. Explain you need their marketing ideas and begin with "If money were no object and no idea too silly what would you do to bring more traffic to our community". This opens dialogue and helps your team understand that marketing is everyone's job. You will have to pare down the sky writing idea but each idea brings a new idea from someone. Some of the best ideas received were from maintenance team members!

42. Host a community yard sale & open house. Advertise it well to both your residents and the public, get as much participation and traffic as possible. Offer drinks & snacks and do some type of giveaway with entry forms in the office. This is a great event if you have happy residents, because they will be marketing for you when talking with people coming through the community to shop! Even people who are not looking for an apartment will remember your community and refer others.

43. Wrap some power bars with your community's information on them and place in a basket at a local gym with a note that says "Help yourself! Courtesy of your friends at XYZ Apartment Homes"

44) if you are in a scooter heavy town, offer residents an upgrade/discount on rent if they put a property bumper sticker on their scooter. Great advertising that will last as long as they have their scooter!

45. Always look for ways to partner with your community! Join the Chamber of Commerce. Is there a fun run going on? Become a sponsor~~hand out water bottles with your label! Is there a flea market going on? A downtown festival or parade? Hand out packs of peanut butter or cheese cracker, chewing gum, or suckers with your info. Is there an ‘expo’ of some kind? Invest in a booth and hand out your information.

46. Start an Ambassadors Club at your property. This is a group of volunteers from your residents! Invest in some nice shirts with your community name and the ‘ambassadors’ name. This group will help at your resident parties, they be a ‘greeter’ in the office and help with outreach marketing. If they are excited about living in your community, they will be some of your best advertisement!!

47. Pet Freindly Property Referrals. Partner up with local vetrinarians, dog groomers, pet suppliers, humane socieities, ect. Get on their list as a pet freindly property (make sure that you let them know your criteria ahead of time).

48. Tracking Your Marketing- if you are not tracking it you will never know if it is effective.

49. If you are a pet friendly property market the crap out of it!

We purchased various colored bandanas and printed out our property logo onto iron-on transfers. We then ironed the transfers onto the bandanas.. A few days later we took them to the local dog park and handed them out to individuals visiting with their dogs! Everyone loved them AND they looked so cute on the dogs!

50. I work at a downtown property with lots of events happening around us! Recently a Marathon route was right behind our buildings. We purchased bottled water and applied stickers with our logo on the outside. We stood on the sidewalks and in the street holding water on in our hands. The runners grabbed it out of our hands without even stopping! Apparently the water stop before us had run out so everyone along the marathon route was really excited to see us! We even had people ask if they could help us pass out water. It was fantastic marketing and really got our name out into the community!

51. This is an inexpensive marketing tool currently used by our communities. The post-it notes can replace your flyers and are not only cost efficient but creative as well. You can also hit numerous spots in a short period. Here are some useful ideas on using the post-its:
• Flyer cars in shopping parking lots
• Place inside apartment guides
• Leave a stack with local businesses and offer a referral fee
• Put on resident packages
• Attach to completed work orders left in apartment homes
The best price I have found for these post-it notes is at www.iprint.com . Sizes range from 3.5"x2" to 4"x6".

(52) We all buy these pens with our property name, phone number, web address, etc. on them and then give them to visitors at the site. WHY? They have already found you! Keep them in your car and every time you or one of your team members goes to a bank, grocery store, restaurant, hair saloon, etc. give them pens for people to use when they sign their credit card statements. Take them to churches for them to put in the pews. Churches love free stuff and every Sunday when people fill out that attendance card in the pew, your prayers will be answered when more people see your name.

(53) Give an incentive for employees to have cling decals to put on their car doors or trunk. As they drive around town, people see advertising and on a busy roadway and hundreds of people will see your advertising every single day that would not have before. Think of the traveling billboard concept. Once had a deal with Papa Johns. We only allowed their coupons and flyer's at our site and placed in the move in packages (as the "exclusive" pizza ambassador of ABC Apartments), and in exchange they placed magnetic decals on their trunk lids for us that simply read, "ABC Apartments and Papa Johns...doesn't get any better than this." We paid for the decals which were not that expensive and got huge exposure every day when their cars were on the road.

(54) If you have tried putting bookmarks in the printed books (Apt. Guide, Apt. Finder, Apt. Book, For Rent, etc., why not try slipping your business card in between the pages on which your ad is featured? When the potential client flips through the magazine, it will automatically open at the spot where your card is! Better yet, slip in a business card with your current promotion and an expiration date to create urgency!

(55) Have coffee sleeves with your apartment community info printed up by a local printer and then providing them free to local, independent coffee shops or 7 Eleven and other convenience stores in exchange for the shop using them to advertise your community! Now that is some really cool java!!!!

(56) We used to put stuff at our page in the apartment guides (bookmarks, post-it notes, etc.) until we would get a call from the rep telling us to cease and desist. When we get that call, we move on to breaking the binding. I would carry one of those "green", reusable store bags and pick up all of the guides. Go out to your car and open the book to your page and bend it all the way back until the binding breaks. The book will naturally fall open at your page. Another way to make your rounds is to take the bag of books with the bindings broken to the next store and replace all of those with the books from the first store. Work your way around and make the first store your last stop for replacing the books.

57) We gave out bookmarks to all of the schools and libraries in the local towns. Each bookmark was colorfully decorated on the front with bright colors and different shapes plus had fun, inspiring words or phrases like, "Reach for the Stars" and the bookmark was all stars in the background. On the back side in the middle all that we wrote was, "Donated By: Our community, our phone number, and web address". People loved them and since it was not a huge display of our community and information, people kept them and still use them. No facility refused them either! So if you have left over bookmarks from your original idea of marking your page in the guides, this is a good way to get the word out about your community at some other local facilities! :laugh:

58) Are you a dog or cat friendly community? If you are make up little goodie bags with dog biscuits and rawhide sticks for dogs OR a cat toy and some cat treats for cats. Inside each goodie bag place a busniess card with a sticker on the back of it that says "we love cats" or We love dogs" or "We love Pets". Take these goodie bags to all the local animal shelters, police station animal control offices, so when a pet gets adopted, the shelter will give out your goodie bag as an additional treat to their customer for adopting a pet. You'll get free advertisement and the shelter gets more freebies to give their customers when they give a pet a new home! At the humane society you also get the opportunity to show at the facility your property donated in their newsletter as well as at the facility!

59) Even the magazine type guides that are stapled and don't have bindings can be "broken". Just fold it all the way back and press down or pinch the spine with your fingers to make the magazine open to your page.

60) Use your resident survey scores in all advertising, display in leasing offices, marketing collateral, etc!

61) Use your Apt Ratings scores in all advertising, collateral, etc!

62) Leverage your staff tenure. "Our maintenance manager has been here for 12 years"! Or leverage internal awards - "Home to Maintenance Manager of the Year 2010".

Poost them on facebook!

Leave magazines, specially women's magazine, at oil change shops or car garages for their waiting room. Paste an add inside the magazine with your apartment information.