You may feel like it’s time to throw out your 2020 marketing plan now that the COVID-19 pandemic has hit. However, this is the time to really lean into the digital strategies in your plan and seek out new tools to maximize your digital marketing. These steps will help you survive the COVID-19 pandemic. 

When selecting tools to boost your multifamily brand, utilizing a checklist may ease your fears and help you decide which digital resources will best support your ambitions. Understanding your company’s challenges, current resources, and determining what success will look like is a great place to start. 

Turn your property websites into an online leasing consultant with a technology solution to help facilitate a prospect’s research while gathering and monitoring high-quality lead information from each customer. 

Not sure what resource to choose? Here’s a handy checklist to help your property management company succeed in these difficult times. 

1. Does the software attract and acquire leads?

 Key features to watch for: 

Website interface: Software that identifies each consumer who visits and engages on your website, then tracks that user across multiple digital platforms for multitouch attribution. Facilitates a prospect’s research while capturing high-quality lead information on each prospect.

Measures channel performance: Helps you evaluate the efficiency of each effort, including social media and digital ads, to deliver real-time results while helping you to adjust digital advertising campaign spends based on performance.

Prioritizes leads: Collects detailed and robust lead information during customer interactions and prioritizes leads to make the follow-up process more efficient and effective. 

2. Does it utilize Artificial Intelligence to learn and adapt?

Items to look for in a solution: 

Creates personalized experiences for customers: Includes advanced technologies like AI to add interactive experiences on existing property websites.

Automates communication: When tied to an AI-driven marketing cloud, automate email and text communication through nurture campaigns to drive leads back to the website and deliver personalized incentives to inspire action. 

3. Does the resource analyze data and adjust?

Ideally, the resource: 

Delivers useful data: Demonstrates what’s converting on your website in real-time, learns valuable consumer insights to gain an understanding of what prospects want, and shows which combination of marketing sources drive the most valuable leads and leases at the lowest cost.

Understands consumer’s decision-making process: Reveals personal insights on a prospect’s lifestyle factors and what’s most important to them when choosing an apartment, driving renters’ decisions.

Captures market trends: Provides custom marketing intelligence to identify trends specific to your online audience, and how to best attract and serve this customer. 

Demonstrates return on investment: Tracks performance and ROI of all digital marketing spends to demonstrate the continuum of lead generation to property tour and lease. 

4. Does the digital resource convert online visitors to tours or virtual tours?

In the coronavirus age, this one is more important than ever. You want to be sure your solution:

Targets prospects with personalized service: Delivers real-time data to provide outstanding, personalized service to your customers every step of the way, while building long-term loyalty. 

Informs SEO and content strategy: Helps you optimize digital campaigns and adjust keywords, ad groups, and content for improved SEO rankings to convert more traffic to your website and improve channel performance.

Provides online help: Provides consumers the convenience of chat-to-text communication, interactive quizzes,video tours and online tour scheduling tools.

Nurtures prospects: Educates consumers who are still shopping for an apartment with automated emails based off of information they shared during previous website sessions to bring brand awareness and help them choose you over a competitor. Emails will help to bring prospects back to your website to continue their research.

5. Does the resource partner with your multifamily team?

Digital marketing doesn’t do any good if your team can’t use it well. Look for a tool that delivers: 

Ongoing support: Find a digital marketing partner that offers support beyond the sale and continuously offers feedback to help you and your team perform better.

Pay for performance: For a fair exchange, find a vendor whose pricing model is tied to real results.  

Improvement: Invest with a company that works to constantly improve its products and supports a culture of innovation.

Keeping these items in mind will help you choose your digital resources wisely and help you make the most of every marketing dollar during this difficult time.