I was reading Rommel Anacan's blog about reaching Baby Boomers, and I started to think about what he was saying about marketing luxury.  And it got me considering our normal strategies with benefit selling - how we often want to focus on the things that the resident appears to be most interested in.  For example, if they care about the gym, then focus on the gym.  If they don't care about the pool, then gloss over it a bit.  But what about amenities that they never plan on using but love showing off?

When I was younger, I distinctly remember a friend of mine talking about his new apartment.  He was telling me all sorts of neat features of the community, even the things he had no intention of ever actually using.  His list was a mix of amenities that he thought was great AND things he thought I would be interested in, be envious of, or be impressed with.  I wouldn't say that he was bragging, exactly, but it was similar - he wanted to show off how great his community was.  The more impressive the community was, the more impressive he felt he was by association.

So in other words, focusing purely his benefits wouldn't really fulfill all of his needs as a prospect - he would have needed to be wowed, so that he can then pass along that impression to those he wanted to wow.  Therefore the benefit he would earn was the benefit of impressing others.  So for someone like that, I wonder if catering to the prospect's supposed specific needs is actually not as effective.  Instead, the good ol' shotgun method where you inundate the person with benefits may have more impact.

To clarify, this is not a wholesale change in strategy - this is just the identification of the underlying motivations of that specific prospect and how they view their apartment, as well as what their personality type is.  For example, I would imagine this might make sense for those who like to show off, or it also might make sense for first time renters, who have never had a full suite of amenities before. 

In the end, this approach is not a great fit for everyone, but there are some interesting groups that might appreciate being overloaded with all the great features your community provides.