Recently I started reading Ryan Holiday, Growth Hacker Marketing. In the book Ryan explained about Product Market Fit and how growth hackers believe  products should be changed until they are ready to generate explosive reactions from the people who will see them.

This was like a revelation to me, but not in the sense of marketing – as you would think – but in creating resident events.

See, for the past few weeks I have been talking with several friends about which kind of resident events they were doing at their properties and I learned they were all doing the same thing!

When I asked what made those events so special for the residents they replied that attendance was low. So, as I was sitting on the bus reading this section of Ryan’s book, a light bulb went off in my head! “Why can’t we apply what he is saying to how we are planning our resident events?”

Before you start planning events, make certain you ask the residents what kind of events they would be interested in attending. Next, look over  prior resident events and attendance. See if there are common denominators among these events and the residents requests. This will give you a good base for deciding on future resident events.

At many properties it is the leasing manager, activities director and sometimes the marketing director’s responsibility to create resident events. Establish a process to assist the party planner with determining the marketing plan and attendance potential for each event.  Creating a  press release is the opportunity to ask and answer all of the relavent event details.

So what questions should you ask yourself before writing a press release?

1) Does the event fit the resident?

2) Will the event blow their mind?

3) What is the potential of the event?

4) Why is the event special?

When the resident events fit the needs of your community residents, it will be easier to market the event and increase attendance. If you  can’t answer all of these questions, then it is likely this event is not appropriate for your community. Remember to be open to resident and attendee feedback when during and after events.

Don’t get discouraged if the event met all the criteria listed but no one showed up.  Sometimes it’s only  a matter of timing. Also, keep in mind that marketing can make or break the success of an event. But that is for another blog in the near future, for now focus on making sure your resident events fit your residents – and not on what other people are doing.

Don’t give up on creating fun and engaging events that your residents like! If  the founders of  Airnib, Evernote, Dropbox and Instagram gave up when their products were taking a different direction then originally planed we would not have these great companies to utilize.

Share your event ideas with us in the comments below! We’d love to brag about your community in a follow-up article.