Those who quickly adapt tend to thrive. This skill has become essential to many businesses since the pandemic began spreading in March.  A positive consequence of the pandemic is prospects are following suit with widespread use of digital tools, online commerce, and virtual engagement. 

I recently played host to another lunch and learn which explored the challenges multifamily properties faced while trying to market to shifting consumer behavior during the pandemic. Guests Liv Gabrielsen, Director of Marketing for Bainbridge, and Scott Papenfus, Director of Strategic Partnerships for LCP360, chatted about the creative ways they’ve adapted efforts and the true impact the pandemic has had on multifamily marketing efforts.

Shifting Marketing Efforts 

When asked about general big shifts  as a result of the pandemic, Liv mentioned  what most businesses have experienced, consumers embracing the digital experience. 

“For multifamily, what it did is forced our industry to embrace all things digital as we saw stay-at-home orders. The COVID pandemic made us shift what we're doing to ensure we can meet consumer demands in a 100% digital environment.”

She added that the industry knew they would need to support  consumers' digital needs  eventually. The pandemic accelerated that  process. 

“We've known this for years; it's been moving in this direction,” Liv says. “For me, it was still a little bit of a shock of sorts — how fast we had to lean into some of the things or behaviors we were already thinking about, then suddenly over the course of a couple of weeks went from ‘Yeah, we're going that way’ to ‘Now this is it.’”

Scott shared from a technology company’s perspective they saw a huge increase in the number of virtual tours.

“You can literally look at a graph and just see this huge spike in virtual tours when the pandemic hit,” he says. “One of the key things we're seeing is more and more people on-site are using our guided virtual tour or mirrored virtual tour.”

He explains many propects are not touring alone, instead they are doing so virtually with a leasing agent on-site who shares their knowledge and expertise about the property while customizing the tour for the prospect. 

“I've really seen an uptick in interest is people wanting to perform kind of a hybrid — it's a virtual tour, but it's actually led by somebody on-site,” says Scott.

“For multifamily, we want that face-to-face interaction because our communities are more than just four walls,” Liv says. “It's the community, the environment and the lifestyle. So, how do we communicate that in a digital way when we are removing these on-site visits? That was the challenge — we knew we had to provide a full picture of what it's like to live in a Bainbridge community.” 

Providing Community & Conversation

Cutting through the clutter has been top of mind for every marketer and sales team during the pandemic.  When the world shifted from in-person to online, inboxes and social media channels quickly became flooded with businesses trying to connect with consumers.  The challenge: finding a way to stand out amongst the sea of competitors.  

“More conversational communication is an important piece,” Liv says. “For our email nurturing campaigns, communication with somebody looking to move in 30 days out is very different from your communication with someone looking to move 120 days out or greater.” 

Liv adds the tendency to treat all leads the same fails to address the specific information prospects seek. For those looking to move within the next month, provide a video showcasing a unit available for move-in. If communicating with somebody looking further down the road, give them a general idea of your community, amenities and surrounding neighborhood.

Integrating Digital Tools to Increase Efforts

When asked about what new tools emerged as rock stars during the past several months, both Liv and Scott look not only for innovation but for tools that integrate easily into their existing platforms. 

“For quite some time people were adding individual tools, and that's great. But as the end-user, I want a seamless experience,” Scott says. “I want to be able to go from the top, all the way down to a signed lease, and I want an easy process.”

“I think that's what that's what end-users are going to expect,” he adds. “We've seen it in other industries, sometimes multifamily can be a little slower adopting. And I think this [the pandemic] just kicked that into high gear.”

“To piggyback off that, innovation is important for us and also the ease of use, not only for our teams who are dealing with the day-to-day of the technology, but also from the user experience for the consumer specifically,” Liv says.

“Another tool we pay for is the tour-scheduling capabilities on our website,” she adds. “That has been a huge benefit for us and given the ability for consumers to schedule tours in a way that they feel most comfortable with.” 

The past few months forced all sides of business to adapt and discover new ways to transact, while transforming the future ‘nice to have’ technologies to ‘we needed that yesterday’ tools. Along with adapting, Liv emphasizes staying true to your brand with messaging that’s engaging, beneficial and informative.