Electronic communication is dominating our waking hours.

According to Adobe Campaign’s third annual consumer email survey, people spend 5.4 hours every weekday checking email. Add that to the nearly two hours per day consumers spend on social networks, and that’s nearly seven-and-a-half of our 16 waking hours.

Getting consumer attention in this saturated, hyper-connected consumer environment isn’t easy. So, how can you make your messages stand out?

Data-driven personalized interactions

Prospective renters are tired of having to set the same preferences and fill out the same forms over and over again in order to shop for their next home. They want to complete these tasks once and for the property managers to provide some degree of personalized interaction based on those preferences.

This expectation will be even more important when Generation Z, the next big multifamily market, reaches renting age. According to a WP Engine study, 50 percent of Gen Z consumers said they would stop visiting websites that don’t anticipate what they need, like or want.

Property managers need to utilize technology that remembers a person’s browsing history, automatically redirects a prospect to the floor plan they spent the most time on, and auto-fills their contact form or online leasing form.

Leverage advancements in social media marketing

The industry has been talking about the role of social media since Facebook was a private company, which in tech time was a hundred years ago. Yet most multifamily owner/operators still aren’t leveraging social media to advance their engagement strategy with renters.

This boils down to one thing: missed opportunities. Some 84% of millennials said social opinions influence their purchase decisions, while Boomers are 58 percent more likely to visit a company’s website after encountering them on social media.

Every apartment community should be focused on amping up its social media presence. That means running a Facebook page that publishes local, meaningful content, running social media ads to attract new renters, starting a YouTube channel with videos of onsite events and tours, posting weekly content to Instagram and encouraging residents to engage with you on these social channels. In addition, Facebook has openly stated that it is moving promoted posts out of the feeds of broader audiences. Social advertising is now mandatory to bring into the streams of our target renters.

Use ‘snackable’ videos to create authenticity

YouTube has transformed how people across generations consume video content. In fact, video is the most shared content among Baby Boomers and the most popular form of content they consume. Gen Zers pretty much live on YouTube. But more importantly, YouTube ranks first among Gen Zers when it comes to shopping recommendations.

Today’s multifamily marketers should take note and add video to their marketing strategy, sharing content that’s both relevant and meaningful to their target audience. Videos have to be shareable, entertaining and deliver an authentic engagement with your brand, while adding value to residents and prospective renters. They also have to capture the genuine personality of the property or they’ll be judged unfavorably in the long run.

Consumer preferences are constantly changing as technology empowers more convenience and affects the ways in which we communicate. The better you can keep up with these changes, the more effective you will be in connecting with residents in a hyper-connected world. But throughout your efforts, it’s critically important to maintain digital authenticity to connect in today’s hyper-connected world.

Sources:

How much time do we spend on Social Media? MediaKix.com. December 2016.

Adobe Consumer Email Report 2017. Slideshare.net. August 2017.