So here’s a shameless plug for a good friend of mine, Steve Lefkovits and his conference, the Apartment Internet Marketing Conference. It’s going to be Apr 29-May 1 in Huntington Beach. If you’re responsible for demand management—certainly marketing, but also pricing and/or sales—you should go to this conference. It’s the finest collection of discussions about marketing and demand generation by industry insiders and, sometimes more importantly, those outside multi-family. Here’s a few things I’m looking forward to:

The networking. I often get more from offhand conversations with colleagues and vendors than from the planned presentations—not that the latter aren’t good, just that serendipity is sometimes better. How to Win Friends presentation. Reputation management is one of the few parts of social media that I find compellingly useful to direct response business like MFH. There’s a lot of noise about it, so I’m looking forward to an outsider’s perspective on how to deal with ratings. And there’ll be more on ratings and reviews in other sessions as well. Gary Angel. Steve brings Gary in almost every year. I had the pleasure of co-presenting with him at a past AIM conference. Gary is one of the smartest, most analytical guys in marketing. No “management by anecdote” with Gary—just the facts! Mobile discussions. Where is mobile at? What do prospects and residents find most compelling? We know it’s growing—but where is it useful and where is it just a shiny bangle? I hope to (partially) answer that listening to conversations and presentations The New Social discussion at the networking lunch. Will we see real numbers and case studies that drive NOI? Or just what we wish people would do with social? Meat or fat—I’m going to listen in and blog back on what I think I heard. Creative discussions. There’s a lot of content on creative—how to be creative and still drive SEO, how to influence people sub-consciously, etc.  I’m looking forward to this nexus of analytics and creativity. Storytelling. Ask anyone who’s ever worked with me--I’ve been a huge fan of storytelling. Whether you’re pitching something to an executive or you’re trying to influence a prospect, storytelling connects at a primal level. Kudos to Steve for putting this session together. Career planning. The session on taking your career to the next level should have some great, practical advice from senior executives. Having sat in the C-suite myself, I know that many marketers are looked down upon as merely “balloon buyers” while a select few are recognized (and rewarded) for contributing to the strategic direction of the company. These execs will surely show us how to earn the right to be in the latter category. The bonus creativity session. According to the agenda, the content is still a secret (or maybe they still haven’t figured it out themselves). Either way, I’m anxious to see what it is. I know it will be good! The networking. Did I mention how important this is?!

And by the way, you can skip the session on changing terms of service. I hear the moderator’s a real dweeb :)

P.S. A brief shout out to Mike Mueller of LeaseHawk who founded this conference back when he owned Vaultware and then transitioned it to Steve.