Corporate branding and community asset branding are similar…but not exactly the same in multifamily.Multifamily corporate branding differs in its goals, audience, and the way it's rolled out. But the strategy is much the same:Get employee buy-inKeep things consistent and clearMaintain the brand promise Let's review all the aspects of corporate branding.Goals of Corporate BrandingThe goal with branding is to help a business—a company—be successful ...

Being able to brand for differentiation can be used to your complete and full advantage—if you know how to wield it. For Zipcode Creative client, Paragon Ranch, it was vital to find a way to serve up differentiation to attract the right residents. It came in the somewhat-unlikely form of pickleball (the fastest growing sport in the U.S.) Paragon Ranch is a newly launched multifamily development just outside of Cincinnati, Ohio. It's attracting pr ...

Multifamily Property Brand ActivationA brand gets built, and fully developed to set a property apart. But what happens if it's never put to work, and activation happens too late? Brand activation is crucial to drive engagement and create a successful leasing machine in multifamily. If you don't allow space and opportunity for a brand to connect with its desired audience, the value prospects place on your brand won't be strong or stable.Instead: c ...

Brand awareness for multifamily is tough. How can you measure it, exactly? Sure, residents may mention your community or brand by name in reviews or social posts, but even then it becomes difficult to get accurate data. Insights from experts, like our friends at Widewail, can provide insight on the number of times a brand name is mentioned; however, it may skew toward the negative, when a person is more likely to leave a specific review. That doe ...

The most common resident persona in multifamily is the career-focused, non-homeowning young professionals. But don't forget about those who just launched those young professionals into the world: empty nesters. This group of renters are the second most targeted group for apartment living.Knowing the purchase habits, preferences and ideals of a specific demographic can help you understand and cater to empty nesters for your apartment community as ...

Come along for a little "day in the life" in which we brand an apartment community. First things first: A little caffeine. Then it's creative juices and collaboration to the max. Our client makes the first move with…a brand questionnaire.1. Brand QuestionnaireThe Brand Questionnaire is the best way of introducing the brand to us. You fill in the information, and it's one handy place to see everything you know about your community, location, and y ...

Apartment Branding for Faster Lease-UpsWe've probably all heard at some point "Build it and they will come." But that little phrase carries a lot of questions with it: What should I build? Who will come? And how quickly will they come? It's just a phrase—but we'd like to offer as an alternative: "Brand it, and they will come faster!" In the multifamily industry, apartment branding hasn't always been the priority. Apartment communities are built o ...

If you're in the middle of making your budget, we wish you the best. (But you can at least have good music and strong coffee accompany us as we crunch numbers and figure out where to put our money.) Let this year be the year you give brand development the budget it deserves. This applies to you, corporate operator, and you, property-level brands, and everyone in-between. Your marketing budget could bring you up a few notches if you use it right. ...

A multifamily operator will tell us 9 times out of 10 that their target residents are "young professionals." What does that terminology mean? How can you brand your community to reach these young professionals?Start by understanding "young professionals"—their wants, needs, desires, and habits. Typically young professionals are beginning their careers in corporate or technical fields. Knowing who falls into this group can help tailor the communit ...

Brand development in the multifamily market is the first step for the attention, engagement, and loyalty of your current residents and prospects. Brand reputation can create demand for units, while brand experience can keep your residents renewing. But can you leverage brand development to raise the rent? How can you help boost your community's perceived value—through the eyes (and psyche) of your residents? Follow along to see how what residents ...

 One of the best rules for business: know the customer before marketing the product. Likewise for multifamily communities, you must know your multifamily customer persona. (But we like to call it the Ideal Resident Profile (IRP) in multifamily.)When you have enough information about who you most want to reach—you can capture their attention, resonate with the audience you need, build a relationship, and retain your current residents through ...

When you know what your residents want, you can focus on giving it to them. When we saw Samantha Skrobot's Linkedin post on resident survey data, we weren't necessarily surprised, but we were reminded of how much everyone really hates the term "luxury" and the lease rates that get nudged up just because you slap that word on your website.Now, we know marketers can't control rental rates. We can't improve the quality of construction for our commun ...

Apartment branding should go beyond the obvious. When we say "obvious" we're talking: logo, visual identity, and verbal identity. We talk about those things a lot. They're essential. Developing those primary three branding components are the foundation for everything else, informing visuals and messaging. However, going farther and deeper into beyond the basics, you'll be doing two important things: 1) Doing your brand justice; and2) Beating out ...

Residents are interested in a community because of its location, but also because of what it offers. Does it have what they need? Does it have what they want? Amenities can be part of your brand strategy to achieve better occupancy rates and less turnover. But you need to figure out how to "uplevel" your amenities—they might be common, but the way you talk about them and tailor them to your ideal resident can make all the difference. It different ...

The value of branding in multifamily can feel intrinsic—and intangible. But if you could determine the ROI of your branding, you'd see just how valuable the existence of, the quality of, and the consistency of brand is for a multifamily community. But how can you measure the way people feel? What numbers can you apply to "they really get me, and I'm telling all my friends"? Well, take branding vs. marketing. Yes, marketing is so much easier to me ...