This is a PAY per RESULT Apartment Marketing Solution.
We have found that potential residents fill out applications after work once they have gotten home. This means that rental applications are submitted after your leasing office has probably closed. Our research suggests that applications that are responded to within the hour lease more than 50% of the time. Because of this we have professional leasing agents at our central office between the hours of 8am to 2am which ensures that more than 90% of all applications are responded to within an hour. Even if your leasing office is not open, you ...
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Resident Lead Generation
This is a PAY per RESULT apartment marketing solution.
Our Resident Lead Generation solution generates 2-3 daily new calls. How do we do this? We have identified some of the Internets leading web presence companies. We place weekly updated ads of every floor plan on each of these companies' websites. Craigslist, Whitepages, Google Maps, Yahoo Local, etc...
Customer Feedback - Beckie Foust
"Occupancy100 generates 1-2 qualified leads per day"
"Currently Occupancy100 generates 1-2 qualified leads per day, and 3-4 new applications a week. We love it. Most of our new tenants have come from occupancy100s services."
Beckie Foust Property Manager - ...
Finding Better Residents
Finding better qualified residents is essential to the success of your multi-unit property. Increasing apartment occupancy can be done through two main methods:
The first method for finding good, qualified residents is to heavily advertise your apartment so that you capture as many potential residents as possible, and then weed out the many unqualified rental applicants. This method of resident acquisition brings you a plethora of potential residents but heavy advertising is expensive.
The second method for finding great qualified renters is to only advertise to renter prospects who are more likely to qualify. Acquiring renter traffic though this method of resident ...
Apartment Marketing Solutions
Difficult Economic Times Have Affected the Apartment Industry
With difficult economic times... Unemployment is rising... Delinquencies dog revenue... more and more potential renters are doubling up... Traffic is slow... Occupancy is edging downward...
Apartment Communities need more resident prospects:
Calls - with so many renters doubling up we can't afford not to generate as many as possible,
Visits - statistics show that results are much stronger from online contacts if responded to within the first hour,
Emails - increasingly resident leads do not want to talk on the phone or otherwise interact. Some properties we serve have closed over 10% of their leases without a ...
Why would a great website not necessarily make an effective website for an apartment community?
Prospective renters don’t consider renting apartments in the same way they look at purchasing a good book, a computer, or perhaps selecting a dry cleaning service. There are some similarities. Once a consumer purchases a computer, they are commited for an extended period of time to make use of the product along with its weaknesses and strengths. However, a computer is a decision that is not impacted by many external factors. Choosing a computer doesn’t create a need to know where you will go to the doctor, or how far it is to the grocery store, or where the nearest fast food may be, etc. On the other hand choosing to rent an apartment can and should raise all these issues for prospective multifamily residents.
While over 50% of apartments searches begin on line and over 70% if they are moving in from out of town, as individual complexes achieving Internet visibility can be tough. This has led many apartment communities to conclude that they do not need a website. Instead they rely on the ILS community to provide web visibility.
Allowing the ILS to be your initial Internet contact is a reasonable approach to gain access to consumers, but it is not reasonable in a world where the consumer increasingly would like to make a decision without speaking to anyone that this is all the consumer will seek to know.
Consumers and therefore renters are seeking providers that will show them what they need, clearly explain what their service offers for their need, and allow them to purchase without further use of their time. The ILS is not and should not be positioned to do this for you. As the apartment manager, operator, or owner, you are uniquely positioned to provide robust and compelling community information.
Because of this the website for an apartment community is NOT equivalent to a typical “great” website. Because of this, the Apartment Marketing Site is a bit different animal. First, there is no need for glitzy high cost web design for a strong multifamily community website. The key is well organized information that allows the consumer to fully understand the services, shopping, sites, etc. that the community offers.
Today, Bloomberg ran an article that states an expectation of deflationary pressure throughout 2010. The principal driver behind this conclusion is the weakened employment environment throughout the United States. As a results as owners and managers we have to consider how this effects are operations and asset choices.
From a leasing perspective, this is extends the pressure households are under to accept living situations that were not acceptable in the past. Rebuilding America’s wealth means lower fixed cost choices for a large percentage of us. Owners should be considering rental options that will reduce tenants total cost of living decisions. Our affiliated properties have been developing fixed income solutions and solutions to increase the tenant density in our units taking advantage of our generally abundant parking, often good access to public transportation, and other factors supporting this.
From an operations perspective, we must be reviewing our labor costs and assure that we remain competitive. Additionally, as a sector that is likely to recover more quickly in this economy, we may have talent opportunities that don’t often exist. Also, expect and pursue significant reductions in costs for supplies and contract services.
As potential property investors, good deals today must offer extremely strong fundamentals as market conditions may continue to erode property values over the next 24 months. And, for properties already owned, lower leverage is the choice path.
Today I would like to evaluate the use of 7 techniques that will set up an enjoyable work environment for your staff and greatly impact your leasing success. These 7 techniques are meant to help you give prospective tenant that great first impression that means so much in $$$.
Curb Appeal – When a prospective resident drives by your property, they have to say WOW! Some of the most economic ways of making that happen are: Keeping the property clean, frequent upkeep of the landscape, and every 1-3 years (depending on need) power-washing the exterior of your apartment and leasing office. Not only will this attract prospective residents, it will help with resident retention, and will make it more enjoyable place of work for your staff.
Lighting – The type of light and the placement of light fixtures is important both inside your leasing office and throughout your property.
First, lets address the issue of lighting outside. It is important that your property have lighting throughout for various reasons, but the two most important ones are safety and careful lighting of your apartment’s curb side sign (if you dont have one, you should) will add aesthetic value to your apartment at night.
Lighting fixture should be placed higher than eye level, because low lamp like fixtures can shine direct light into people’s eyes. There are several types of light, but the best and most calming light is natural light (because of this, sky lights are great). The human body natural physiological response to light is general awareness and the general psychological response is happiness. The physiological excitation elicits a psychological response of happiness. The best way to explain this is: What is a nice day? Sunny and warm or dark and gloomy? When it is a nice day outside, people tend to be more active and typically enjoy themselves more.
Color – Colors are a second important component of the environment. Dark colors and red (fire-like) colors are the worst choice. You will want to have light pastel colors that promote calm and secure feelings. Careful color selections can make prospective residents feel happy right when they walk in your door, and will keep your staff happier for a longer period of time. Read more about the psychological response to colors.
Smell – This should be fairly self explanatory, but I have been in dozens of apartment offices that are musty! If your office does not smell good there is a big problem. The physiological response to bad musty smells is to leave the area! When you smell something old, musty, bad, etc, the sensory nerves in your brain trigger a “get out of here” or “dont eat this” response. So please, find a happy, soothing fragrance, it will do wonders for your prospective resident’s first impression, not to mention your staff will enjoy it as well.
Sound – Soothing sounds such as running water have evolutionarily become a source of happy thoughts for humans. When I was an undergraduate, I participated in a study (as in I was a test subject) where we were asked to sit in a waiting room for 30 minutes before we were asked random questions about our week and our day. There were two test groups. One was placed in a “waiting” room with sounds, such as flowing water (like from a fountain) and light music. The second test group sat in the same empty “waiting” room without the soothing sounds. Six-hundred students and faculty participated in this study (300 in each scenario). As you may have guessed, people waiting in the room with soothing sounds, answered the questions positively 80% of the time, while people sitting in the room without the sound, answered questions positively only 48% of the time. SO, hopefully if you follow this logic, your staff and prospective tenants will respond positively 80% of the time.
Comfortable Seating – Ok, this is a big deal especially when you want to have a prospective resident fill out an application or a lease. Sitting comfortably elicits a response from the parasympathetic system (or in other words, a calming effect). It is also smart to have snacks near by, because when the parasympathetic system is stimulated, a secondary response is slight hunger (so a bowl of different types of candy works quite well).
A Mirror – This tip came from one of my neighbors. For over 25 years he has been a customer service consultant for several companies including Ford, and GMC. Having a full wall sized mirror behind your front desk at your leasing office will do many great things. First, it will make your office look much bigger than it actually is (this is great for properties with small leasing offices), this also positively affects your prospective resident’s first impression of the property because they wont feel as cramped in a small office as they usually would. Secondly, having a full wall sized mirror will help you deal with angry residents. Putting a large (full wall) mirror behind the customer service desk will drastically reduce angry resident outbursts. The reason it works: People do not like watching themselves be angry (just like you dont like to watch them get angry), it is a subconscious psychological reflex to seeing their angry selves staring back. Simple, but effective.
We have been working hard to create as many helpful videos for you to enjoy as possible. Here is a video that explains our apartment marketing solutions, and offers a great overview on Tenant Lead Generation, and the Online Rental Application.
Is your sign a differentiator for your apartment property? Are you showing photos and discussing the items that set you apart?
I know this is an area we’ve often failed to do as well as we should. If you would like more good insights to this visit Lisa Trosien’s Apartment Marketing Blog. She offers some great specific insights we can all take advantage of on this subject area.
For communities we serve, convenience is a differentiator. Our online application and other services make it easier for resident prospects to sign up and the results are dramatic. In one market, having a phone number only produces 20% of the total results that having a phone number and an online application will produce.
Natural search engine optimization (define) can often require an investment of time and money that many online businesses aren’t prepared to make. In its most elemental form, SEO consists of three components: technical optimization to ensure content can be crawled by the engines, content optimization to help get indexed for targeted words and phrases that convert, and link building, which generally speaks for itself. What most folks fail to understand is all three elements are bound to each other.
You’ll only get a so-so performance from link-building efforts if you invest in creating phenomenal content that is hidden behind an uncrawlable online destination within an unindexable content management system (CMS). To make your content seen, it must be visible to both search engine spiders and humans, as well as located at an unappended, static URL, to be considered optimal.
Similarly, link building is predominantly about creating link bait, but link bait only works with great content that can be promoted through old and new marketing venues alike. You have to invest in content creation. You also need to promote the heck out of it.
Before you jump straight into link building, understand just how ready your site is for serving up some link bait. To do that, we need to agree what link bait is.
Eric Ward, also known as Link Moses, describes link bait best: “What many people call linkbait or Link Bait, I call content.” Essentially, link bait can be just about any content you create anywhere on the Web that inspires other people to link to it. Inbound links can be aggregated to a page within a site, a blog, a forum, an archived e-mail newsletter, a photo journal, a product review, an all-Flash for fun page, or something similar.
The ultimate result of link bait is to bring higher traffic to your site and, consequently, improve your search engine positioning for targeted keywords or keyword phrases. The real question is: are you really ready for creating some link bait?
Let’s look at some obvious possibilities for creating link bait. Baiting the hook with link-worthy content usually centers around six different constructs. On the upside, there are news items, helpful resources, humor, and entertainment. On the downside, there are controversial opinions, confrontational attacks, and fear mongering.
News items can be leveraged to produce link bait by just about anyone for nearly anything. News items and newsworthy events work well for garnering global, regional, and especially local links. So you first have to ask if your site can be a reliable source for serving up current news and events.
You can grow a solid readership that turns to you when they want to know what’s happening in the neighborhood, community, city, state, country, or world. But first, an area of your site has to be able to serve up the content in a technically optimal manner.
You can’t just set up a news and information section within your site and expect your first link-bait expedition to be a winner. That’s why incorporating blog software like WordPress or Moveable Type into your site might be a necessary prerequisite if your CMS can’t handle building out an optimal article archival process. As I said earlier, link building can require an investment of time and money before you ever start to figure out what type of content will be created for link bait.
Remember, creating link bait isn’t always about having an article make it to Digg’s home page. If every time you post notable news items on your site you gain 1, 2, 5, or 10 prominent links, then the articles did their job. Don’t underestimate small increases in legitimate link-building initiatives. In many cases earning just a few high-quality links can help you attain your link-building goals more efficiently than trying to hit an article out of the link-bait park every time you send an article up to bat.
If the news or event-based link bait works on pages within your site, don’t hesitate to bring the content to the forefront of the site, even if it’s a storefront, especially if the links you’re earning help build anchor text links for highly coveted keywords and phrases.
Providing news or event notices to a virtual community is a great way for you and your business to become an active member in actual communities. Annual events, in particular, can be the focus of link bait year after year. It’s just a matter of recognizing the opportunity to meld one occasion with another to channel your hard-earned links to an optimal online destination. That’s the great thing about link bait: when you figure out what works, you can readily recycle the process again and again.
Next time, we’ll look at a few link-bait campaigns that worked and discuss some of the trappings of producing controversial content. Until then, think about how news and events or how-to content could be a part of your overall link-building strategy to determine if you are really ready to create some link bait.
Physiological responses to visual stimuli that make you feel (Psychology) happy, secure, and calm.
Lets explore the simple psychological and physiological responses in humans and apply these to how we can improve customer experience.
Physiology is what the body physically does (the phys- part of the word) when stimulated by the environment.
Psychology is how your brain interprets physical stimuli or in other words how it makes you feel.
Psychological and Physiological responses are completely different and separate responses to stimuli from the present environment (sound, colors, people, room arrangements, sitting vs standing, and many other factors are part of the environment) although physiological responses affect psychological responses. It is important to be able to differentiate between these as an understanding of such responses will help you create an effective environment to deal with all sorts of problems. An effective environment will help your leasing consultants close more leases, your staff will be happier and more comfortable at work, and it will even help calm angry residents.
So I will give you this scenario: A resident in your multi-unit property is furious because they have had a maintenance request open for 3 weeks, and no one has even contacted about them. Oh oh! This could mean trouble as an angry resident will not only cause you a personal nightmare, there is a distinct possibility that it could cost you a lease or more!
What if your leasing agent is in the process of having a potential new resident fill out a lease an application, or even a lease agreement?!
So what do you do? How do you set up your leasing office environment to calm an angry resident or help promote trust to get more applications and leases?
Today lets look at the visualcomponents of the environment:
Light is the first and most important component, not just the amount of light but the type of light can make a big difference. There are several types of light, but the best and most calming light is natural light. The human body natural physiological response to light is general awareness and the general psychological response is happiness. But why is this?
Physiology – When your eyes and skin are exposed to light several sympathetic (or rather in simple terms, excitation) responses are triggered. The stronger the source of light the more this response is elicited.
Psychology – The physiological excitation elicits a psychological response of happiness. The best way to explain this is: What is a nice day? Sunny and warm or dark and gloomy?
The sun’s light is the strongest and best source of light (plus its free!). Having several large windows will allow you to utilize this beautiful natural resource.
Good light = happy and focused staff + happy prospective residents + helps create happy calming feelings in an angry resident.
Colors are a second important component of the environment. Dark colors and red (fire-like) colors are the worst choice. You will want to have light colors that promote calm and secure feelings. The color of your apartment community leasing office can have a big impact on leasing success. Click on Apartment to read more about the psychology of color.
Physiology – Light colors reflect more light or rather “light up the room”. Again like above this triggers the excitation of the human nervous system.
Psychology – Like above, excitation of the nervous system caused by natural light promotes feelings of happiness.
Light or rather pastel like colors reflect more light, and promote feelings of happiness. Here is something to think about: Do you remember your high school yearbook? What color were the eyes of the superlative winner of “the best eyes”? Almost all of the time they are light blue.
Light pastel colors have higher light reflectance = happy and focused staff + happy prospective residents + helps create happy calming feelings in an angry resident.
To read more about how colors affect your staff’s mood and concentration click on apartment marketing.
Look for our post tomorrow on how sounds can help your customer’s experience.
So you have an apartment to lease. Either a weekly lease, monthly or yearly. And you’ve done all the things, including newspaper, CraigsList, local apartment guide, even a few fliers to neighbors. And you still have some un-rented inventory.
What’s next?
Make sure your web site and total online presence is where it needs to be, from email to website to Google Adwords to Search Engine Optimization for Google, Bing and Yahoo. A few ideas:
Make your photos real. So often, websites show canned or old photos, and have non-descriptive language. If you can’t afford a professional photographer, get out there with a camera yourself and take lots of creative angles. You can hundreds of photos with a digital camera; shoot away. Be creative. Yes, you want images that show the room, but you want the images to POP out at the reader.
Show floor plans. Potential tenants want to imagine what they will be getting.
Make sure the right numbers are on your website. Yes, you want the office number on the site, but do remember to keep the rest of the telephone numbers on your website. A few minutes delay might mean you miss out on a tenant.
Make it Melrose Place: No, we aren’t saying that Heather Locklear will need to be there. Instead, what we mean is that you need to “brand” the name and place as a community and way of life. If your clientele is just out of college, you want to play up the social aspect. If it is mid-life folks, then there is another approach to take. Go around and talk to the people who have lived in the apartments the longest, and like it. They will give you the scoop on what makes your place unique. Remember, outside of the signage and the architecture, your “brand” is the people who live and work at your complex. Consider having a web-page where you only list former tenants and what they loved about the place. “I lived there in 1973. Gosh those were some great days at Piney Apartments!”
Meet the staff: Do you have a lawn company or maintenance man? Show them on the site. Not only does it give them a boost, it tells the potential tenant that this complex is a place where the staff is valued. That message will translate to the potential tenant as this is a place that will take care of me.
Talk to Realtors. Realtors who do relocations might be a good source of referrals.
Use Google Adwords. With Adwords, you pay for clicks, not exposure. That means that your apartment community or resort gets exposure even if you don’t pay.
Use lots of noun-based copy. Search engines can only find your information through words, and adjectives are not as important as nouns. So use lots of words and descriptions for your apartments. Don’t use lots of descriptive words. Instead, use facts, such as size, color and amenities. For instance, you would say “oleander-lined walks” rather than “pretty” walks, or you might say “brick-lined paths” rather than just nice landscaping. This might sound extreme, but you can even mention paint colors, flower beds and the like. Read our tips on Search Engine Basics for ideas.
Have faith! While the economy is in an awful spot, everyone’s in this mess so just keep at it and you just might even build up a waiting list.
Know your architecture: At some point, someone designed your apartment buildings with a vision, however modest. Make sure you know that. For instance, if it is a complex built in 1962 by a local architect or developer or contractor, mention that on the site. People have confidence in other people; you are trying to differentiate yourself and every tidbit of information helps.
What are the benefits? Find benefits where you don’t think there are benefits: If you have shaded parking, that’s a benefit. If you have a pool, make sure that it is an”intimate” pool or a “jungle” pool or a pool with “dozens of deck chairs and card tables where residents play chess every Tuesday.”
Take advantage of Social Media. You can spend a lot of time in social media sites like Twitter and Facebook, promoting your apartments. Sometimes it pays off, sometimes not. But even a little bit of effort helps to get search engines like Google and Bing to find your name, and associate your apartment name with keywords.
In the neighborhood: Don’t be afraid of old fashioned shoe leather. Yes, the web is powerful. But make sure you make yourself known to other nearby apartment communities and businesses that are near to your apartments. They will certainly be able to refer people if they know of someone.
Post the rules but be flexible: When new tenants are hard to find, you need to keep the ones you have. Better to train an old tenant to be a good tenant than to have to find new ones. That being said, a person who finds your apartment over the web wants to know some of the expectations. For instance, are guests quiet at the pool after 9 p.m., or is there a Friday night pool party? How many parking spaces?
Make sure your site is running properly. Look at your site on different computers and browsers. Does it load quickly? Do you have analytic software installed so you know where your traffic originates and what they are looking for? Do you have all the pages up that you need?
The responsibility of renting a property is critical, but simply generating traffic and having a trained sales staff will not rent units. We are operators in a commodity market. By definition, this implies that as owners and managers we have to provide some basic underlying conditions to rent.
First on the list, as operators we gain nothing by trying to sharply under price the market and if we over price the market, we will not rent. This is a delicate item because if we price too low we lose money and if we price too high we will not rent at all. Further, this means we have to be competitive on concessions as well as basic price. With all this in place, if as owners and operators, we can establish a position of greater value we will have a sustainable edge in the market.
Next, our property must be priced to compete with properties on amenities. Visits and calls are generally determined by bedrooms, bathrooms, and amenities. Pricing to fit against the competition in this area is critical.
A clean well maintained property is another basic point. Property management processes and procedures that assure this are critical to renting units. As always, customer service wins the day.
Finally, social condition will kill renting and can be a great rent enabler. If resident prospects see a clean area, late model vehicles, quiet and low key resident interactions, etc. Residents and resident prospects need to feel safe in the neighborhood. The probability begin increasing quickly that they will choose your community as their new home if safe, clean, and friendly conditions.
About 55% of Hispanics respond well to ads in Spanish. Also, Radio and television is generally the best mode of advertising based on selling results.
When you considers Hispanics are $860 billion dollar market segment, ignoring this segment is at your own risk. This will be an even greater fact as the segment is expected to grow to over $1 trillion by early in the coming decade.
So you have an apartment to lease. Either a weekly lease, monthly or yearly. And you’ve done all the things, including newspaper, CraigsList, local apartment guide, even a few fliers to neighbors. And you still have some un-rented inventory.