NEW ORLEANS – All real estate is local. Marketing should be too, it seems.
What works to reach potential residents at a senior property may not resonate at an apartment community geared toward young professionals.
“A trend can be a win in one asset class and a trap in another,” said Kara Rafferty, senior vice president of sales at Apartment Geofencing, at the National Apartment Association’s Apartmentalize Conference on June 18.
By looking at marketing tactics through a “trend-or-trap” framework, Raffery and Jessica Gooden, vice president of property, marketing, startup and pre-leasing operations at Hillpointe Residential, argued that operators could determine what hits with prospective renters. Trends can bring in new residents, while traps waste time with limited impact.
"When content feels real, authentic, intentional, frequent and audience-first, it's a trend. When every video feels like a commercial ... then it feels like a trap,” Gooden said.
But the trend-trap is only the start for evaluating marketing ideas. “It does not end with the trap method,” Rafferty said. “However, we recommend that you use that as a starting point to help question and understand where it falls on that strategic alignment, and even great ideas can be translated into ownership values.”
Great ideas can be communicated across many platforms. They can come across a bigger screen as streaming television ads. Or they can be spread on tablets and phones with short-form video.
TikTok and short-form videos featuring apartments
In a time when so much online feels like it could be fake or generated with artificial intelligence, authenticity matters.
“I think we all are at a point now where we know that every photo feels like it probably was edited in some way,” Gooden said.
According to Gooden, TikTok and short-form videos can feel more realistic than photos for apartment hunters looking to connect with a property.
“It actually humanizes the community, having your people in the videos,” Gooden said. “It makes it real life and creates that authentic engagement. It's the lifestyle beyond the static photos.”
Student housing, lease-ups, lifestyle-focused communities and resident storytelling were among the best use cases for short-form videos, according to Gooden. Resident spotlights, move-in days and “what I wish I knew before moving in” were among the popular content ideas.
“We're starting to see a lot more people that are actually wanting to be featured as residents on social and email and websites,” Gooden said.
Streaming apartment TV ads
While relying on social media and content creators to market properties is a relatively new phenomenon, the television commercial has been around for many decades.
It's still a viable advertising option, even in the streaming age. “It puts you on the biggest screen in the house, but it gives you full attention to someone when they're not actively looking for an apartment on their computer,” Rafferty said. “It gives you that attention that you can't get otherwise, earlier on in many cases, creating demand.”
Running streaming TV ads is a versatile marketing tactic that can be used for several objectives, according to Rafferty.
“We've done it for leasing, luxury-style positioning, competitive occupancy recovery or, my favorite, reputation solutions, reminding people that, ‘No, that thing that was said [about the property] was not true,’” Rafferty said.
Selling the property’s features, such as amenities or key access, also works well on streaming platforms. But Rafferty said marketers need to go a step further.
“We need to talk about the why, the passion and the story behind the property, and drive people to ‘I want to live there, not because my closet is big, not because I have a resort-style pool, but because I have a community,’” Rafferty said.
Click here to sign up to receive multifamily and apartment news like this article in your inbox every weekday.
