Hitting Refresh on These Multifamily Marketing Basics

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4 minute read

When investigating new ways to reach prospective residents, make sure not to leave these proven marketing tactics behind.

With platforms like TikTok taking off in popularity and the push for video content greater than ever, it can be incredibly easy to jump down the rabbit hole of social media innovation and let the tried-and-true multifamily marketing methods collect a little dust on the shelf.

It’s time to take out the dust cloth because the basic marketing strategies will always be the best foundation for every successful campaign.

While this by no means, is your “hall pass” for not learning and engaging in new marketing avenues, it is a strong reminder that the multifamily marketing basics still work and you shouldn’t let them get lost in the social media shuffle.

For a quick refresh, here are the top multifamily marketing basics that deserve your attention 24/7:

Email, Email, Email

I can’t stress enough how important email marketing is for generating new leads and retaining residents at your property. If you’re going to keep up any of “the basics” while exploring new trends, it should be emails.

Email marketing allows you to build relationships with new leads and current residents. It’s your best opportunity to repeatedly speak directly to them and get your property’s name in their inbox (and mind)— especially when it’s at a time that is convenient for them.

Tips for Achieving Email Consistency

With so many tasks to complete every day, and depending on the size of your team, it can be difficult to keep up consistent email marketing.

Which brings me to the first tip: Automate your email marketing.

If you’re still manually sending emails to leads, you’re wasting your precious time. If you haven’t already, I recommend creating a free account with an email marketing system like MailChimp and building out some email workflows; at least one for new leads and one for current residents. The moment you get an email from a contact, they should be entered into the appropriate workflow. This will ensure that leads are always getting emails from your property.

Another great tip is to draft email templates for common topics you will regularly communicate about like property updates, weather updates, local news and special resident events. This way, when you need to send out a timely email that is separate from your workflows, you have a template to work off of, cutting down on your execution time.

A Website with Easy Navigation

It doesn’t matter how modern or chic your property’s website is, if it doesn’t have easy navigation, you will lose leads.

Today’s renters aren’t patient; they want to be able to find what they’re looking for on a webpage in under a minute or they’re going onto the next. While your bold imagery and crisp design will catch their eye, clarity will keep them.

Here are the five things website visitors should be able to find within 30 seconds from arriving on your homepage:

​● Location and Contact Information
● Floorplans
​● Amenities List
● Image Gallery
● Resident Reviews

I recommend testing your entire team to find these items in under 30 seconds and if any take longer, you know where your navigation needs to be improved. 

A Google My Business Profile and Account

A critical component of getting your property seen by potential renters when they go to Google and search for “apartments near me” or “apartments in [city]” is having a Google Business Profile.

A Business Profile is basically Google’s term for your Google business listing. However, many people don’t realize that to actually manage your business listing, you need to create a separate Google My Business Account; creating one does not automatically create the other.

With a Google My Business Account, you will be able to edit and update the information on the listing as well as manage customer reviews.

Having these two accounts and keeping them updated is the single most important action you can take to improve the SEO and website traffic for your property online.

Achieving Balance in Marketing Strategies

There’s a reason why blogs, podcasts and webinars are still covering email marketing, websites and SEO for multifamily properties: Because they WORK. There’s also a reason why properties are experiencing tons of success through viral TikToks and sponsoring influencers to make posts: because it WORKS.

It’s important that you strive for a marketing strategy that encompasses the new trends that are popular as well as the time-tested strategies.

It isn’t always 50/50 though. As you learn more about what your audience of renters respond to best, you’ll be able to adjust where you devote your time.

Ashley Tyndall is Chief Relationship Officer for Criterion.B.