Lease-up marketing efforts are one of the most pertinent and strenuous tasks in the multi-family industry. Some would even argue that the work that goes into a lease-up is even more exhausting than pres-leasing. Once your building is complete and you've invested a large sum of money on construction, electrical, appliances, and other amenities, it's time to start thinking about how you're going to make ends meet with loan repayments and staff salaries.
It is important to note that marketing efforts alone will not fill your building. Yes, it is definitely the most integral part ... but there's more to filling up units than just putting an ad in your local newspaper or boosting a post on social media. You need a good team to work with. Marketing is only half of the lead to lease process. You also need a good, responsive leasing team in place to work the leads that you deliver. The marketing person’s main role is to setup a system that will deliver as many high quality leads as possible. Once those leads are logged into a CRM tool, it is then up to the leasing team to take that lead and close on it. Here's how we were able to fill 50 Downtown Tulsa apartment units in 45 days ... and, coincidentally, during the off-season.
I am not going to give away all the secretes, but here are some important points on how an aggressive, well-thought-out marketing campaign can successfully get a building to full occupancy quickly.
If you're collaborating with another marketing agency on a full brand guide, make sure this has been fully approved before you start your efforts. Your marketing plan needs to take these items into consideration. In this particular case, all marketing assets, including logo, color scheme, fonts, and typefaces were created and produced by myself so this sped up the process.
A full lease-up plan needs to be fully ready to roll out before construction is done, or before the owners closes on the building. You cannot wait to start to put your plan together after the building is "move-in ready." Your lease-up marketing plan will take several weeks of research prior to even putting the main pieces together, and will most certainly need time to get approval from ownership / management. In doing your initial research, ask yourself questions like: (1) what is the typical demographic of person already living in the area (2) is that the same demographic that ownership is looking for based on projected rental rates (3) is that demographic changing or steady (4) are there other demographics in the nearby surrounding areas that could also be a fit. The answers to these questions are going to determine the type(s) of marketing platforms you're going to want to use. In order to reach the right audience, you have to market to them using the avenues they're already looking at.
Your website is the #1 priority. All marketing efforts eventually point back to the website. This is where leads are captured so it needs to be up and running before any other marketing efforts are turned on.
Once your audience is well defined, you can start selecting the marketing platform(s) you need to use. It is absolutely imperative that you don't put all your eggs in one basket from the start. The first several weeks of marketing are looked upon as a test period. Don't just throw a bunch of money at Facebook Ads or PPC, turn it on, and then walk away. Put a little money towards each platform, look at the results, and let that determine which platforms are working and which aren't.
You need to consistently monitor the performance of all of your campaigns AND see how they're getting people to your website. Take a look at your web stats and take note of where the most site entrances are coming from. See how many users staying on the site after click in from one of your platforms. If the numbers look good, you may consider adding more marketing dollars to that platform. If not, you'll need to dig in and see why users from a particular platform are not staying on the website and make the necessary changes.
As stated earlier, I am not going to fully disclose everything that was done to achieve full occupancy in 45 days. And, honestly, any strategy that needs to be implemented is going to vary based on things like demographics, time of year, and building location to name a few. Probably the most important thing to take away from this article is that you need to ensure that good marketing efforts are in place from the start and that all the avenues (website, social media, AdWords, etc) are working together successfully. Many property owners think that posting their apartments on a Facebook page or taking out an ad in a local newspaper is going to lease up their building. Yeah, no, that's wrong. There's so much more that goes into a lease-up than "the standards." Marketing doesn't come as an out-of-the-box solution. It needs to be tailored based on the items noted above, not to mention, built in a way that is distinguished from other competing apartment / multifamily communities in the area. Make sure you hire a good marketing professional that's going to use marketing dollars efficiently by reaching the right prospects at the lowest possible cost. That is the very definition of good marketing.
PUBLISHED NOVEMBER 12, 2019