Apartment Marketers Find Value When Combining Analytics, Creativity
Strategy should include balance to be most effective in today’s competitive rental environment.
Including left-brain (analytical) and right-brain (creative) mindsets leads to more successful marketing efforts that appeal to both clients and management.
One without the other can create unhealthy imbalance and missed opportunities, or worse. Presenters at the Apartment Innovation and Marketing Conference on Monday in Huntington Beach, Calif., explained how cohesion can help property projects thrive.
Esther Bonardi, Vice President at REACH by RentCafe, led a panel “Right Brain & Left Brain: A Beautiful (Marketing) Mind” with Melissa Cartagena, Senior Director, Digital Marketing at Greystar; and Sarah Wieman, Senior Manager of Branding & Marketing at PRG Real Estate.
Wieman used proprietary research to show how much impact the right colors – ones that are cool and calm (ocean spray happens to be the 2022 color of the year), using the most attractive fonts (clean and simple) and interior design (Japandi and Dark Academia) greatly influence prospects’ decisions to rent.
“Your colors and fonts are things you can use to really make your brand stand out,” Wieman said. “I’m not expert at writing in cursive, but an [elegant] font [can resonate] better with prospects. Even property images have influence.” (One Wieman property was depicted in beautiful water-color drawn sketches.)
PRG Real Estate data show younger prospects are now more interested in seeing property shots rather than those that focus more on lifestyle – an abrupt trend reversal from the past few years, according to many in the industry.
Using Proper Protocols
Cartegna cautioned that website design, for example, must follow protocols such as fair housing and being ADA compliant.
“Keep your online navigation easy and simple,” she said. “Use Google analytics to understand what’s working for your marketing strategy. If you are going to include a bot, make sure it’s a real bot and not a button bot.”
Cartegna said it’s wise to invest in search-engine optimization (SEO).
“Be sure that your content will help your organic rankings,” she said. “Even your online reviews can be helpful. They include language that the algorithms will pick up. And don’t put multiple phone numbers or addresses on your site. Google doesn’t like that.”
She said companies should not be afraid to use automation tools because they will save an onsite team’s time without compromising effectiveness.
Wieman added that “it’s not always about getting the 5-star response, but rather be authentic and that will help [win the day].”