How To Reach Prospective Residents Online

Multifamily Marketing Tips 

 

Creating flexible budgets rooted in strategic planning is crucial to apartment marketers’ success in today’s online marketplace. As multifamily marketing experts, we want to share how to reach prospective residents online in preparation for next year’s marketing plan.

There are guiding principles you need to understand in order to navigate any digital landscape and set up your budget for success despite all the positive signs (social video, a rapid increase in virtual communication, etc.). Connect with prospective residents on a virtual platform. Throughout the leasing process, reach prospects through a variety of channels on social media. 

 

According to Dataportal, 59% of the world’s population uses social media. The average daily usage is 2 hours and 29 minutes (July 2022). It’s apparent the impact of COVID-19 has shifted the means of communication in American culture and the amount of social media consumption. Post-pandemic, time spent watching digital video is ominously increasingly going into 2022. 

 

Here are various ways to  to capture the attention of prospective residents. 

Connecting With Residents Online 

TikTok has become the world’s most-downloaded app in the last year, with over 656 downloads. TikTok has 43 percent of users being 18-24 years old and 32 percent being 25-34 years old. Forthright, students and multifamily housing marketers have an incredible opportunity to reach a target audience on the platform thanks to its growing user base.

Despite TikTok’s rise, YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook remain the top social media platforms for consumption. Major social networks are perfect for apartment marketers to advertise to prospective residents whose interests align with those of their communities.

In terms of click-through rates, website conversion rates, and lead generation, Google Ads remains the most effective advertising channel for our own multifamily clients.

You can also use display advertising to retarget visitors to your website and find nearby tenants instead of social media advertising. Hence, a pinpoint method to target a specific audience directly online. 

 

Social Media Ads To Reach Residents 

Brand awareness and promotional strategies help to facilitate a growing online presence but also build a base of prospective residents. Having several media channels build awareness and recognition for a community exponentially. Therefore, the perfect opportunity to broadcast an effective brand story and garner the interest of a direct target group.

Here are the types of brand awareness ads that generate a large rate of impressions: 

Facebook & Instagram Feed Ads 

Being seen from the main feed of users as they swipe through their feed increases the possibility a future residents journey to your community. Feeds include promotional posts and the posts of their followers. 

Instagram Stories and Reels Ads 

Being featured on the story feed of users swiping through their followers or even on the explore page. Keywords users search for or activity-based content that relates to yours will promote your ad to be shown to specific people. 

YouTube Ads 

15-30 second spots to be featured on videos played on the desktop and mobile application. Similarly, YouTube allows recognizes the activity of users like social media platforms expect it has more insight into the playback activity of videos. Most importantly, key data metrics such as average view time help to analyze the most effective video. 

TikTok Ads 

Featured on the “For You” and “Follow” feed of users as scroll through videos. Younger demographics are drawn to the this social media platform. Student housing communities would highly benefit from publishing TikTok ads. Communities can set specific rules such as targeting users that search for their respective university names. 

 

Direct Strategies to Reach Residents Online 

Effective direct strategies target interested prospects online. Through these strategies, you can target prospects who have shown an interest in your community. For example, if a person searches for a community’s profile on Facebook, after being shown an ad they now entered a retargeting group. Retargeting prospects who have previously engaged with a post can be segmented and put on a direct pathway in the marketing funnel. It’s important to note that on average it takes about 3-5 times for a person to take action after seeing an ad. 

A combination of retargeting ads and SEO optimization strategies will put a community at the forefront of prospective residents. Here are some of the direct strategies that generate direct interest online: 

Google Ads 

After setting an ad, Google can retarget people that have engaged or at least seen your ad based on their activity. 

Google Business Profile Optimization 

Otherwise known as GMB for short, helps Google pinpoint where your community is located physically and virtually. A detailed GMB profile helps to boost the visibility of the community online. Uploading a full set of quality photos and videos, filling out key information, and actively using the platform will increase the visibility of your profile. 

Organic Search Engine Optimization 

Sourcing and optimizing keywords that a community’s website can rank for. At the start of a prospective resident’s online journey is the search for a key phrase.  Finding and ranking for these keywords increases the opportunity for a community to be appear first over competitors.  

Facebook & Instagram Retargeting

The results of a brand awareness campaign enable to possibility to segment users by their positive online actions. Any action such as a view, click, or even direct action like commenting can help to magnify a target group of users. This helps to create a follow campaign to test and seek out their level of interest.  

YouTube Retargeting

From the pool of watchers, you have gained from a brand awareness campaign, you can start to filter out the people actually interested in your community. Launching another campaign that aims toward a retargeting campaign is likely to increase the chance of quality conversions. 

 

This is a general overview of what an online marketing strategy looks like for a community. However, demographics, locations, market share, and other major factors differ in the level of execution for communities. Developing a successful marketing strategy requires a complex understanding of online channels. Show My Property creates tailored strategies that work for any type of community anywhere in the United States. 

Want to learn more about our multifamily marketing solutions? Submit an inquiry for a free demo. One of our marketing experts would be more than happy to share how SMP can deliver online marketing results for your community. 

 

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