Reasons Your Apartment Marketing Might Not Be Working
June 23, 2021 9:15 am 1 CommentIn today’s rental market, it’s really important to market your community well. However, there are times when your apartment marketing strategy might not be working and you aren’t attracting the tenants that you need. Property managers often face a lot of pressure to achieve specific goals for bringing new residents into their community. If you’re having trouble filling the vacancies that you need to, it might be time to rethink your approach.
With a few simple changes, you can be on your way to better apartment marketing ideas that will help you gain more leads and leases. It’s never too late to make adjustments and start implementing things that will make a difference. If you’re ready to see a change in your property growth, you will want to start by reviewing the reasons below that your approach may not be working. Start to turn your digital apartment marketing around today!
1. Not Targeting the Right People
If your marketing message isn’t reaching the right people, you won’t get good results. You can have the best marketing materials, but without the right audience, it won’t get anywhere. Not to mention, your advertising budget and time will be spent attracting people who aren’t relevant to your local area.
Local targeting is a foundational step to successful apartment advertising. If you’re running ads, but finding yourself with few conversions, your targeting most likely needs to be adjusted. This principle also extends beyond advertising and applies to SEO, social media, and more!
To market to the right crowd, you need to figure out who your ideal tenant is. You will want to review their age, job, what they like, etc. From here, you can better tailor your messages and graphics to attract future local tenants. Your marketing should feel personal to your local community and highlight things that they care about! For example, mention a short commute, local job opportunities, neighborhood keywords, and more.
2. Not Enough Online Presence
If your apartment marketing is not working, you may not have a strong enough online presence. Today, having a strong online presence is crucial. If you’re only using old-fashioned methods and in-person strategies, you might miss out on a lot of potential renters. Your future renters are on their mobile devices and they’re frequently searching online. Through paid advertising, SEO, social media, and your apartment website, you can ensure that you’re set up for online success.
- Missing Local Listings
- Low Domain Authority
- Inconsistent Branding
- Lack of Clear Calls to Action
- Inadequate Use of Keywords
- Limited or Ineffective Marketing
There is often a misunderstanding that you can simply create an apartment website and stop there. It’s crucial to understand that your online visibility is an ongoing effort that requires dedicated time and strategy. You will also not want to go at it alone. Be sure to work with apartment marketing experts who can guide you through the right steps to improve your apartment website traffic.
3. Ineffective Apartment Photography and Virtual Tours
When renters start looking for a new apartment, the first thing they notice is the property’s visual presentation. Low-quality photos can quickly turn them away, even if the property has great features. Research from RentPath shows that rental listings with professional photos get 40% more views, showing how important images are for capturing interest. Renters aren’t just checking the layout; they’re also looking at the light, cleanliness, and imagining daily life in the space. Poor lighting or low resolution can hide those selling points.
Tech-savvy renters today expect virtual tours, which let them explore the space from anywhere. A Matterport survey found that listings with virtual tours get up to 49% more qualified leads than those without. This is especially important for renters moving from other cities or states, where a virtual tour can be the deciding factor in choosing a property. Without these features, potential tenants may skip your listing, costing you valuable leads.
To improve your visuals, focus on professional photos that highlight the best parts of your property, like natural light, modern kitchens, or scenic outdoor areas. Good-quality photos of these key spaces make your property more inviting to potential renters.
4. Unsatisfied Residents
Unfortunately, your current resident’s experience can determine a lot of the future growth of your community. When current renters are unhappy, it can seriously affect your apartment marketing efforts and overall success. Here’s how:
Negative Word-of-Mouth: If renters are unhappy, they might tell friends, and family, and share bad reviews on social media. This can make future renters less likely to check out your property.
Low Ratings and Reviews: Bad reviews on sites like Google or Yelp can make your apartment less attractive to new renters. Good ratings are important to grab attention and build trust.
High Turnover Rates: If people keep moving out of your apartments, it could mean they’re not happy. This can make potential renters think your property isn’t a good place to live.
Decreased Referrals: Happy renters often tell their friends and family about your place. Unhappy renters are less likely to recommend it, which means fewer new tenants from referrals.
You should consider the impact of addressing your resident retention as a way to increase your apartment growth. With a resident retention plan in place, you can ensure that you’re receiving positive reviews and referrals, and also having less resident turnover. Take the time to implement resident initiatives so that you create a better reputation.
5. Not Leveraging Resident Testimonials and Social Proof
Potential renters rely on real reviews and testimonials when deciding where to live. If you aren’t sharing positive feedback from current or past residents, you’re missing one of the best ways to influence potential tenants. Research shows many renters read online reviews before visiting a property, highlighting the importance of this social proof.
Testimonials from happy residents show that others have had a good experience at your property and help future tenants imagine their home, building trust and easing the uncertainty of such a big decision.
Sharing these reviews in your marketing, whether on your website, social media, or in emails, can boost your property’s visibility and appeal in a competitive rental market. Properties with more positive reviews often see more engagement in their online listings, with potential tenants more likely to schedule tours or ask about availability.
These testimonials, especially with visuals like video tours or user-generated content, make your property more relatable and give future renters real insights into life there. This connection and validation from real residents make a stronger case than a regular marketing pitch, giving your property the edge to attract great tenants.
6. Bad Customer Service
Even if you have top-notch marketing strategies, poor customer service can still hurt your chances of renting out your apartment. The way that your leasing staff interacts with your future tenants can truly make or break those who end up leasing.
Imagine this: someone sees your great ads, likes what they see, and decides to ask more questions about the apartment. If they have a bad experience, such as getting slow responses or rude answers, it can completely turn them off. They might feel frustrated and decide to look at other places instead.
Good customer service is crucial because it helps turn interested people into actual tenants. It also shows that you care enough to answer their questions and help them through their leasing journey. Here are a few ways you can tell if your customer service is impacting your future renters:
- High Inquiry Drop-Off Rate
- Low Response Rates
- High Vacancy Rates
- Lower Application Rates
- Difficulties Scheduling Viewings:
Keep an eye out for the red flags above so you know when to improve your customer service. Make sure your leasing staff is friendly, quick, and helpful when answering inquiries. Also, streamline the process for applying and scheduling viewings to make it as easy as possible. Focus on refining your follow-up process so that you’re getting in touch with your leads as soon as possible. Good customer service can be the key to turning inquiries into leases and ensuring that your marketing efforts pay off!
7. Ignoring Local Trends
Rental markets can shift rapidly due to local trends, which means that your marketing efforts might become less effective if you don’t stay current. Changes in what renters are looking for can impact how successful your advertising is.
If you aren’t making regular updates to your strategy, then you’re likely falling behind. This is why it’s essential to partner with the right multifamily marketing company so that you have experts to show you the way. Once you have a good grasp of the current trends around your area, you can adjust your marketing to align with them.
Keeping Up with Local Trends
To keep your marketing effective, it’s important to stay informed about local rental trends, property prices, and changes in the neighborhood. For instance, if there is a growing demand for pet-friendly or eco-friendly apartments, and your marketing doesn’t reflect these trends, you could miss out on attracting potential tenants. Take time to review market reports, attend your local community events, and try to understand more of what your renters are interested in.
Consider Sending Out A Local Survey
Think about sending out a local survey to improve your apartment marketing. A good survey can show what people in your area are looking for, like their preferences and needs. By asking residents and potential renters for their opinions, you can find out what they want and adjust your marketing to match those interests. This will help make your marketing more appealing and show that you care about what the community needs. It can also be good publicity for your property!
8. Overlooking Seasonal Trends in Apartment Marketing
An often overlooked but important factor in apartment marketing is how seasonal trends affect renter behavior. Aligning your campaigns with these cycles can greatly improve your results. Industry data shows that up to 40% of apartment searches happen in the spring and summer, when 66% of moves take place.
This increase is due to better weather, longer daylight, and the end of the school year, which make moving easier. If you ignore this opportunity, you might miss a large group of renters who are looking for housing. Increasing your marketing budget and changing your messaging during these busy months can help you reach more people and reduce vacancy periods.
But it’s not only about when renters are active, it’s also about how local climate patterns affect these trends. In colder areas like the Midwest, renter interest drops a lot during winter, with moves falling by up to 30% compared to warmer months. In warmer places like Florida or California, renters often search in winter to avoid the heat and summer tourist traffic.
Understanding these patterns helps you adjust your approach. For example, if your properties are in a colder area, you can attract renters with winter move-in discounts or offer perks like free snow removal. In warmer areas, highlight amenities like energy-saving cooling systems or outdoor spaces that can be used all year.
9. Not Engaging with Your Audience
Just putting out marketing materials isn’t enough to attract renters. If you want to keep people interested in your apartment, you need to actively engage with them. One of the main reasons that your apartment marketing might not be working is that you aren’t receiving enough engagement. The first step is to increase your online visibility, and the next step is to increase your engagement. This applies to your advertising, social media, organic website traffic, and more.
Many owners and property managers know about apartment search engine optimization, but not engaging with your audience can hurt your efforts. Respond promptly to inquiries on your website and create interactive content like blog posts and FAQs to address renters’ questions. This shows you value their input and keeps them engaged with your property.
Best Ways to Engage with Your Audience
To make sure you are engaging with your audience, try these strategies:
- Create Interesting Content: Share content that speaks directly to what your target audience cares about. This could be blog posts, videos, or images about your property and local area. You can utilize content in various ways through social platforms and on your apartment website.
- Utilize Property Videos: Property videos can also help increase your engagement and interactions with your future residents. These videos can be placed throughout your marketing materials and will help take your traffic to the next level.
- Use Social Media: Be active on multiple social media platforms so that you can attract a variety of traffic. You will also want to respond to comments and messages from potential renters and interact with them regularly. Create a content calendar and stay consistent!
Engaging with your audience helps build trust and keeps your property fresh in their minds. It shows that you care about their needs and are interested in building a connection. This can make potential renters more likely to consider your property and ultimately choose it as their new home.
10. Not Tracking Performance
If you don’t track how well your marketing is doing, you won’t know what’s working and what needs fixing. As apartment marketing experts, we often see that many properties don’t have proper analytics tracking in place when it comes to their advertising, SEO, review, social media, and more.
Without this information, it’s hard to see what’s effective and what’s not, which can waste time and resources. Regularly checking your marketing performance is important to make sure your efforts are paying off. It will also help you to know where to spend your budget and ensure that it’s being used well.
To track how your marketing is performing, use tools that give you important data. Follow the steps below to accurately set up a process to track your analytics.
- Look at your website traffic to see how many people are visiting your site; more visitors usually mean your marketing is attracting interest.
- Keep track of how many people are applying to rent your apartments to see if your marketing is getting results.
- Check how engaged people are with your content, such as likes, shares, comments, and messages.
By looking at this data, you can figure out which parts of your multifamily marketing strategy are working and which need changes. This information helps you make better choices and improve your marketing to attract more renters. It is also crucial that you start working with an apartment marketing team that can help track this data for you and make decisions that will greatly impact your property growth!
Contact Us Now To Improve Your Apartment Marketing
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Categorised in: Apartment Marketing, Market Apartments Services
This post was written by Isabella Housel
Isabella Housel is a passionate and versatile professional writer with a deep love for words and a commitment to crafting compelling content that engages, informs, and inspires. With many years of experience in the industry, she has honed her skills across various genres, from creative storytelling to informative articles and technical documentation.
1 Comment
Thanks for the helpful tips.