Mike Brewer

#apartmentmarketing: Clarity

September 18, 2011 By Mike Brewer 1 Comment

Clarity trumps persuasion. – Dr. Flint McGlaughlin

I have written about the subjects of brevity and clarity on a number of occasions. The concept came to me from a senior leader at Equity Residential some years ago and has stuck with me ever since. At the time I had the propensity to provide reports that were beyond the time necessary to digest them and I had the knack of going on and on in my descriptions of strategies and results. That is despite all the customary body language queues that would have guided me otherwise; had I been paying attention to them.

Principle: Brevity and Clarity

When thinking about apartment marketing, exercise the principle of brevity and clarity in your print ad copy, website copy, brochure offerings [if you still do this sort of thing], Facebook posting, blog posting and the such.

It’s not sage or unique advice but nevertheless a good reminder; we live in an attention economy. As such, we have to be compelling in our remarks and mindful of the clarity in our brevity.

Filed Under: #apartmentmarketing, Marketing Tagged With: #apartmentmarketing, @mbrewer, brevity, clarity, mbrewergroup

#apartmentmarketing: Blog Format Question

September 8, 2011 By Mike Brewer 9 Comments

Short and sweet today -

One of my favorite blogs, one I read everyday without fail, is Valeria Maltoni’s – Conversation Agent. First rate content always.

Apartment Blog Trunk

I gave up on RSS feed reading about a year ago as I spend more time in my inbox. Nearly every blog I read is done through Outlook now and as such I give more time and attention to the things I read. In other words, I generally do not skim the headline and move on.

About a month ago Valeria made the decision to truncate her email subscription delivery meaning we only see a portion of the message and are forced to click on a link to see the rest.

Result: I read fewer of Valeria’s material to the end. Sorry Valeria.

I understand the reasons for cited in her Saying it in 200 Characters post back on Aug 10, 2011.

My question – should apartment marketers truncate their blog post offerings? We are trying it a Mills [Shameless plug - the Mills Blogging Team is Putting a Dent in the #STL market place].

Would love to hear this communities thoughts? And, thank you in advance for taking the time.

Filed Under: #apartmentmarketing, Apartment Blogging, Blogs, Blogs I am Inspired By Tagged With: @mbrewer, Apartment Blogging, Blogs, mbrewergroup, Mills Apartments, Mills Properties, millsapartments, strategy

Good or Bad Strategy: Kenneth Cole

August 20, 2011 By Mike Brewer Leave a Comment

I really like the Kenneth Cole brand and have been for a long time. There was a stretch of six years where I purchased the same black KC Reaction dress shoes because they were perfect. As of late they shifted a piece of their marketing strategy to include some real hot bed social issues -

I am even more intrigued with their brand as a result…

How about you? Good? Bad? Indifferent?

Filed Under: Marketing Tagged With: @mbrewer, brand, brand marketing, kenneth cole, mbrewergroup, social, Social Marketing, st. louis, STL

#apartmentmarketing: Twitter

August 15, 2011 By Mike Brewer 4 Comments

The biggest mistake we see companies make when they first hit Twitter is to think about it as a channel to push out information. – Tim O’Reilly & Sarah Milstein – The Twitter Book

For those veterans out there in the media space this seems like a no brain-er but in a world steeped in tradition, it seems like the right thing to do. Take a new medium, insert old practices and principles and voila, we experience success. Except that we don’t.

Apartment Twitter Marketing in Saint Louis

We have Amazing Apts...

Just this week, I followed up some new #STL Twitter handles [new apartment deliveries in the city proper]. I will admit, I was very encouraged to see their use of the medium included push marketing. Special after special, floor plan after floor plan, us – us – us & look at me copy – it all makes me smile inside.

It makes me smile because I don’t think it’s what those who use the space expect or even want to see. In other words, it’s a big turn off and at best it’s ignored and left to rot in a digital dump-ground way off over there in the dark ‘Cloud.’

Not that we at Mills Properties have it all figured out and are knocking it out of the park as a result. That being said, we do seem to experience a ton of participation from the people that work with and for us, the people that they serve in our some fifty properties in the Saint Louis Apartment Market and our coaches and mentors in the multifamily industry. All by using just the opposite approach and all for which we are immensely thankful. We keep experimenting, failing, learning, tweaking, experimenting & thanking those who give us feedback along the way.

Push Marketing on Twitter

Back to the point at hand; is there a time and place where this works? Have we reached that point or are we approaching a time where the masses that frequent Twitter, Facebook and the like expect, heck even desire to see some push marketing for goods and services?

Filed Under: #apartmentmarketing Tagged With: #apartmentmarketing, @mbrewer, Apartment marketing, Facebook, mbrewergroup, Mills Properties, push marketing, STL, Twitter

#apartmentmarketing: Vision

August 14, 2011 By Mike Brewer Leave a Comment

You can’t just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they’ll want something new. – Steve Jobs

For the span of my professional life; I have believed in the act of getting your companies vision down on paper. It’s a must in the way of creating a proactive culture as opposed to a culture of reaction. It’s also a way of making sure that you are out ahead of your constituents.

Random thoughts on creating vision

Penned in no particular order and in no exhaustive manner…

- It creates the ‘bigger than self’ that motivates people to get juiced about the work they do. In other words; people in the multifamily space, like people in other industries, want to know they are working on something bigger than anything they could accomplish as an individual. And, they want to know their time is spent in a meaningful way. And, if you are lucky enough, they think it’s cool too

- You spur a proactive approach to all aspects of your business. In the absence of vision people just make it up as they go along. Zig Ziglar sums it up like this; “you can not hit a target you do not have.”

- It sets the stage for future-casting. In other words, you give your team the ability to look out into the future and anticipate, with a good deal of accuracy, what your constituents really want

- You build meaning stuff

- You build tough stuff in an simple and efficient fashion

- It becomes your battle cry

- It is the way in which you imbue an owner’s mentality on the minds of the masses

- It is the way you evaluate talent

- It is the beacon of light when times get tough. And, times will get tough

Would love to hear your thoughts in the comment section below

And, thank you for taking the time to read…it means a great deal to us.

Filed Under: #apartmentmarketing Tagged With: #apartmentmarketing, @mbrewer, mbrewergroup, steve jobs, vision

#apartmentbudgeting: Shop the Comps

August 13, 2011 By Mike Brewer Leave a Comment

Just another quick tip before you kick off another season of multifamily budgeting

Shop your comps – not for the reason of selling to meet their level of product or service but rather as a way of discovering ways to sell beyond their offerings.

Your budget should reflect not what it takes to compete but rather what it takes to crush. Or, what it takes to create a completely different experience for people to fall in love with.

Happy budgeting…

Filed Under: #aprartmentbudgeting Tagged With: 2012 budget, @mbrewer, apartment budgeting, mbrewergroup, multifamily budgeting

#apartmentmarketing: Content

August 12, 2011 By Mike Brewer Leave a Comment

Focus on the core problem your business solves & put out lots of content & enthusiasm, & ideas about how to solve that problem. – Laura Fitton

Book of Solutions

Want tons of followers or fans? Write compelling content that is easy to read, packed with good actionable advice and be personable.

No sage advice there, right. I concur.

Apartment Content Marketing

As it relates to marketing apartments; I subscribe to the school that thinks you provide content beyond the good or service. In this case the actual apartment itself.

Rather look for opportunities to provide content that solves the following [no premise for the categories or the order of]

1. I can’t decorate to save my life

2. I need access to solid and reliable transportation

3. I want to walk to work

4. I want to walk to the coolest pubs in town

5. I need ideas on what to do tonight

6. I need ideas on what to do to this weekend

7. I want to be the first to know about the next ‘thing to happen in my neighborhood’

8. I want to know where to take my dry cleaning

9. I want to know where to get a good glass of wine

10. I want to know about a good alternative to Starbucks

11. I want to what I did last night….hmmm, maybe I don’t want you to solve that problem

12. I want to know how much you care before I buy from you

Have a smashing and amazing weekend; make it compelling too…

Filed Under: #apartmentmarketing Tagged With: @mbrewer, Apartment Blogging, content marketing, Engagement Strategy, mbrewergroup, strategy, word of mouth

#apartmentmarketing: Culture

August 9, 2011 By Mike Brewer Leave a Comment

Your culture is your brand. TONY HSIEH - CEO, ZAPPOS.COM

Over the years much has been written about Zappos and Apple as it relates to culture. And, for good reason. Both companies enjoy massive success with customers around the world and continue to do so despite the ups and downs in the economy.

I have to believe it is due, in large part, to happy employees and more specifically the collaborative nature of their culture. I believe, in my heart of hearts, that a happy employee is a productive employee. And, a happy employee is, in part, is a byproduct of a superior culture. And, one that is customer-centric and based on a premise of trust.

Building Multifamily Culture

When I think of building culture; I think of the often quoted line out of: The Road Less Traveled by M. Scott Peck. The first sentence of Page 1 Chapter 1 reads “Life is difficult.”

Culture is difficult. When you think about it, you are attempting to meld a medley of individual cultures under the spirit of one unifying culture. The nuances are mind boggling.

Might I suggest that it bolis down to one word – Trust. Work on trust and the rest will fall in to place. Understand that it will take time, understand that there will be mistakes. Exercise patience with the former and reward the latter.

The health of your business depends on it.

What do you do to build up, maintain and push the edges of your culture?

Filed Under: #apartmentmarketing Tagged With: #Trust30, @mbrewer, mbrewergroup, mike, millsproperties.net, Trust

Apartment Pics: Photosynth

July 19, 2011 By Mike Brewer 4 Comments

Caught this story over at a Century 21 site. Photosynth is an iPhone app that allows you to take 360 photos and upload them right to the likes of Facebook and the such. It’s after dark now but I can’t wait to try this out tomorrow.

Get Them Involved

I can see this being a very cool app not only for our site teams but for residents and prospects alike. That is if they have an iPhone or iPad. With that note in mind, think of the possibilites;

Tour

1. 360 views of your apartment communities curb appeal

2. 360 views of your apartment business/leasing/clubhouse

3.360 views of your grounds and common areas

4. 360 views of any or all rooms in any given apartment

Maintenance

1. 360 view of move out walk for the purpose of returning paid deposits or charging for damages

Due Diligence

1. 360 view of personal property inventory

2. 360 view of apartment condition at time of purchase

What else?

1. Would be cool to have something like this integrate in to Yardi, Real Page, MRI or the such…

2. Pics for website property landing pages

Filed Under: Apartment Pics Tagged With: @mbrewer, Apartment marketing, mbrewergroup, millsapartments, millsproperties, photosynth, STL

#apartmentmarketing: Social Media Proof

July 18, 2011 By Mike Brewer Leave a Comment

The next time you hear a social media myth, question it. Ask for the proof, and ask out loud. – Dan Zarrella

So much flying around out there in the way of experts, guru’s, master’s of the universe and the such.

My new default gauge for validation; can I talk to a client that used your service prior to social media taking front and center? And, if that answer suffices; then you can show me your social media results and pass along another client testimonial or two.

Filed Under: #apartmentmarketing Tagged With: #apartmentmarketing, #stlapartments, @mbrewer, Apartment marketing, mbrewergroup, Mills, Mills Properties, STL