Out to Put a Dent in the Multifamily Universe

Apartment Content Relevancy

May 4, 2012 By Leave a Comment

What makes content engaging is relevancy. You need to connect the contact information with the content information. – Gail Goodman

Ever wonder how to make your content compelling enough for people to want to connect with and share it? It’s a topic I think about all the time. And, one that our digital media team at Mills Properties recognize as key to our success. The short answer – relevancy.

Over the past year we have been busy hacking away at our online strategy and we are very excited about the fruits of that labor. Melissa D and Jessica H along with a whole host of crazy awesome blog post authors have put together something really special in my opinion.

A big part of that strategy centers around apartment content relevancy. Content that up to now I purposefully thought should have nothing to do with Mills Properties or the apartments that we market and sell.. As of late my mind is shifting away from that sentiment but not in a way that you might posit.

Apartment Content Relevancy

Our content strategy will remain the same. It will have nothing to do with our company or our apartments but in essence it has everything to do with both. The content is real, runs the gambit of emotions and speaks to relevant and for the most part very local and very people-centric happenings.

I see all of the content being created, be it on the blog or otherwise, as an extension of our people, our respective apartment communities, our company and the neighborhoods we participate in. It’s our way of weaving apartments, apartment community amenities and the people that live there into the fabric of the neighborhood. It’s a way, if you will, to bridge the gap between your contacts and the content people what to participate with.  And, if executed with precision, it will begin to really define the interests of our respective audiences as it relates to the current day neighborhood and the neighborhood they want to see come to fruitiion in the future. Interests that will further define the relevancy which will in turn further define the content. Such a beautiful cirle if you really think about it.

Your – always looking for relevancy in the content – multifamily maniac,

M

 

Filed Under: #apartmentmarketing Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Neighborhood Blog Stats

April 19, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Mills Apartments Neighborhood Blog Site Stats

Just a quick Mills Apartments Neighborhood Blog stat update - courtesy of @mkdecicco

Mills Apartments Neighborhood Blog Site Stats

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Apartment Budgets: Loss to Lease

March 27, 2012 By 6 Comments
photo (1)

Welcome back for another installment of the Apartment Budget series. Today we are going to talk about Loss to Lease. Interesting side note, I did a piece on this a number of years ago and to this day it remains the number one read article on this blog.

Before we get started, I wanted to post a note of clarity as it relates to my last entry – Apartment Budgets: Rental Income. Where I refer to Rental Income in that post – I am really talking about Gross Potential Rent as being the top line. You may also hear it referred to as GPR. In any event, I wanted to head off any confusion.

LTL

Now unless you have a brand new community in lease up, you will have in place leases that are very likely below the GPR. The primary reason being rent increases. Any time you increase rents you create a margin between the in place leases and the new increased GPR. This can occur in reverse and the impact to the LTL can go in reverse. That is to suggest that you can decrease the GPR and the margin or LTL becomes positive. Not a scenario you see to often as rents generally rise over time in lieu of decline over time.

Loss to Lease – New Move In

To put it simply; if you lease an apartment below the GPR, the discount is captured in a Loss to Lease – New Move In line item. To put some math to it; if your apartment’s GPR is $500 and you lease it for $450, the $50 reduction in rent is capture in the Loss to Lease – New Move In line item as a -$50 charge. And, it will exist for the life of the lease.

Loss to Lease – Renewals 

When leases come up for renewal and they are under the GPR number – the margin is by default in the current Loss to Lease line item. When the lease renews, if it is still under the GPR that new number gets captured in the Loss to Lease – Renewal line item. Putting some math to it. Suppose your apartment’s GPR is $500 and the current in place lease is $450 – you renew it at $475. The $25 margin is captured in Loss to Lease – Renewals.

Total Effective Rent

Once you have accounted for your losses related to in place, new and renewed leases under the current Gross Rent Potential – you come up with a Total Effective Rent. That is where we will pick up next week.

We have purposefully left out the analysis piece this week because I think it will fuel some crazy cool discussion. Hope to see you in the comment section below.

Your – lovin’ budgets – multifamily maniac,

M

 

Filed Under: #aprartmentbudgeting Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

More Outlets Does Not Equal a Better Story…

March 16, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Apartment Marketing Interest Graphs

…People do.

This is a simple unscientific case for passionate apartment marketing (professional or otherwise) content producers [Read: conduits]…

I picked the following quote off of a blog some time ago and pasted it into a file for future posting. Now, after a few search engine attempts, I can’t find the author of it so if it’s yours – please claim it and I will give you the due credit.

There seems to be a curious thing happening - the more outlets for stories we get… the less and less we’re hiring writers, content strategists, editors, designers. It’s like the second spawning of “reality programming”- no need for writers … it’s real life.

It’s a very interesting dilemma that we find ourselves facing in the apartment marketing space; do we go it alone in an amateur more reality based way or do we go pro? It’s not a simple answer but a necessary question to consider. And, the reasons run concurrent with trends in the way we influence, are influenced, how we consume and how we distribute information as a society.

The Niche is Coming Into its Own

With the absolute proliferation of platforms that host and syndicate blog content along with the opportunities to narrow our focus by creating lists and circles on the likes of LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+ and the king of the them all Facebook, we all have a niche to serve in some way.

Niches are not a new concept but they themselves are new to the likes of being served information in a passionate and pointed way. And, in mass from marketers, friends and acquaintances. And, thus the need for a professional or an amateur but passionate writer…

The Simple Case For 

Apartment MarketingI am very much a visual person so I took the time to draw this out on a piece of paper. While visual, I am clearly not artistic so feel free to toss fruit from the front row…

Be it you advocate professional content producer/managers or the Sunday driver version; I think you would agree that you need a guru…[term used very loosely - in fact I hate that word - let's go with...] someone who knows what they are doing.

I have been reading the book: Grouped by Paul Adams the Global Brand Experience Manager at Facebook. You might recognize my pic as an adaptation from the book. He makes a much deeper case for what I am trying to loosely convey in this post so buy his book – it’s a goodie. (The link is not tied to an affiliate account).

As we further fragment based on interests and or outright fatigue, the ability to connect via influencers (seemingly more a myth than realistic) is waning and or presenting itself as more of a fallacy. Small groups connected by someone who cares and someone who knows what they are doing will be the way to continue on with the conversation. Continue down the current path or seek the alternative and we’re just creating noise for ourselves. And, as the number of outlets increase, we have to ask ourselves are we just being noisy in more places? Instead, be a conduit and bring together the small groups that will move business in the future.

See that person in the middle of my pic – for the theory to work, that person must know (intimately) someone in each of the four outcroppings. The way this works is that this person is the conduit of/for information (influence) to flow between the outcroppings or small niche groups. Without the conduit, the potential potency of this group is never realized. They will never have the chance to know one another because they will have no real reason to do so.

The job of that someone who knows what they are doing and cares enough to do it is to bring the groups together in a way that is appealing to the individual members. He/she gives them a reason to believe. A reason to be merry. And, a reason to be intimate with one another. Intimate in a way that moves business forward.

Experiment

As I flesh this concept out in real life experiments – I’ll be sure to post updates.

Your – interested in interest graphs – multifamily maniac,

M

 

 

Filed Under: Apartment Blogging, Interest Graph Marketing Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

What Apartment Marketing is Not

March 2, 2012 By Leave a Comment
What Multifamily Marketing is Not

Apartment marketing is not thinking about every person as a renter or a renewal -

Apartment marketing is not about viewing people in the context of residing in your apartment communities -

Apartment marketing is not about getting people to celebrate you through a; Like, G+, Tweet, RT or the such -

Apartment marketing is not about broadcasting the right message at precisely the right to the right influencers -

What you’re saying in all of this is that people mean nothing to you. And, when they don’t respond you just don’t understand why….

Your thinking people-centric multifamily manic,

M

 

Filed Under: #apartmentmarketing, Marketing Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Fill Your Marketing Balloons With More Than Air

January 23, 2012 By 14 Comments

marketingI was recently given the privelege to co-moderate a brainstorming session on the topic of marketing. The session was held for members of the apartment management industry at various stages in their careers, from leasing agents who have been in the industry for 2 months to  property managers with 10 years of experience. My topic was old school marketing. Old school referring to anything not social media. More specifically, tools such as resident retention, outreach marketing, Craigslist, etc. The idea was to get creative juices flowing, discuss what’s working, what’s not working and maybe learn a few things to take back to the rest of the team.

I was surprised by the lack of marketing knowledge…and for that matter, the lack of creativity. I heard the same 3 “best practices” from a majority of the groups: Generic signs and balloons for drive by traffic, generic Craiglist ads and monetary resident referral incentives. I heard questions like: ”What do you say when you’re marketing to a business?” and “It’s ok to send thank you cards and gift baskets to businesses who refer someone to you?” Leasing agents and PMs who had no knowledge of free additional ILS marketing template tools like VFlyer and Postlets, who had never thought past posting a flyer with a resident referral rent credit in terms of using residents as a marketing tool, and those are just building blocks. It’s as if they were told that marketing is something only a rocket scientist can figure out.

First let me say I’m not exactly saying the 3 best practice items listed above are crap, I’m simply saying that they shouldn’t be IT.  Also, I’m in love with social media and believe it’s an insanely valuable tool, however 1. It was not my topic to discuss and 2. I also think that personal touch and those face to face human interactions through outreach marketing and resident appreciation events are valuable, and combining the 2 forms is fabulous! (Read Urbane Media’s QR Codes blog). But I’m not sure I believe you can be effective with social media if you don’t even know the basics of effective old school marketing tools. And if no one is teaching or motivating their team on the basics of marketing, then I doubt that there is any social media marketing in place anyway.

So I guess what I’d like to learn from this eye opening experience is: Am I way off base in believing that some old school marketing techniques are still a valuable tool in the industry? Is someone teaching your staff about marketing? Do you believe that one can effectively use social media tools without ever having learned/practiced old school marketing strategies?

Title courtesy of Melissa DeCicco

Photo credit bloggingoutloud

Filed Under: #apartmentmarketing, Apartment: Experience Marketing, Marketing, Mills Apartments Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Apartment Marketing: Paying Rent is a Social Act

January 13, 2012 By 8 Comments
Apartment Electronic Check

Apartment Electronic Check

Update: 4.30.12 - Social gifting, the new buzzword in e-commerce

I wrote about an idea along these lines sometime ago and Wrapp just might be the early way to get it done.

Original Article

Ran across Pepsi’s Social Vending Machine Story while I was in the process of purging some old files and it got me thinking about ways that we could make paying rent an even more social experience.

Is it reasonable to think that Facebook, Twitter, G+ or even resident portals could be robust enough to allow payments by third parties unassociated with lease contracts and the such?

Following the concept of Pepsi  creating a the experience of sending free sodas to friends; could you see the same thing apply to rent payments? If my buddy knows that I have fallen on hard times and wants to help; could he go to our website, log in without disclosing his identity [at least to me] and pay my rent? Or, a portion?

It already happens in the analog world. Or not, if leases are written such that you can not take third party payments [not smart in my opinion]. In the former case, parent’s pay their student’s rent via various payment methods. A process, at least at Mills Properties, that is usually administered by our onsite teams. Can we make it DIY for third parties with technology? Do you employ such a service today? Tell us about it.

Your looking to make paying the rent a more social experience multifamily maniac,

M

 

Filed Under: Using Social Media to Market Apartments Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

#apartmentmarketing: Blog Format Question

September 8, 2011 By 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: , , , , , , ,

#apartmentmarketing: Twitter

August 15, 2011 By 4 Comments
We have Amazing Apts...

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? 

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#apartmentbudgeting: Think Value

August 10, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Short and sweet budget tip for 2012…

When thinking about your marketing spends in 2012 think in terms of what will bring value to your ideal resident in lieu of what your absolute spends will be on print, internet, social media and the like.

Filed Under: #aprartmentbudgeting Tagged With: , , , , , ,