Short and sweet question(s) post today.

Do you ever feel like using social media to marketing apartments is like trying to smash a square peg into a round hole? Do you get the sense that we are trying so hard to make it work just because we just want it to? As opposed to following the advice of Steve W. and clearing the tables for some hard-core study of the real impact it is or is not making?

Have we been clouded by the hint of success we have seen from any one of the many mediums out there? A lease or two from Facebook, a lead from Twitter or a conversation stimulated by a killer resident function and we are quick to tout the success.

Have you found the effort to be worth the result? Do you think the real successes are down the road and over time?

In the end, content is not king – people are. People move business. And, people in relationship talk about businesses they like to do business with. Believe it or not – they usually do that offline.

Is it time to clear the table?

Your brass tacks multifamily maniac,

M

photo credit: blog mosaic

Easier said than done, right? Who has the time to set back and be creative anymore? A day in the life of a property management professional would demonstrate that it is near impossible to give time to brainstorming new ideas. Heck, it’s hard enough to execute the things that matter most like; customer service, curb appeal, leasing, retention and accounting. But, being creative is not really all that hard.

Experiment in Creativity

I think the key is to think in smaller chunks. Experimenting could be as simple as leading your Craigslist ad with the words Compelling Lifestyle as opposed to Free Rent. It could be as simple as shifting the photos on your website to lead with interior pics as opposed to exterior pics. Maybe do night pics of the exterior in lieu of day pics. It could be that you change your telephone greeting to include, “I can help you,” in lieu of “How can I help you?” No matter the topic, the key is to think smaller chunks.

The Point

Don’t think of creativity in apartment marketing as a big daunting task reserved for the select few who were gifted with the talent of pumping out cool ideas. I would posit that every one of them, at one time or another, experimented with the little things. And, at some point over a long bit of time, their portfolios of coolness grew more and more pronounced.

So do some experimenting today and don’t be afraid to start small.

Your always experimenting in creativity multifamily maniac,

M

Loss to Lease

There is a question floating around our office along the lines of, “What do you book in loss to lease line of your budget?” Also, “On a percentage basis, where do you like to see that number trend?” With that question comes a number of schools of thought but no real definitive answer. And, that being said, I am not sure there is a right way or a wrong way to look at it. In the end, it all shakes out in the Rental Income line. That said, there is value in tracking the discount from new vs. renewals and even budgeted rental increases that drive the loss to lease margins.

Our current practice is to book both discounts from new sales and renewals to a single loss to lease line. And, we try keep the loss to lease number at two to three percent of the the gross potential or top line – if you will.

Here are a couple of schools of thought to throw out there:

What gets booked in loss to lease?

1. The only thing that gets booked in the loss to lease line is discounts from market on new leases only. Renewals that maintain any discount from the top line should be booked as a concession.

2. Any discount from market gets booked as an upfront or recurring concession – be it a new lease or a renewal that transacts at a rate lower than the top line.

Where should loss to lease trend as it relates to the top line?

1. The number should be maintain between two to three percent of your top line

2. The number will trend at nearly ten percent of your top line

Is there real value in tracking loss to lease as a line item?

If it all shakes out in the rental income number – is there any real value [up market or down market] to tracking this number?

I’m curious to hear your thoughts. I am really curious to hear from those of you that are utilizing LRO as I think you have done away with the concept of loss to lease – correct?

Technorati Tags: @mbrewer, mbrewer, mike brewer, apartment operations, loss to lease, gain loss,

Where's the disconnect?

Meerman Scott

Seth Godin quipped that engagement is hitting people with the right message at the right time so as to have them take action [engage]. I think we have to take that word engage and thus precise moment further. To truly engage, at least in my head, you have to be enchanted, you have to be moved, you have to yearn for more so much so that you have no choice but to act on your desires. It the deepest throes of emotion. Words like love, anger and the many nuances of each come to mind. It’s not just a like, unlike, +1 or the such. It’s deeper.

Mr. Apartment Manager Man; “I am done.”

It’s not unlike the gentleman I met with last Friday evening. He, unfortunately, was moving out of our Central West End Community. Reason? In his words, “I am done.”

You see about three weeks ago, the entire roof of his five story building blew off and landed in the parking lot beside and the street in front. Thank the one that governs it all that no one was hurt as it could have been really bad.

In response to the situation; our team entered every apartment in the building and place plastic over beds, electronics and the such. Most were thankful. Not the gentleman I met on Friday. His beef? We did not leave him a note to let him know we had been in his apartment.

Engage

Somewhere in the wake of the roof being pulled off the building by straight lined winds; his attention got engaged. The premise aside; he was moved by an aggressive deep seated emotion. He engaged with some ill language and barbed personal remarks for the onsite team and the rest of our Mills management team. He got so engaged that he ended up leaving the property.

The Point

I think we are headed toward true engagement – we are not there yet. We use the word but in it’s loosest of senses. We are in the early innings of a very long ball game that is frankly destined for infinite extra innings. Think in terms of singularity. Think in terms of love, hate and other extremes. That’s engagement. For now we are just courting. Or, at best out on a blind date and liking our mate because our friends suggested we should. Now it’s up to us and the million other people out there participating with brands to fall in love or fall in hate.

What do you think?

Photo tip to: Online Ninja Blog

Ignition

As the #trust30 challenge winds down; we are gearing the next series of compelling content. The series will be dubbed 101 days of apartment marketing and will start July 3 when we wrap up #trust30. We were so inspired by the absolute discipline of the last series that we thought; why not try and continue the daily routine of writing.

#trust30′s concept of penning daily prompts lead us to search for something that would provide the same sort of direction. We looked at several lists and settled on @hubspot ‘s 101 Awesome Marketing Quotes .

Keeping in mind that multifamily professionals are busy; we intend to keep or offerings short in nature, hopefully 200 words or less. And, quick and to the point. Some will be conceptual while others will be real life examples from our journeys at Mills Properties [the sentiments aimed at those out there that believe content not backed by practical application or identifiable results is waste - we agree to disagree].

Nevertheless; we hope to make it fun. We hope to learn some things about ourselves and the community we have managed to attract over the years. And, we hope to conjure up some cool multifamily conversation.

Please feel free to comment where you see fit – good, bad or ugly. It all matters to us.

M

If we shoot for the moon as to land somewhere in the stars – fostering crazy amazing social connections should/would be the goal.

Your strategy would wrap nicely around that goal and if you are truly dialed in that would ladder right up and align nicely to your company values.

In marketing to those fine people that live in our multifamily communities – fostering the premises for social connections is key.

Your off to create meaning connections contributor,

M

The Value of Being Human.

In order to examine the role of self-disclosure in perceived credibility, 120 students between the ages of 18 and 23 were split into three groups. Each group followed the tweeting of a supposed professor. One group saw only scholarly tweets, one group saw only social tweets and the last group saw a mix of the two. Each “professor” included the same number of tweets and hyperlinks. Students were asked to rate the credibility of the professor they followed based on the tweets they observed.

The highest ratings were given by students who saw only personal tweets. Mixing in scholarly tweets had no effect on the score.

It’s Time to Shine

Imagine for a moment; you meet a cool guy or gal at xyz function and decide that the two of you should get together again sometime. You agree to call in a couple days to see about a time and place to meet. When you call you let him/her know that you have appts stacked on top of appts but you can squeeze them in around six two months from Tuesday. Oh and, by the way, don’t forget to bring your credit card.

It’s a bit tongue in cheek but in the same respect it is how we treat the human beings that are reaching out to befriend us in our businesses. “Thank you for calling Hidden Treetop Village on Golden Pond Apartments; this is Suzy Trying to Hard to be Cheery Cardwell; how can I be of service to you today?” People see right through the lipstick.

Do we talk to friends like that?

We squeezed one roof into the 2011 budget but now that it has come time to consider doing it; we have to get creative. Enter the idea. The property sits right in the path of outbound flights from the Saint Louis airport. That being the case;  the owner suggested approaching big box retailers and or anyone else that would have an interest in sponsoring, in a sense, the roof replacement.

I’m certain it’s not a novel idea but it was novel to me in the sense of the trade exchange element. It goes beyond the traditional banner on rooftops that front busy arteries all over america. The type we purchase to push our lifestyle, specials and or availability. If done well, it could take a huge chunk of capital expense right out of our budget.

Cool or Cheesy?

Photo credit to: Advertising is Good for You

Millsy Becomes a Real Boy

Our newly appointed Marketing Director & Communication Strategist, Melissa Preusser (we have an interview lined up – stay tuned to learn more about her) borrowed from the world of athletic mascots to come up with Millsy! Millsy is our Apartment Company Mascot. Millsy will accompany our media teams to any and all company and community functions, festivals, sporting events, partnership gathering and networking events. His chief aim? Give people a reason to talk about Mills. And, what better event could there be for his coming to life party than the annual St. Louis Mardi Gras Parade. Millsy becomes a real boy on Saturday March 5th 2011. We will be sharing a lot of the highlights and pics in future posts.

For now, I thought it would be fun to share some pics of Millsy in the early stages of coming to life…

Power in Mystery

After working through the logistics and contract negotiations we settled on a spot and let the construction begin. What happened next was pure entertainment – are you building a pool? Are you building a new building? Volleyball courts? – Wait, it’s too big to be a pool! Arg, what is it? All the common questions begin to filter through the wifi lounge, the community and into our leasing center. That is until we could not take it any more and we disclosed.That said, we learned a real time lesson as it relates to WOM.

Apartment Marketing Stimulants

Tell them but don’t tell them. We have a number of other amenities and improvements that we are doing to this property over the next one to three years with each one major in scope. Taking the lesson from the dog park mystery – we will leave the community to – guess it out – if you will. I can see some cool social media apartment amenity mysteries playing out over Facebook and other social platforms. In the spirit of – give them something to talk about – mystery takes a front seat. And, besides who doesn’t like a great guessing game or mystery? Who can resist talking about it with their friends, family and otherwise? Which is part of the point, right?