Plenty of trends are coming for multifamily marketing in 2024—get ready with the list straight from the apartment branding experts at Zipcode Creative!
Mortgage costs have been going up with steep interest rates across the nation. Most homeowners aren’t selling, making for fewer houses on the market. And many cannot afford a down payment needed in order to buy a home. This means apartment home rentals are becoming more and more in demand. In order to stay competitive, you need to know what the trends in apartment marketing are.
If you haven’t already invested in excellent branding for your apartment community, make your resolution to do so now! Branding could be the very thing that causes your community to be remembered, propelling its culture and vibe to the forefront for the ideal resident you’re targeting.
#1 Target Residents’ Top Desired Amenities
Your residents could live anywhere they can lay their head. But they choose their home because they want the amenities being offered. Make sure they know all about them. Consider the top trending amenities across the nation today:
- Creative working spaces
- Pickleball courts
- Deliveries
- Wellness
- Smart home tech
- EV chargers
But what’s the best way to do this? Create culture and nail down your vibe through branding, make your physical spaces awesome, use events to have fun and show off amenities and build campaigns around your best offerings.
CREATE CULTURE THROUGH BRANDING
Your Ideal Resident Profile (IRP)
Find your ideal resident profile (IRP) through research. Create a culture with your brand that is tailored to who they are and what they want in their home life. The culture you create can be sporty and active, cozy and comfortable, social and spunky, or whatever you think will help create a great home vibe for your IRP.
For example, sports are always a great way to have a little friendly competition and bring people together. When you show off your pickleball courts, pit residents against staff or create teams and tournaments (with prizes)!
BRING EXCITEMENT TO PHYSICAL SPACES
Branding doesn’t have to stay in the 2D spaces. Bring your brand to the physical world! By weaving your brand through the building, you create another level of engagement with your brand for all visitors, prospects, and residents.
Murals
Murals are a breath of fresh air. Instead of bricks—a blast of color. Adding murals that fit into your branding and evoke a feeling are a fantastic way to up the ante visually in your less-exciting spaces. Find a wall that needs sprucing, and figure out what will work—whether it’s a repeating pattern from your brand guidelines, or an artistic rendition of a dog near the entrance to the doggy spa.
Directional Signage
Much like a mural, it’s nice for residents to have indications of where they are in the building. “Meet me by the pool” is a lot easier when you have clear signage that gets residents exactly where they need to go. Of course, ensuring the colors and font coordinate and work within your brand guidelines is a must. Additionally, having directional signage is like a tiny little advertisement for other amenities around the space, and can initiate a little curiosity in your residents. “I forgot we have a working space—I need to check that out!”
Working Space
Speaking of…these are still popular for the hordes of people continuing to solopreneur or work-from-home—even part-time. It’s nice to “get out of the apartment” every so often, and strike up a friendly conversation or two when you’re working to make every day a little less “same old, same old” and much more “Nice seeing you here again.” Market the space, what it offers, and call out all the things that make the space amazing in a campaign. When you call attention to the awesome design and useful space as some of the best things you offer, you’re answering the ever-present “why do I need to live here?,” confirming for your residents that you have their best interests, needs, wants, and desires at heart.
MARKETING THROUGH EVENTS
Host happenings in your amenity spaces. Think different, go unique—ditch the tired old events and people will come!
- A workspace mixer—but for entrepreneurs? Cool.
- A pool party that includes both current residents and prospective residents? Hold it at the height of summer, where people need to cool off!
When you create events based around the amenities that you offer, you’re utilizing your spaces well, and showing off (or marketing!) exactly how awesome your amenities are. Not only are you listing it as an option in your brochure, but you’re including it in your flyers for events. This doubling down will help spread the word twice as fast.
MULTIFAMILY MARKETING IN 2024: CAMPAIGNS
There are a million ways to go when it comes to marketing your amenities. But which one will work best for your brand? Try campaigning your best features. You can craft your messaging to be so much more than “Now Leasing “Luxury” Apartments, friends!
Always start with your audience. Where will they be?
And always A/B test. And keep doing it.
Multi-platform Campaigns
Using print, digital, ads, emails, and signage in a combination that makes sense for your brand is a great way to spread out your budget and find the way that best works to reach your audience. And get creative to grab attention. If you’re able, creating a related but different style for each channel can help keep it interesting, especially if your audience will be seeing ads for your community on multiple channels. For example, if you’re showing off your smart home technology, you could create a multi-layered graphic to portray each piece of your smart home offerings, your digital ad can swap through the options, your emails can include bullet point benefits of smart home technology, and a video for social media ads can show someone getting into their building no problem, using a touchless entry system.
The more creative you are—the more likely it is to grab attention!
#2 Go Hyper Local when Branding Apartments
Because apartments are businesses (you know this!) it’s easy to forget that it’s your resident’s home where they’re making memories and enjoying their community. It’s where they are growing up, with their job nearby (or near their favorite attractions). This means that leaning into local and learning the best around the block can be a gamechanger for your branding.
MAPPING OUT YOUR BRANDING
Branding, if heavily influenced by your location can give you a leg up on the competition as a differentiator. It’s not a coincidence that you’re in this neighborhood and the same group of people that are headed to the local book store or coffee shop are also attracted to your building. Look around you and be inspired. Your branding should simultaneously consider the ideal resident profile (IRP) and the demographics of your area. Find something that is relatable for your ideal resident and zero in on it to create something that will feel like it’s created just for them.
Being aware of the area’s high points and low points and local knowledge gives you insider information, and helps you better tell the story through your branding and marketing. Your story can include the highlights of the area, why you are the right choice of community, and why your apartments fit right in with the rest of the neighborhood. When you know what’s “going on” locally or historically—or both—your story becomes so much more compelling.
#3 Using Branding to Capture Your Audience
DIGITAL DOMINANCE
Utter digital domination is the only way to go. What do we mean? Hopefully things you’re already doing online: a website, digital ads, email marketing, and social. In fact, a study by Shelter Realty revealed that 72% of respondents generally turn to the Internet first when searching for an apartment. They’re looking for the easiest, most streamlined way to find their next home.
Website
Your website is your biggest marketing tool. Certainly branding is vital in creating a website that is representative of your community—and is consistent—but the website must be useful. It should offer more about your community, your location, your events, and plenty of photos of the inside, the outside, and what units are available. If you don’t have a website (or a good one), you will lose out on a lot of leads. This is the hub of your online presence, and everything else that you put out should direct leads there. You can even create landing pages specific to digital ads you create to track the results. Make sure your website is recognizable as your brand—many website builders backends even have brand toolsets to upload color palettes and fonts.
Digital Ads
Placing ads on social media, as search ads, or even using retargeting can be an amazing way to capture
leads and drive them to—yes, you guessed it—your website. Work with a designer to ensure you have everything you need on the ad and that it fits within your brand guidelines.
Email Marketing
Grand openings, offers, and announcements should all flow through email. They can certainly end up on the website, but should be sent out to your email list—the emails should be worth opening and apply to the readers. Email marketing is the one way you have control over who sees it, so you can stay top-of-mind for your ideal resident. It’s also useful for your current residents for any reminders of events coming up, helping keep them connected and looped in.
Social Media
If you’re not on social media, you’re missing out! It’s fun, organic social is free (except for time) and it’s a fairly important piece of the puzzle for many prospects. Seeing what you post and recognizing your brand (and brand voice through the captions) is one more thing you can do to help engage with your residents and prospects.
Go where the people are—online. Target them with your ads. Speak to them with your perfectly branded emails. It’s a lot of work to be everywhere, but the digital landscape requires you to find your residents through every channel. When you’re in front of them regularly, with consistent branding, and marketing your best and most desired amenities, and giving them the inside scoop on what’s best around the block, you’ll shoot to the top of their list this year.