Multifamily Marketing Services Stack

Written by Stacey Feeney on September 23, 2024. Posted in All Articles, Branding, Graphic Design, Marketing, Writing. No Comments on Multifamily Marketing Services Stack

We keep hearing about tech stacks—how they make things simpler and get you everything you need in the best way possible. But what if there was a similar solution for your creative and marketing services?

Being able to work with a handful of specialists—the artists that can help you with a variety of creative needs and services, can make your results so much better. Sure, it can sometimes feel simpler to get a one-and-done approach, but that means that you might be missing out on better results stemming from experts in specific fields. Jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none and all that…

However, there are so many options, it’s overwhelming. How can you build a custom stack of marketing services so you can keep your multifamily branding and marketing fully supported from end-to-end? (Do you like that tech-y lingo?)

Really, we just want to make sure your community shines from start to finish, that’s all. We’ll outline the pieces (and partners) we recommend you fill in so that your brand can be at its best and your marketing services stack can function the way you need it to.

Specialize with a Marketing Services Stack

There are a couple reasons why having a pile—okay, stack—of creative Partners at your disposal is the best possible approach:

Get the best – Having an assortment of creative service providers means you can choose the one that works best for you, and is at the top of their game. Good reviews, good referrals, good results.

Combine to Conquer – Using multiple providers means better results rather than an all-in-one solution. With one or a handful of services, they have one focus. The product is specialized, and they’re not stretched too far beyond their abilities.

Integration for the win – You might choose one company for verbal and visual branding, while another is your best choice for website development. Simply because a Partner offers it doesn’t mean it’s their best offering. Find Partners that can work together and collaborate, so you get the best of everything.

Wondering where to go and who to hire for your marketing services stack? We got you. (Along with some of our faves, of course).

Branding

Partner: Zipcode Creative

Not to toot our own horn, but seriously: We love branding and we’re loud and proud about it.

Why this Partner: Our process ensures your multifamily brand is set up to stand out:

Research – We look at geographic information, competitors, and take your goals into account to create an IRP that you can reach.

Strategy – We take our research and create a brand strategy to reach your IRP.

Identity Creation – We bring your brand to life.

Name – We create a unique name for your community based on the vibe and what will attract residents—often inspired by your ideas.
Logo – A standalone graphic that represents you well.
Visual Identity – We’ll provide you color palettes, stock photography examples, patterns and textures that bring your brand to life as a feast for the eyes.
Verbal Identity – Your messaging is built up around a mission and values that are unique to your community, and have personality rooted deep.

Bottom line: Zipcode has been in the biz for a while. We deeply understand multifamily and bring more than a logo. We can get you a full, cohesive branding package that resonates with communities and prospective residents on a deeper level.

Website Development

Partner: RESI

At Zipcode Creative, we opted to not handle website development in-house. We wanted to stay fully focused on visual and verbal branding. RESI is our ideal partner for multifamily websites. They’re focused on custom solutions and seamlessly integrate with PMS systems (like Yardi and RealPage). We work hand in hand with RESI to ensure the brands we create for our clients come to life through their websites– or you can go right to RESI and be well taken care of!

Why this Partner: RESI are web experts. We partner to lead the design.

Bottom line: When we work together, our clients get the best possible branding across their digital platforms.

Copywriting

Partner: Zipcode Creative

We have some of the best copywriters around. And website copy is a fairly complicated game to play, especially when you’re working to balance SEO and your brand. We’ll get the formula right.

Why this Partner: We work within our existing process to create website copy that’s always clear and always consistent. Your community’s brand personality is short and sweet? We’re on it.

Bottom line: We make you visible with visuals we create and audible with messaging we craft. Your brand will always shine through.

Graphic Design

Partner: Zipcode Creative

This is where it all began! We started with visuals way back when and we’re still loving it. (And so are our clients.)

Why this Partner: We take your vibe, feedback, and ideas, and create design collateral that’s perfectly on brand.

Print collateral? All of it!
Direct mail? Yes, we know and trust a variety of printers around the U.S.
Signage? Don’t leave your design up to chance—we’ll provide our designs to your local sign companies for production.
Digital Design? But of course.

Bottom line: Every one of your digital assets (social media, ads, plenty more) will be ideally aligned and perfectly recognizable as you because they’re created by the same agency—us.

Resident Journey Marketing

Partner: HyLy

Why this Partner: HyLy is next level for email nurturing, chatbots, and AI-driven content. It’s not quite set-it-and-forget-it, but pretty darn close. At Zipcode Creative, we work with them to integrate your branding identity into HyLy’s system, creating a consistent experience at every touchpoint in the resident journey.

Bottom line: Be you (okay, your brand) all the way through. When you have partners that work together on the reg, your branding will be the thread that gets pulled through and passed from one Partner to the next, no problem.

Renderings (Floor Plans & Photorealistic Images)

Partner: Zipcode Creative

First impressions count for a lot. And when it comes to investors seeing an opportunity or a resident seeing “home” for the first time…you need to ensure you have the highest-quality for your multifamily communities’ floor plans and photorealistic images.

Why this Partner: We provide architecture-based floor plans in 2D and 3D so you can show up exactly how you want to down to the last detail.

Bottom line: We dot all the i’s and cross all the t’s. We’re totally committed to getting you the best quality imagery.

Sitemaps

Partner: Zipcode Creative + Engrain

Few of our partners have worked with us longer. Together with Engrain, Zipcode Creative makes beautiful, 2D maps (seriously, people come to us first for the sitemaps!) and Engrain makes them into a fully interactive map masterpiece.

Why these Partners: We’ve worked together for long enough to make the experience seamless for you, and immersive for your prospective residents.

Bottom line: Property sitemaps deserve star treatment. It’s how prospective residents get to know you before ever stepping foot on your property.

Photography & Video

Partner: LCP Media

Why this Partner: LCP runs their biz nationwide. They can handle stills, 360s, or aerials. And it’s all sharp, high-resolution magic. They know what kind of photos and videos apartment communities need, and they’ll get them for you.

Bottom line: LCP is super reliable and you don’t have to end up sourcing photos in every city where your properties are located. It’s nice to just call up your pre-vetted pros and get them on photo and video duty, right? Right!

Social Media

Partner: Social Kapture

Why this Partner: Social Kapture is our go-to partner social media management that’s totally authentic. Seriously—no one will know it’s not you. We’ll help tailor your brand strategy for organic posts and paid social, and Social Kapture will carry it to the finish line.

Bottom line: When you go through the long, hard work of creating a brand, don’t let it fall flat with lackluster social media because you don’t have time. Instead: hire the experts.

Digital Advertising

Partner: Digible (for General Paid Media)

Why this Partner: Digible is a go-to for SEO/SEM and are especially renowned for their paid search services.

Partner: Apartment Geofencing (for Location-Based Advertising)

Why this Partner: They do exactly what they say—location-based advertising. It’s like throwing a lasso around a specific area and hitting prospective residents with your message. When used for a very location-oriented business, it’s magic.

Bottom line: Work with someone who is experienced with advertising—not with someone who “also offers that, too, I think!?” They’ll be familiar with the data and set-up needed to get you the biggest bang for your advertising buck—whether that’s through geofencing or through paid search ads.

Networking & Learning

Partner: Cadence Run Club

Why this Partner: The multifamily space is fun and loud and it can be tough to sort through the noise. At Cadence Run Club, we’ve found it’s super easy to network, share ideas, and learn from others

Bottom line: Helping run a community—you’re distinctly aware of how important community really is. With Cadence Run Club, you can keep up ongoing learning and growth as a multifamily marketer (or exec or Partner, what have you).

Why should tech stacks have all the fun? Create a best-in-class creative and marketing services stack, too, filled to the gills with the best. It’s certainly worth exploring how we can help you build your own stack, based on our experiences and how we best integrate with our fave partners.

It’s time to truly stack the deck—for your marketing success.

Your Multifamily Brand Development Budget, Unlocked

Written by Stacey Feeney on September 17, 2024. Posted in All Articles, Branding, Marketing. No Comments on Your Multifamily Brand Development Budget, Unlocked

If you’re in the middle of making your budget, we wish you the best. (But you can at least have good music and strong coffee accompany us as we crunch numbers and figure out where to put our money.) Let this year be the year you give brand development the budget it deserves. This applies to you, corporate operator, and you, property-level brands, and everyone in-between. Your marketing budget could bring you up a few notches if you use it right.

Brand development is critical to every marketing budget. So prioritize it as a large component in your next budget to:

Differentiate your brand
Connect with your customer/resident
Increase ROI

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Why Brand Development Deserves More Budget

DIFFERENTIATE

It’s a sea of sameness out there. And no wonder, because so many apartment communities are offering wildly similar things: homes with amenity packages that look identical at first glance.

It’s time to stand out—by creating a brand identity that’s remarkable. By investing in brand development, you’ll be able to create a strong brand that resonates with potential residents. Set the stage and stand out.

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CONNECT

Humans want to connect. They want to find brands they can identify with, especially if they’re going to spend 30% or more of their income on rent and living expenses. Trust, loyalty, and comfort can be challenging to find in an apartment community. If your multifamily brand can craft a story and connect emotionally with residents and prospects, that community suddenly becomes much more than a building.

When your brand can resonate on a deeper level, your residents become loyal, and may engage more easily with your community, which leads to better retention rates (and may help them become brand ambassadors with word-of-mouth marketing).

Strategic, Well-Developed Branding

STRATEGY

Without a strategy, your thoughts are scattered, and your efforts become ineffective at best. Ensure you have created a strategy that guides your marketing efforts, so you can be consistent and clear in your messaging. When you know your audience and your why, the way you present your community has a roadmap.

The other bonus here: A clear brand strategy maximizes the dollar spend from your marketing budget. Less time wasted, less money wasted.

ROI

When presenting budget increase requests, it’s never enough to say “I think it will…” or “We’re hoping to see…” That’s the same as saying “We don’t know what we’re doing, but give us more money and we could waste that, too.”

Instead, try using historical data.

Look back at the progress you’ve made. Identify the areas where intensive branding choices helped lead to a rent increase. Use clear ROI to justify budget increases, in the same way that you can use branding to justify some rent increases by showcasing your value to your residents.

Let’s say:
You have a property of 268 units with an average rent of $1850/month.

A 2% rent increase after brand enhancement would equate to $37/month per unit.
Your monthly income would then increase $9,916 while your annual income would increase to $119,000.

If your brand development investment is, say $42k (but you could spend in a wide range of $5k-80k) this additional income definitely makes up for the amount you’ve spent.

Worth it? Yes.
Now, the next time you ask for a marketing boost, you might be more likely to get it.

Long-Term Benefits of Strong Branding

RESIDENT RETENTION

For every resident that leaves, finding a new one is twice as expensive as trying to keep your current residents. Retention requires less effort, and the days, weeks, or months that a unit sits empty could mostly be a thing of the past.

Create a well-developed, strong brand, and you create an equally well-developed, strong sense of belonging and satisfaction. Think about it: If you, as a resident, feel you belong, and you’re relatively satisfied, why would you ever want to leave? They’ll be more likely to renew their leases, making your rental income more reliable, and reducing vacancy rates.

BRAND LOYALTY BUILDING

When residents move out, you could be seeing rental income walk completely away. Or: if your brand is strong enough for your portfolio of properties, you may be able to recapture that rental income.

Keep your brand experience consistent, foster loyalty, and those wandering residents could choose another property in your portfolio for their next home.

Take In-N-Out Burger. It always tastes the same. Hungry burger lovers come to any of In-N-Out’s palm tree-decorated fast food chains, and they know their double-double animal style will be exactly what they expect: hot and delicious. That’s consistency and positivity.

Repeat business comes from brand loyalty. And that resulting long-term revenue is a lot better for your bottom line than trying to reach new leads.

So, as you finalize next year’s budget, consider brand development a worthy investment. That spend is money well-spent—it’s forward-looking in an increasingly crowded market.

As a marketing professional, look for opportunities to develop your brand, and start small if you must. ROI can be proven, and long-term benefits have been shown. Boost your brand development and watch your properties stand out in a sea of competition, connect with the residents you want, and build up your portfolio as they prosper.

Apartment Branding for Faster Lease-Ups

Written by Stacey Feeney on September 16, 2024. Posted in All Articles, Branding. No Comments on Apartment Branding for Faster Lease-Ups

Apartment Branding for Faster Lease-Ups

We’ve probably all heard at some point “Build it and they will come.” But that little phrase carries a lot of questions with it: What should I build? Who will come? And how quickly will they come? It’s just a phrase—but we’d like to offer as an alternative:

“Brand it, and they will come faster!”In the multifamily industry, apartment branding hasn’t always been the priority. Apartment communities are built on the idea that a place to live, shelter, is a necessary item. While it’s true it’s necessary, it’s also true that there is a lot of competition.

To maximize your lease-up speed and revenue, apartment branding is more than a “nice-to-have”—it’s a core factor.

Apartment Branding for Marketing Success

Branding vs. Basic Supply: The Difference

There is a housing shortage for both homebuyers and for those that wish to rent. So, if you follow rules of supply and demand, the housing will eventually lease up because it’s in demand—but maybe not as fast as you’d hoped.

Competition has become fierce in the market. There are many apartment communities near yours, offering similar amenities and units. Why shouldn’t they pick your competitors? Why should they choose you instead?

Branding. Branding can expedite the process, tightening up your lease-up process. By creating an emotional connection with prospects and residents, and helping seal the deal with full end-to-end branding that emphasizes clarity and consistency and forms trust.

Or, if you’re more into the money side of things, think about it this way: If you have units vacant for longer, that’s missed revenue. That’s an increase in marketing costs to reach a wider group to see if someone in that group will convert and sign a lease. Also, if a resident moves into an apartment, and the unit next to them is empty, they may begin to question why they signed a lease at this place instead of the one across the street.

Identify End Goals Before Branding

What’s your end goal? In multifamily, there are two primary goals for properties: Build-to-sell or long-term hold.
Before you brand you’ll want to know which direction you’re headed in. Then, you’re better prepared for strategic branding decisions.

BRANDING APPROACHES

Branding approaches will be different for each path. For:

Build-to-sell: Will you maintain the brand for the new owner or allow for rebranding? If your plan is to sell before leasing up, more intensive branding development may not be the right move for you. Alternatively—if you plan to lease up before selling, branding will be vital for you to attract residents before you sell.
Long-term hold: Investing in more extensive brand development makes a lot more sense if you’re retaining the property for the long-term.

Knowing what’s next in terms of ownership can help marketing teams understand the role of brand strategy. It’s possible that a light touch with branding may be enough to get the property sold. If you plan to hang on to the property as part of your portfolio, branding should be a larger budget line item and a bigger consideration—as it can, as mentioned above, help with leasing rates and speed.

How Branding Accelerates Leasing

THE POWER OF APARTMENT BRANDING

Excellent apartment branding is the key to reaching the brand’s ideal resident profile (IRP) and possibly raising rental rates (be sure to offer actual value along with that perceived value, though.) Branding sharpens targeting, and it helps keep focus where it’s needed: on the resident.

A well-crafted brand points to your community like a beacon—“pick me!” Your community can stand out if you choose to make it different in the ways that you can: with branding. When you create perceived value (“this is worth it!”), you can speed up leasing.

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Refresh Your Property—Including Your Brand

Flooring isn’t the only thing that needs a good refresh every so often. Your apartment brand could use a little zhuzh.

Your property upgrades shouldn’t be limited to the physical. Think about your verbal and visual brand identity too. Is it still serving your current IRP? Does it still look good? Does it still sound good? Your countertops and flooring will get worn out with time, and your brand may also become a little lackluster over the course of several years, especially when compared to the new kid on the block.

Instead of a full-on brand revamp, consider a brand refresh. Tighten up your design elements, tailor your colors to be more appealing, and work out a brand voice that sounds more like the brand you’ve become (if that’s what the brand should be).

Wondering when you need a brand refresh? Here are the tell-tale signs and times:

Shifts in the target demographic (keep up with who you want!)
Competitor landscape changes (keep up with the Joneses!)
New market trends or community repositioning (be accurate to your offerings and stay in the limelight!)

Maximizing an Apartment Brand Investment

ROI is always a consideration for marketing decisions. How can one prove the importance and the efficacy of an apartment brand?

Track it all.

And start off on the right foot.

In order to effectively maximize your apartment branding investment, please do the following:

Invest in high-quality design and messaging from the start—not when something “just isn’t working.”
- Rationale: Upper management won’t be keen on spending more money if your first branding efforts were haphazard or sub-par. Goodbye marketing budget increase request.
Create a brand that addresses long-term goals—whether you’re selling or holding.
- Rationale: If selling, your brand should paint a picture for the new investor or buyer. It won’t be doing all of the heavy lifting though. If you’re holding the asset, you’ll want to work harder on creating a brand that will last and does what you want. Focus on your future goals and align your brand strategy with it.
Use data to track your branding effort impact
- Rationale: Is the community leasing up faster? Are occupancy rates higher than before branding was developed? Track it all. This is evidence of ROI—and should be brought to any budget or progress meeting for the marketing team.

Apartment branding can help with faster lease-ups and higher returns (if you do it right). It’s a long-term investment with a sometimes-large up-front cost. However, when you’re dealing with a competitive market and strong demand—standing out is a necessity. And branding can help you get there.

Young Professionals – Branding for the Resident Persona

Written by Stacey Feeney on August 30, 2024. Posted in All Articles, Branding.

A multifamily operator will tell us 9 times out of 10 that their target residents are “young professionals.” What does that terminology mean? How can you brand your community to reach these young professionals?

Start by understanding “young professionals”—their wants, needs, desires, and habits. Typically young professionals are beginning their careers in corporate or technical fields. Knowing who falls into this group can help tailor the community’s brand to speak directly to them, where they are (physically, mentally, psychologically). If a brand doesn’t identify who it’s trying to reach, it doesn’t know what kind of branding one needs to develop to make it be successful.

Targeting specific personas will make your budget and efforts go farther—it’s more efficient to narrow the target and more cost-effective, as well. Let’s look at what “young professional” means and how to determine whether you should build your brand around this specific customer persona.

“Young Professionals”

Who are “young professionals”? What do they do? How do they live? What do they value?

OVERVIEW

Generally speaking, young professionals are defined by their work and by their age. They’re generally college-educated and trained professionals working in either white collar or blue collar industries. Their age can range from about 25-34. The following are other demographics and stats assumed about young professionals, taken from a national average:

Young professional demographics:

$50,000-75,000 annual income
Make up 6% of all households
34% are homeowners
50% have a college degree

Knowing that 34% of young professionals are homeowners can lead you to understand that the remaining approximate two-thirds of this group make up the potential renter pool.

GENERATIONAL CONTEXT

Beyond their work and age, their defined birth year span also plants them pretty squarely within the millennial generation—that’s even more information to draw from.

Millennial statistics:

Born 1981-1996 (28-43 years old in 2024)
Concerned with financial future, even with higher education
Budget priorities:

Rent/Mortgage
Food
Transportation
Basic Expenses
Student Loans

Delay long-term commitments (i.e. marriage; purchasing home)
Use internet 3 hours, 45 minutes/day
Values:

Competitive
Civic-minded
Open-minded
Achievement-oriented

Influences/Shaped by:

Columbine shooting
9/11
Rise of the internet

Communication preferences:

Instant messaging
Texts
Email

Worldview / Seek out:

Challenge
Growth
Development
Fun work-life balance
Change

Are Young Professionals Really Your Target Audience?

Of those 9 times out of 10 our client tells us that their audience is young professionals—how many times is that fully accurate? Neither we nor our client knows until the market is assessed and the target audience is verified. If you don’t do either, you’re wasting time, money, and energy on one group when you should be examining who you really want to reach. Plus, you may need to narrow down your search even further, as “young professionals” is still a large target.

ASSESS YOUR MARKET

Create multifamily customer personas to fully align your brand. By defining the ideal resident profile (IRP) you can create your brand strategy around who is most likely to be the target audience. As an IRP is created, demographics are considered: age, gender, income. Additionally, analyzing your location (who lives and works in the area) will indicate even further information about who may want to live in your community. By understanding local growth patterns, that success can be folded into the community’s success.

VERIFY YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE

Compare young professional stats against the research stats. Do they line up? If not, young professionals are indeed not the main persona group renting in your market. Match your branding efforts with accurate resident profiles based on actual data and actual research.

ALIGN BRAND WITH IRP

Align the brand with the IRP and see multiple benefits:

Informing brand development – Knowing the values and preferences of the target group isn’t for nothing—they exist to establish a pattern. Slip into the predictable pattern and reach them where they are and where they will be.
Efficiency in targeting – Get your brand in front of those ready to listen (and resonate with brand messaging) and ready to make a rental decision
Cost effectiveness – Stretch your (already stressed) marketing budget further by targeting the right audience instead of wasting ad spend and messaging on those who will never convert to lease-signing residents.

Branding to Reach Young Professionals

If our client was correct, and we find through research and discovery that their target audience is indeed young professionals, then we can work to help create branding to reach young professionals.

BRANDING STRATEGIES

Use the values found in the millennial realm (which overlaps nicely with young professionals) to tailor your brand. Millennials are concerned with money, use the internet a ton, and like challenges, growth, and change. To reach and attract millennials, build a brand strategy that solves their challenges and speaks their language. They’re concerned with housing—make it easier. They’re aware of social issues—create a fundraiser. They’re constantly trying to balance between work and play—emphasize your WFH-friendly community aspects.

Meet them where they are with your marketing efforts: online on websites and social media.

Note: Location will function heavily into this. For a group of communities—do separate research for each location. Where one community may be tailored for young professionals, another may appeal to middle-aged families. That branding and messaging and targeting should look different.

Demographic research and creating an IRP should always come before developing a brand identity and strategy. You’ll spend more time up front determining your best audience, but the efforts will get more dialed in as you go. Target young professionals if that’s your multifamily customer persona. If it’s not, keep up the research to align your brand strategies accordingly.

The Psychology of Perceived Value through Brand Development

Written by Stacey Feeney on August 25, 2024. Posted in All Articles, Branding, Marketing.

Brand development in the multifamily market is the first step for the attention, engagement, and loyalty of your current residents and prospects. Brand reputation can create demand for units, while brand experience can keep your residents renewing. But can you leverage brand development to raise the rent? How can you help boost your community’s perceived value—through the eyes (and psyche) of your residents? Follow along to see how what residents and prospects believe to be valuable may allow you to boost your rental rates.

And if you think we forgot about our post on what renters really want—and how to provide them affordability, transparency, and excellent service, we didn’t. This is more about creating a brand that highlights the things that renters want, and allows residents to feel they’re spending their money wisely, in the right place.

What’s Customer Perceived Value?

DEFINITION AND FORMULA

Customer Perceived Value (CPV) is a combination of a few things. “Customer” is obvious here. Perception is understanding or impression—in this case, it’s more of an “impression.” Value is the amount something may be worth. That value is often up to opinion. That’s where the customer comes in.

Basically: CPV is how valuable the customer believes a service or product is, based on how closely it meets their own needs or expectations. How much they’re willing to pay is based on how high they place the product or service’s value. This CPV can influence both the pricing and demand for a product or service.

This means—a higher CPV could contribute to higher rent pricing or unit demand or both.

The quick and basic Customer Perceived Value formula:

Perceived Benefit – Perceived Cost = Customer Perceived Value (CPV)

You should always be aiming to provide a positive CPV. This means the benefits should outweigh the costs, always—in the eye of your residents and prospects. (See, math can be kind of fun!) The higher the perceived value, the higher their willingness to pay.

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PERCEIVED VALUE

There is a broad spectrum of items that use this perceived value system. It can range from a store-brand, generic can of beans (ooh, $.30 cheaper!) to a full-price Rolex (ah, a symbol of the upper crust life). Both are purchased—likely by different audiences—for different reasons. But the common thread is psychology. What consumers believe. There are generally five factors that influence perceived value, though at varying levels:

Ease of Purchase – How easy is it to buy? Is it one click? That’s appealing. A “Did you forget these items? Add to cart!” prompt will get a lot of consumers, too.
Quick Delivery – Similar to ease of purchase, consumers love to have the items in their hands quickly. Free shipping is great, but same-day delivery? Even better. We value our time more than most other things, so we’re happier if the process is quicker and easier.
Prestige – Limited access and elite status. The feel of exclusivity can make some consumers shell out more money. They want to be seen as successful, and in some cases, must be seen that way in order for their own lives and businesses to continue on the path of success. Optics can mean a lot.
Lower Cost of Ownership – Look how much money you’ll save when you buy in bulk! This can also be true of paying ahead for a subscription. The annual (i.e. “pay for 12 months”) version is almost always higher in value (per month) than the 3- or 6-month subscription.

Friendly Customer Service – Great products with lackluster service are likely to hit a financial wall. If you can’t get a human on the phone to help you troubleshoot your new product, it’s not worth much. Boost the experience and support, boost the value.

Creating a High-Value Perception

If you want to raise the perceived value, you’ll need to:

Lower the perceived cost

Improve / multiply the perceived benefit(s)

Go for the benefit boost.

Based on your audience, those benefits may vary widely, but the more benefits you find to highlight, the clearer that high value will be perceived.

In terms of branding, there are few ways to create a high-value perception of your community:

STORYTELLING

The verbal aspect of your brand is made to highlight what’s different about your property. If you highlight what is rare and exclusive, this equates to the “prestige” principle. If instead you execute competitor research, work with management, and find you can charge lower rents for longer leases, you can utilize the “lower cost of ownership” principle (even though it’s still renting). Put simply: More lease for less per month.

VISUALS

The way your community is presented and its vibe, ambiance, feel (take your pick) can be improved through brand visuals—including your interior design choices. If you can extend your branding visuals from your guidelines through to the textures, patterns, colors, furniture style, and art that graces your community, you can better create an experience. It gives your prospects and residents something more to resonate with and relate too—the ultimate goal in brand development: connection. Think about the glow up of cauliflower (it’s a pizza crust! It’s buffalo wings! It’s rice!) grew because a few companies found a different way to both use it and present it: healthy veggies as the main, unmissable event.

MARKETING TOUCHPOINTS

Your brand’s presence matters. Use social media and build up your online presence to grow your connections and build up a community on social media. Your building is a physical property. Your brand is the values your residents and prospects (and anyone that comes in contact with your community) assign to it through their engagement and experience with it, and your brand is the culture they align with (“they feel how I feel!”)

More Multifamily Property Strategies to Enhance CPV

That’s not all you can do. Multifamily is a different kind of business. It’s where your residents make memories, raise their family, make friends, crush goals, rest, relax, and come home to. It’s worth finding ways to give residents what they really need so they feel they’re getting out (value-wise) what they’re putting in.

SAVE RESIDENTS TIME

Find ways to help your residents save time. Conveniences such as:

A single application for multiple communities (within a brand management family)
Easy online appointment booking for non-emergent maintenance requests
24-hour (or less) email responses

Each of these are surefire ways to keep them feeling like their time is valuable, and your community is helping keep that brand promise.

BALANCE PRICING

Premium prices say, “Exclusive.” Value prices say, “great deal alert!” Understand what your brand is offering and make sure it fits with your brand guidelines.

ESTABLISH REPUTATION

Reviews, testimonials, surveys. Establishing your credibility as a reliable community is a one-way road to brand loyalty. Partnerships and cross-promotions with other businesses that have an excellent reputation will help too (a rising tide lifts all boats). Every positive review and testimonial is one less time your brand has to say “pick us, we’re great!” Let your reputation do the talking for you, through your all-star, five-star-giving residents.

Raise your community’s customer perceived value, and you’ll be able to justify a possible raise in rents. But don’t do it without ensuring your brand is in it for the long haul and if you will commit to delivering on your brand promises. When you know your value, you can tell the story, tailor your marketing, and keep your residents coming back for more.

Multifamily Customer Persona or the Ideal Resident Profile (IRP)

Written by Stacey Feeney on August 20, 2024. Posted in All Articles, Branding, Marketing. 1 Comment on Multifamily Customer Persona or the Ideal Resident Profile (IRP)

One of the best rules for business: know the customer before marketing the product. Likewise for multifamily communities, you must know your multifamily customer persona. (But we like to call it the Ideal Resident Profile (IRP) in multifamily.)

When you have enough information about who you most want to reach—you can capture their attention, resonate with the audience you need, build a relationship, and retain your current residents through trust and loyalty. Plus: providing what they most want and need is the key to building up your business through brand development and targeted marketing.

What is a Customer Persona or IRP?

DEFINITION

A multifamily customer persona or IRP is a persona or profile of an individual that’s likely to use a specific business. For the multifamily industry, this is an individual who is likely to live in that specific community.

IRP FOR MULTIFAMILY

By taking real data from research, companies create a somewhat fictional profile of a likely customer for their apartment community. In multifamily, this is the IRP—the ideal resident profile. It’s the kind of resident that is most likely to live in your community. Using information based on survey data to inform demographics, as well as psychographic and behavioral tendencies, the full picture of the IRP is formed with details drawn from various sources.

The Research Part of IRPs

All this talk about learning and discovery, and no details—until now. What kind of research is required to create an IRP for apartment communities? Plenty: demographic, geographic, psychographic, and behavioral.

DEMOGRAPHIC

This is generally the most basic info for an area. It includes:

Age
Gender
Income
Occupation
Education level
Family status

There’s more, of course, but each of these items helps you get a clearer picture of your ideal resident. You can understand what they might be willing to spend on rent. You can figure out how many bedrooms they may need. Demographics are the first step in creating a multifamily customer persona series.

GEOGRAPHIC

Next up: geographics. Geographic research tells you things like:

Location preferences
Proximity to workplaces, schools, and neighborhood amenities
Homeownership Rate

Knowing housing information related to geography can help you create another aspect of your IRP. For example, if you see homeownership rates falling in the area, there may be a shift to a bigger market share, with more people seeking communities over single-family homes.

PSYCHOGRAPHIC

Think about where your residents may work. What their hobbies are. Their favorite brands and biggest interests. Generally, look at:

Lifestyle
Values
Interests
Attitudes
Personality

Each of these bits and pieces get you one step closer to understanding their motivations and habits. Are they laid back? Do they like cardio? Do they love plants more than animals? Be the brand that they identify with.

BEHAVIORAL

Buyer behavior is the final missing piece. Knowing their:

Online behavior (meet them where they are)
Renting habits (how long do they stay in one place?)
Decision-making processes (snap decisions or pro/con list?)

Looking at their behavior patterns can help you predict what they’ll do next. Plus, it can help you identify their likely needs and preferences so you can be on the list of solutions they’ll seek out.

ADD LOCATION AND COMPETITOR RESEARCH

All the nuances come to light when you start looking carefully at the location and the competition.

Location Research and Analysis: What is the neighborhood like? Analyze the local market and figure out if public transit is nearby, if local amenities are sufficient, and if the dynamics of the neighborhood are desirable.

Competitor Research and Analysis: Is the competition fierce? Are they all A-class and you’re a B-class? How is your community different? This can help you create your differentiation early on. Look at gaps in service and possible opportunities for you to step in and nab a market share they can’t capture.

Know Your IRP for Brand Development and Marketing

After you know your audience, you can craft your brand strategy and marketing messaging to reach them. Your whole marketing plan can be built around these preferences and behaviors.

BRAND ALIGNMENT

A well-defined IRP makes for clear guidance in brand messaging (and full alignment throughout your brand identity). Because determining the IRP is part of the research and discovery phase of brand strategy and creation of brand guidelines, it’s the ideal building block. Knowing what your future audience loves, wants, needs, along with their personalities, hobbies, and habits can help you hone your messaging and make your brand into something that will resonate with them.

For example, knowing where prospective residents are hanging out and what their hobbies are can help focus marketing and advertising budgets—meet them where they are. It can also help create messaging that will resonate with them.

MARKETING EFFICIENCY

Brand guidelines are built on best practices and market research—of the IRP. Making marketing more efficient is a case of targeting the right audience. Forget “spray and pray”. Plan and aim. Plus, this also means that your advertising and marketing budget can go a little further because campaigns are focused and aligned with your IRP.

IRP Must-Haves

The key components of an IRP for a community should include conclusive details based on the research:

Demographics: Age, gender, income (and more, as detailed as you’d like)

Geographic information: Preferred locations, commuting patterns

Psychographic profile: Lifestyle, values, interests

Behavioral insights: Renting habits, online behavior, buying behavior

Multifamily communities rely on reaching residents. You can’t reach them if you don’t resonate with them. And you can’t create a brand message and marketing strategy for a specific demographic that works if you don’t put in the work ahead of time.

Do the research, create a detailed IRP, and search for experts if you need guidance on your research, analysis, and the branding that comes after it.