It’s increasingly apparent that the future of computing is moving from one type of screen – traditional desktop monitors – to many types of screens with a multitude of different sizes and resolutions. But computers themselves aren’t driving this sea change, consumers are. Today’s online renters are using laptops, tablets, phones and even watches to search the web for available apartments. What does this mean for property marketing websites? To stay ahead of the curve, you need a site that looks good and functions well on any and all devices. It’s time to make the switch to responsive design. (And there’s a really good reason to do it before April 21st of this year. Keep reading to find out why it’s critical to become responsive sooner rather than later…) What is responsive design? Responsive design is the practice of creating a website that provides an optimal user experience across all devices. Responsive web designs resize and reformat page content in response to screen size and resolution, making your website compatible with all Internet-enabled devices. Why is responsive design important for SEO? Responsive design uses a single URL for all platforms, making it easy for search engine robots to crawl and index your website. In fact, responsive design is Google’s recommended configuration. This Google Developers article details the top three things you should know when building a site for mobile devices. Guess what made the list? Yep, responsive design! The article specifically states: “Select a mobile template, theme, or design that’s consistent for all devices (i.e., use responsive web design).” If that’s not enough to get you excited about responsive design – though we really think it should be – consider that responsive websites also tend to reduce bounce rates because they offer a better...

Are you a property management marketing professional, social media specialist or operations executive? If you answered yes, we’d like to take a minute to pick your brain! We invite you to take our 5-minute marketing genius survey and share your thoughts on online property marketing and SEO in 2015. Take the Marketing Genius Survey As part of Yardi’s continuing commitment to innovation and customer focus, we created this quick quiz to ensure we are meeting and even anticipating your marketing needs in today’s digital space. Our clients are the true experts – you know exactly what you need to maintain and grow your business. This is just one way we take advantage of opportunities to develop our products and initiatives to match your needs and the needs of the marketplace as a whole. This particular survey was designed to help us better understand what importance you place on advertising, search engine optimization (SEO), and search engine management (SEM). Questions include “Do you plan to spend more, less, or the same on ILS advertising?” and “Did you invest in paid search in 2014 (AdWords, remarketing, etc)?” as well as other easy yes or no queries. There is no call to share proprietary information, and you can skip questions at will. Your responses will be submitted to our team of masterminds as we plan updates and new features for the Yardi Marketing Suite, the only completely mobile marketing and leasing solution supporting the entire prospect and resident lifecycle. The results will be shared with you in the form of product enhancements designed to help you support your properties with increasing ease and efficiency. “As marketers, there is tremendous value in understanding consumer, industry, and peer trends,” says Esther Bonardi, industry principal of Yardi Marketing Solutions. “When...

Content marketing in the commercial real estate realm makes sense, from a PR perspective. Why not showcase the expertise of investment, development or brokerage leadership with smart writing about trends and business practices? For many companies, it’s a nice idea that might encounter many logistical hurdles a long the way. So a relatively new blog from Colliers International, Colliers Insights, pulls off a rather impressive feat – providing insightful, visual and shareable content relevant to commercial real estate. With a soft launch in October 2014, Colliers Insights is a relatively new project for the company’s marketing team, and one that made intuitive sense. Christine Schultz, global vice president of marketing and research, shared the scoop. CPE: Can you tell me why Colliers sees content marketing as important to its real estate goals? Schultz: The blog has really been a natural extension of how our Colliers advisors want to share insights and moving that into the digital realm. Websites can be very formal, with hard to find information in a quick, easy fashion. The blog provides a casual entry point for digital users to engage with our thought-leading content. CPE: How would you describe the overall experience you are trying to provide for readers? Schultz: We want it to be fun for the audience and share content in an engaging way. It’s really important for us to offer the blog as an authentic experience and to give users a sense of what it’s like to work with Colliers and to feel the magic of our culture for those interested in joining Colliers. CPE: One thing the blog does especially well is its presentation of thought leadership by Colliers executives around the nation and even globally. How do you compel their participation? Schultz:  I have been...

When it comes to customer service, 70% of US adults will use the phone as their first method to contact a company, according to a study by Five9. However, if they receive bad (or no) support, 85% of these consumers say they will take action. In fact, 45% of these customers and potential customers say they will stop doing business with a company completely. And younger clients are likely to complain publicly on social media. That’s a lot of sour grapes over some missed connections. Enter the smarter answering service. Your call center should be a seamless – and invisible – extension of your leasing management office. But not every call center is made to tackle the unique needs of the multifamily marketplace. To offer the most efficient service, a call center dedicated to property management needs to be able to: Provide a customizable digital answering service Offer expert live support if/when you need it Create guest cards and qualified appointments This infographic takes a look at our call center solution by the numbers. Click on the graphic to view a large version. Don’t place your leases and renewals on hold. Take a peek at the budget-friendly benefits of RentCafe Connect today and see how you could better serve prospects, residents and property staff. Because no one likes to be left...

Congratulations: your attention span is now shorter than that of a goldfish…by one whole second. Recent studies show the average human attention span is now 8 seconds.  That means social marketers and digital advertisers have to hook you with compelling content within moments.  How much does that bait cost?  Advertisers spent an estimated $8.5 billion on social ads alone in 2014, all to keep your brain entertained long enough to get to the punchline.  And succeed they did. Our Social Media Team kept a keen eye out for those creative and unusual marketing campaigns with solid storytelling and strong social presence. Here are a few of our favorite digital campaigns from the last year. Mini Cooper  Mini USA – Multiple Social Channels Mini Cooper has created a world of engagement, and it’s truly an experience all of its own.  The iconic import has grasped attention and stolen the hearts of many motorists across the country, and to that end, they have established their own mini-nation: Mini USA. Beyond the exclusivity of an owner’s only club, the camaraderie and fellowship between Mini drivers curves closer to extended family.  And what better way to spend time with your family than to be “couped” up with them on the greatest of American familial pastimes?  “Mini Takes the States” is a clash of Mini Cooper clans cruising on a 5,000 mile road trip from [#MTTS]San Francisco to [#MTTS]Boston.  Motorists can post to social networks during pit stops with a set of branded hashtags, photos and videos.  Along with crossing the continental US, Mini’s social presence spans across platforms: Facebook, YouTube, Tumblr, Instagram and Twitter. Need some Mini maintenance? For continued care of your car, the company’s website features a downloadable PDF of your owner’s manuals, a roadside assistance...

If you haven’t looked into Instgram now is the perfect time to reconsider. Instagram has launched its standalone companion, Hyperlapse, to appeal to the Vine crowd without…well, the Vine crowd. Hyperlapse offers mobile video production that’s quick, simple, and eye catching. In other words, it’s just what you need to take your content marketing to the next level. Hyperlapse helps mobile users create silent videos that are 15 seconds in length or fewer. This is more than double the video length available on Vine, allowing you to offer a fuller presentation of your content while maintaining your audience’s short attention span. Effortlessly create seamless video tours of a unit or longer videos showing what the surrounding community has to offer. It’s also a good tool for sharing clips from community events. Anyone can create a good video with Hyperlapse thanks to the ultra-simple process: record up to 45 minutes of video, alter speed as needed, save, and share. Your staff won’t need a media degree or innate tech-savviness to operate the app. Hyperlapse is just that straightforward. While simplicity is an excellent feature, it’s the quality of Hyperlapse videos that will really make your content stand out. Built-in image stabilization (via the phone’s gyroscopes) gives the videos a smooth, professional finish rather than looking like bumpy scenes from The Remaining. This app can potentially save you money. Create awesome videos with fewer calls to your professional videographer. Prospective users will be glad to know that you don’t have to create a new presence on the app. It’s a pain to build and maintain a following on a new social media platform, especially when we don’t know which apps will be hot or not in the next six months. Hyperlapse cuts the drama by allowing you to...

Buckingham Companies may have forged its identity as a leader in commercial real estate but its multifamily properties have established their own reputation. In 2013 alone, the company received 19 awards for its singular properties. Spreading the word about Buckingham Companies’ award winning properties is an equally distinguished marketing department. The staff was honored with a Prodigy Award for Best Overall Marketing Program, another for Best Color Advertisement, and the Bronze Adrian Award for Complete Campaign and Posting. Nicole Crosby, Marketing Manager, believes that the trick to modern marketing is for the department staff to quiet its own assumptions. “It’s less about what we have to say and more about what customers have to say. We’re just trying to do a better job of monitoring what our customers are saying and leveraging that feedback to use in our marketing campaigns,” says Crosby, pictured at right. “We can’t rely on what we think is great about our communities. We have to listen to what our customers have to say and use that as our marketing message.” Buckingham Companies’ approach appeals directly to Millennials, whose social media usage serves as a direct line of communication to the marketing team. The team’s attentiveness has paid off. From feedback and observation, Buckingham Companies decided to capitalize on the popularity of Buffalo Wild Wings restaurants and a common housing woe: roommate dysfunction. “We did a marketing piece where we gave the students one of the BW3 wet naps attached to a little card that went out with the to-go orders that said, ‘Things are about to get messy. We’re here to help.’ Then on the other side of the card, we mentioned, ‘Now let’s talk about your living situation,’” laughs Crosby. The card gave students details about local properties....

Buckingham Companies began this year with a slew of accolades, among them a Prodigy Award for Best Overall Marketing Program, another for Best Color Advertisement, and the Bronze Adrian Award for Complete Campaign and Posting. At the foundation of those achievements stands an innovative marketing department that enhances traditional marketing approaches with a tool that many competitors have kept at arm’s length: Instagram. Unlike Facebook and Twitter, Instagram is an entirely image-driven social media platform with more than 200 million users worldwide. While Facebook and Twitter usage has hit plateaus, Instagram is one of the fastest growing platforms with a notable international audience, and 65 percent of the community is from outside of the United States. It is the ideal tool for reaching local renters and transplants. Buckingham Companies’ team dove into Instagram as a major component of their marketing strategy for CityWay in downtown Indianapolis. MHN caught up with Marketing Manager Nicole Crosby to explore the method behind their success. MHN: Tell me about your Instagram strategy for CityWay and how it enhances your brand. Crosby: Traditional real estate marketing is often visualized through staged and perfectly edited photography, alongside a carefully crafted list of features and amenities. As marketers, of course we want to show our properties in the best light possible, but today’s customers expect more. They want to understand what it’s really like to live there, to spend every day there. Instagram offers a way for our residents and on site teams to capture the perspective of everyday living and connect with our property, in some cases before they even set foot in our leasing centers. Our prospective customers are craving that connection in their apartment search. Highlighting Instagram on our property websites provides a first step in that connection. MHN:...

Melissa D. White is a Millennial specializing in multifamily marketing, which means she is perfectly poised to understand what renters of her generation want and need from their apartment leasing experience. And thanks to fast-paced technological innovation in the realm of real estate and the willingness of her employer, GFI Management Services, to try new things, she’s also able to deliver the desired experience. That’s not just a win-win, but a win-win-win, with prospects, apartment front office employees, and Melissa all reaping the benefits. “It’s given me the power of time. You’ve given me my time back to go out and manage my team,” said White, who has been working in the multifamily industry for a decade. She quickly climbed the corporate ladder to become GFI’s Director of Marketing and Training, a position that puts her right in the vortex of multifamily tech advancement. “I never expected that this much technology could be possible in multifamily – I think of it as a Leasing Virtual Assistant,” said White, whose teams use Yardi products for their day-to-day sales operations and marketing tasks, including managing ILS listings, lead tracking, and social media content distribution. Like most Millennials, White sees the myriad benefits of technology-aided workflows. Training, distributing listings, following-up on prospect interest, advertising specials and promotions, measuring ROI in content and media, and even the act of leasing have all become more streamlined, systematic and automated in the last year, she noted. “We look at Yardi as our partner. You’re not just a vendor, and we’re not just a client. You’re our partner in offering sustainable onsite solutions and valuable services to our residents,” said White. While GFI has adopted numerous Yardi products, among her favorites is RentCafe, a comprehensive marketing solution which allows for automated...

On April 8, I was a panelist on a multifamily webinar sponsored by Apartments.com and Yardi Systems. Those who dialed in to the event were treated to an hour of insight on the best practices for multifamily content marketing. My section of the presentation focused on content marketing, specifically for multifamily communities. Here are a few of the thoughts I shared: It’s no secret that local newspapers are dying, and that means that people are seeking new sources of information about what’s going on in the community around them – things to do on the weekend, places to eat, and more. That creates a great opportunity for multifamily communities to become providers of that kind of content, and it ends up having two benefits: enhancing your marketing while also adding value for those living at your community. If you can help keep residents’ lives fresh and interesting, you’ll have a loyal customer for a long time. The most common error that I see on multifamily blogs is offering content that isn’t local or community relevant. A post about spring cleaning might seem like a great idea for this time of year, but that has nothing to do with what’s going on around you in your neighborhood. Make it local – that’s the most important thing I can emphasize. What makes good content? Here some ways to find out: Listen to the questions that your residents and prospects ask you.  If you live in the community or near the neighborhood, ask yourself what YOU would like to know? Think about the things you notice on the drive or commute to the community. Is there a new business down the street? How about that new pizza place the leasing team tried for lunch that week? Daily...

A “selfie” is a photo that you’ve taken of yourself.  Most of us admit that we’ve taken one or two in our lifetime. We also admit that we secretly loathe our buddies who post #POTH. (If you don’t know what that means, you’ve been spared.) Selfies can teach businesses a few fun yet practical do’s and don’ts for marketing via social media. The Selfie Mantra: If you’ve got it, flaunt it! No one is going to be drawn to your product or service if they haven’t heard of it. Spread the word generously and don’t be afraid to try new platforms. There’s no such thing as too much exposure. Secondly, selfies focus on positive attributes: perfect hair days, pouty lips, ripped muscles. Likewise, focus on your brand’s strong points. Don’t make reference to the competition. Besides, talking about the competition just confirms that they are the industry standard. And you’ll look like a hater. Too many selfies sends a bad message. What would you think of a profile dominated by selfies? Chronic selfie taking is linked to alienation. Use social media to engage with fans and accept feedback rather than endlessly posting positive company updates. Granted, a decent profile may have a few selfies. But they’re buried amongst images of the person engaging with friends or traveling with family. Use media to show your brand amid the big picture: your staff participating in community outreach, your product solving common problems, or behind the scenes with executives and developers. Selfies in the restroom and disheveled in the AM are are a bit much, right? Right. Make sure that your employees aren’t oversharing on social media. While transparency has its place, it’s best to keep your public face professional, relevant and customer-appropriate. This means creating and...

Social media is an integral part of today’s consumer relations and marketing. As such, it pays to be on top of your social media game. A few tips will make your outreach efforts easier and more effective. Create a user-friendly handle. Keep your username short and free from fancy characters. Users shouldn’t have to flip through multiple screens on their QWERTY keyboards just to @,  # or follow you. Those seconds (and characters) are precious! Users will skip over a name that’s too complicated. Fewer retweets, likes, and follows leads to fewer business leads. Be consistent. While we’re on handles, pick a handle that you can use across all of your platforms. Consistency makes you easier to find and remember. Secondly, avoid frequently changing your username. Social media isn’t about you. The platform is actually for your clients and potential clients. It’s a place where they can learn more about you, interact with you, and share feedback. Be client-centered rather than using the platform as a billboard for yourself. Join in on other conversations. Find relevant businesses or causes and join in on their conversations. Having your name in different places increases exposure. The affiliations with other companies can also help clients know a little more about you and your interests. Research using social media. Feedback, especially negative feedback, is an excellent way to learn what’s working in your brand and what’s lacking. Take that feedback seriously by responding to inquiries and mitigating reputation disasters. Learn from what your tenants and guests are telling you. Represent the community, not just units. Add variety to your posts and tweets by selling your community: great amenities, shops, and restaurants nearby; interesting facts; events; and even a dash of history will make your area more interesting. You...

The digital environment gives you the power to transcend physical boundaries and reach your audience wherever they are. Virginia Love, Vice President of Leasing and Marketing for Chicago-based Waterton Residential, thinks that a good online reputation is crucial in today’s marketplace. The company partnered with survey company SatisFacts and their Verified Resident Program to strengthen and promote their brand image. The project utilizes the largest apartment rating site to do additional surveying and direct those answers to additional questions back to the rating site and improve ratings and review scores. “For instance, it’s not about asking whether your dishwasher was fixed. There are additional questions in the survey after you get your dishwasher fixed, and those are the answers that affect your score on ApartmentRatings.com. Since it says that it is from a “Verified Resident,” there is a sense of gravitas. This is not some guy who drove by the property one time and didn’t like what he saw. It’s not someone who lived at a property 20 years ago when it was different management”, explained Virginia Love in an interview for the National Apartment Association.  “That has allowed our associates to tell prospective residents, “These are people who actually live here. These are the ones you want to hear from.” When reviewing your advertising options and devising marketing strategies, one thing you should always consider is the type of audience that your product is addressed to and the tools you have at your disposal to monitor their engagement. When it comes to multifamily marketing, content should be personalized and relevant to prospective clients. For example, things that might entice residents of suburban communities might not seem appealing to those interested in urban lifestyles or high-rise living; you have to find the right balance...

Imagine that you’re home on a sick day with nothing but cable and a box of Kleenex to keep you company. What’s on TV? Between shows, you’ll see a slew of worker compensation ads, LifeAlert  and Hoveround commercials, and online classes that promise you a better future. You don’t see as many of those commercials when you’re normally home in the evening. Those advertisements are targeted to people who are generally home during the day: people who aren’t working, the elderly, the unemployed, and stay-at-home parents. Those commercials show dayparting at work, a marketing technique that is just as important to your mobile marketing strategy as it is for television. Dayparting refers to parting the day into sections and then tailoring your marketing plan accordingly. Arbiton, an American audience measurement ratings service, created a five-section day. morning drive time (6–10am) midday (10am–3pm) afternoon drive (3–7pm), evenings (7:00pm–Midnight) and overnight (Midnight–6am) Each phase of the day is a distinct opportunity to reach your audience. It’s about sending the right message at the right time, which means you won’t be sending the same message to everyone all of the time. This marketing approach is light years better than static billboards and significantly better than your best-conceived commercial or online banner. To create your gameplan, ask yourself a few basic marketing questions (again) in greater detail. To Whom Dayparting offers hyper-local, extremely customized marketing experiences for consumers. To reap the greatest rewards, think about disparate subgroups within your audience base. An athletics supplier, for example, might consider text ads for teenage girls after school hours or in-app ads for young adultmales right before bedtime as they’re winding down for the day. The more that you understand even the smallest group in your demographic, the better your chances...

A corporate blog, when done right, is an inbound marketing machine. In fact, one study by HubSpot discovered that businesses with blogs received 55% more visitors than businesses without blogs. A blog can help both search engines and potential clients get to know, like and trust you. Blog posts that are published get indexed. Indexed pages help your site get found in searches. Popular blog posts are shared, providing social proof and inbound links for your company. Inbound links boost your SEO. Any way you look at it, blogging is good for your business. But how do you go about the business of good blogging? It’s less complicated than you may think. Whether you’re starting from scratch or rebooting an existing blog, here are 4 easy steps that will get you going: Think Before you can set pen to paper or fingers to keyboard, you need to brainstorm potential topics for your blog posts. Take 15 minutes to populate four simple lists: Questions clients frequently ask you Business topics you know a lot about Business topics that interest you, but you don’t know much about Current events in your industry or area Ta-da! You’ve just come up with piles of content for your corporate blog. Keep these lists handy so you can add to them anytime inspiration strikes. Schedule Creating a content schedule for your blog is critical to your success. Consistency is key when it comes to building an online community of readers. First decide how frequently you can realistically post. You should post often enough that your readers look forward to new content, but not so often that your posts become a lot of noise. Once a week is good. Twice a week is better. More or less depends on your business....

These days, marketing a multifamily community to a prospective resident is often an entirely online experience. When a prospect goes to social media to ask friends or family: Where should I live next?, savvy communities are making sure their properties are present. It’s an exciting, though potentially challenging, space in which to connect and engage. The influence of a positive resident referral or input from a trusted friend can make a big difference when it is time to select a new place. One recent industry survey found that up to 75 percent of renters had done online research, including looking at reviews, in order to select their next apartment. They valued that input even more than positive word of mouth, according to the survey results. It’s also been noted that while 63% of apartment residents say they are willing to write a positive review of their apartment community, just eight percent have been asked to do so, NAA audiences learned this week. That means there are huge opportunities for multifamily communities to grow their online presence and enhance leasing opportunities, using the right marketing tools. Not only do apartment communities need to build goodwill and cultivate positive feedback from existing residents, but they need to be engaged online and ready to reach, impress and ultimately welcome prospects as happy residents. The expanded Yardi Marketing Suite™ is a powerful tool for managers looking to do just that using the enhanced capabilities of RentCafe™. This online platform supports the entire leasing process, and is fully integrated with Yardi Voyager™. “The Yardi Marketing Suite features a full complement of mobile online leasing and resident services, and now includes tools to expand your online presence with leasing and resident referral programs tied directly to social media. This smart...

Each year Google pushes out over 500 updates to its search algorithm, and 2012 was no different.  In its effort to improve the quality of search results, the latest updates may have helped to level the playing field for property managers and increased the opportunity to drive leads to your doorstep.  Now is the time to plan out where your online efforts will be focused in the months ahead.     G+Local If you haven’t already claimed your property online, this should be your first step in 2013.  If you’re unsure, simply do a Google search for your apartment community and include the city.  If you’ve claimed your business it should be the first result.  Select the Google+ page link to view your page.  On the right hand side of the Google+ page is a link to Manage this Page, meaning manage your business listing. If your property’s website is not toward the top of the results, it most likely has not been claimed or there aren’t enough details included in the listing.  Whether you need to update your listing or create a new one, you’ll need a Google+ account to get started; http://www.google.com/+/business/.   Be sure to fill out all of the fields, upload your logo and photos, include a description and your website URL.  One benefit of claiming your community is the increased screen real estate that will be given to your property in the search results.  Google will include a map in the result, directions to the property, phone numbers and hours of operation, photos, and a link to your website.  Claiming your G+ Local page is also important because Google is emphasizing personal and local results.  In addition, if someone is searching for your property with a mobile device they’ll be...

There’s no arguing that the way renters search for a new apartment has undergone a dramatic, tech-influenced shift, one that is still evolving for multifamily. No matter what your property size, producing results via apartment search, mobile marketing and online leasing is crucial. When it comes to optimizing the online presence of an apartment community, Yardi’s RentCafe platform – which offers an Internet Listing Service (ILS) as well as customized property marketing web sites and secure portals– is on the rise and making great strides. We spoke with Patrick Lawler, Product Manager for RentCafe, who shared insight about the offerings of this dynamic product slate.  RentCafe is fully integrated with Yardi Voyager. A single-entry system  allows managers to upload property information to a RentCafe Admin site and then have those same details listed on the ILS. “Clients will love the integration with the Yardi PopCard and Yardi Call Center, and the price is super competitive at half the price of other major pay-for-performance ILS sites.  It also gives clients an easier way to manage not only their ILS listing, but also their Property Website and Portal as well as their Call Center administration; it all happens in one central site. Another thing that I love is the online lease execution,  allowing prospects to act and apply to rent while we have their captive attention,” said Lawler, who has worked for the company since 2000 in the areas of technical support, analysis, Billing, Cash and as the Director of Residential Programming. “Clients are dedicating more of their resource toward an online presence. They are increasingly accepting of online functionality, for application and renewal processing such as electronic signatures, payments, and screening. There is a growing demand for integration with social media sites and other networking...