Dealing with negative feedback and difficult questions can be a test of character. When a comment points out a genuine flaw in your product or service, it can trigger excuses or a defensive response. When the comment is unnecessarily rude, you may want to formulate an equally searing comeback. Dealing with negativity is never fun, but there are ways to turn negative feedback into opportunity. Pause. Think twice and then respond. Waiting until cooler heads prevail can help to mitigate a bad situation. When you respond in haste while you’re frustrated or upset, it will come across in whatever you write. It’s best to wait, cool off, and maybe take three to five minutes to explore a few responses before settling on one. The one that you select should cast you and your organization in the best light while addressing the heart of the problem. Identify and analyze the problem. Sometimes the heart of the problem gets lost in the renter’s foul language and snarky remarks. Take a moment to identify the source of the problem and respond appropriately. Act as if the rest of the rant didn’t exist. Never ignore negative feedback. While ignoring a bad attitude helps, ignoring the complaint altogether will only fuel the flames. You certainly don’t want to delete negative comments, primarily because the commenter will likely troll your account and repost repeatedly until you respond, anyway. Secondly, it will look as though you and your organization are trying to silence the voice of the people which is never a popular approach. Try to address each concern and complaint on your social media to show readers that you’re listening and ready to find solutions with your residents. Arguments are best resolved one-on-one. Rather than going back and forth in the comments...

No, we’re not talking about meeting our staff. (Although you can see a few lovely Yardi employee profiles here.) Today we’re talking about introducing your staff to your residents: how and why you should do it! Celebrating the employees that make your property a great place to live just makes sense. For one thing, it’s a good team building exercise. For another, it brings life and personality to your communities. Your property is more than just a collection of buildings. It’s a nice place to live, staffed by a group of people who really care. When you create that personal connection with both residents and prospects, you drive leases and increase retention. There are many ways you can share staff member stories with your audience. You might include a staff spotlight in your newsletter, showcase team photos on your Facebook page, or write an “employee of the month” post on your blog. Or you can create an infographic like the one we made below using Canva (it was easy, we promise) and share it everywhere—from your social media channels to your move-in email.   If you use RentCafe as your property marketing platform, you can use the easy social media posting tools and email manager to get your infographic or message out in a snap. However you choose to showcase your team, here are a few tips to increase engagement: Focus on staff members that prospects and residents interact with, like leasing agents, property managers, and maintenance workers Include a photo – having smiling, happy faces associated with your property never hurts Add a fun tidbit that speaks to the unique personality of your team member Encourage residents to help you recognize exceptional employees via email and social media While we’re on the topic,...

Do you speak emoji? If you don’t, you might be finding yourself increasingly in the minority as emojis—defined by Google as “a small digital image or icon used to express an idea, emotion, etc., in electronic communication”—gain momentum as a form of universal, nonverbal communication. These sometimes-silly little pictures are being embrace by more than just Millennials as a way to express feelings, moods, actions, and more in a way that transcends language boundaries. A recent study by Emogi found that 92% of online consumers use emoji. The report found that people use emoji to help them be more accurately understood. It also looked at the connection between emoji and digital advertising. Of course, researchers aren’t the only ones who’ve noticed emoji use on the rise. Social media platforms and even retail brands have found exciting new ways to leverage the popularity of emojis in 2015. Brands That Embraced Emojis In 2015 Instagram allows emojis as hashtags. In April, Instagram released an app update that enabled users to include emoji in hashtags with the reasoning that “…just as we share photos and videos, we use emoji to communicate emotions and feelings in ways that anyone can understand, regardless of language or background.” Dominos lets hungry people order pizza by emoji. The future is now, people! This past May, Domino’s debuted a system that allows customers to order pizza simply by tweeting the pizza emoji to @Dominos, followed soon after by the ability to order by text too. Ready for a pizza party? Here’s your how-to guide. Chevy publishes a press release… written entirely in emoji! Chevy’s June press release about the 2016 Chrevrolet Cruze was issued in emoji form with the hashtag #ChevyGoesEmoji, sparking a wave of funny decoding attempts across the Internet. They...

‘Tis the season for… leasing? Sure! Any time of year can be a good time to ramp up your leasing and renewal efforts when you take a seasonal approach that builds relationships and excitement around your business. Make sure your occupancy rates don’t cool down this season with five holiday marketing strategies for residential properties: 1. Create a Holiday Ad Campaign Use resident reviews and testimonials to develop a “Call <Your Property Name> Home for the Holidays” print and online ad campaign. Testimonials help to humanize your community and advertise it in non-corporate language. Alternately (or in addition), you can run a social media contest that offers residents prizes for sharing what they love about living at your property. Encourage participants to use a dedicated hashtag. These posts will reach not only their friends and family but can be shared with your followers as well. And, if your property marketing website features Instagram integration, you can easily post these photos online. “Instagram really shows those lifestyle photos. The Instagram galleries on our property marketing websites let prospective residents know what it’s like to live in our communities,” says Mia Wentworth, director of marketing at Monarch Investment and Management Group. “Our residents help us post fresh content to our sites, without us having to send a special team to take photos.” 2. Treat Your Residents Advertise holiday movie viewings in the clubhouse from Thanksgiving through the end of the year on your website, via email, and as Facebook events. Provide snacks, drinks, and free company swag if you have some. Invite residents to bring friends, instantly opening your community up to new prospects. If you’re worried that an event won’t get much traction at your property, try delivering inexpensive pop-by gifts and thank you notes...

Traditional senior housing marketing—idyllic stock photos and expertly crafted text– no longer stands out to prospects. A growing trend reveals the power of marketing that features real residents, their quotations, and their experiences at the community. Yardi client, Senior Star, is far ahead of the trend. The company made the decision to focus on resident-centric marketing more than 15 years ago. Letitia Jackson, Vice President of Corporate Engagement, explains, “We could think of no one better to represent what Senior Star does, why we do what we do, and who we serve.” Senior Star rarely uses stock images. A good stock image gains popularity and circulates throughout websites targeted towards seniors. Brands become indistinguishable. Jackson says, “We believe this may have a detrimental impact on organizational credibility.” In contrast, custom images add value to the prospect’s online experience. Branding is reinforced: the logo on staff uniforms, the color scheme in interior décor, and most importantly, faces that the prospects will recognize once they visit the site. Real residents come with genuine ties to the local community, which is a major win in most cases. “There is much to be said for the value in the local markets of a resident’s influence,” says Jackson. “Most communities in the industry have a resident or two who is well known or even a local celebrity.   We know the power reviews carry; a resident who is known locally and is used in our advertising may be perceived as providing a tacit endorsement.” The same rings true for staff. “In addition to using residents, we also use actual Senior Star associates.  It creates a degree of confidence and an early connection when someone who is considering our community actually encounters and recognizes an associate they’ve ‘met’ in our...

The basics of native marketing for social media have helped you get started. It’s the nuances of daily content development that will firmly establish your roots and nourish respect among your fan base. We’ve got four content tips that can grow your social media from a seedling into a sprawling success! Blend In But Don’t Fade Fresh, frequent content is a great first step. Now focus on creating content that impacts viewers in milliseconds. When scrolling through their feed, does your content stand out? On one hand, it shouldn’t stand out. The style of your image should blend with the style of the images around it. A stock photo may work for LinkedIn but it’ll be shunned on Snapchat. An immaculate image for Pinterest may garner less interest from artsy, down-to-earth Instagram users. Your images should blend into the community. On the other hand, you don’t want your content to fade into the background. How do you know when you’ve struck the balance? When you’ve created an image that you and people that you know would want to retweet, share, or repin: images that are bright and bold, that reflect the energy of a crowd or movement, that use interesting angles or lighting, or those that simply make you stop and smile. Those are all features that catch your attention, right? Deliver that to your fans. Establish Quick Brand Identity Users should not have to read much or focus too hard to identify your brand. If they have to find your little profile icon on the left of a post, you’ve made them work too hard. Establish quick brand identity by adding your logo as a watermark or having your logo or community name visible within the background of the image. If your community...

Twitter can place your business on the screens of 288 million monthly active users. Well, that’s its potential, anyway. If Twitter ads aren’t a part of your Marketing Genius strategy, you’re missing out on the opportunity to reach your Twitter customers on a platform that they interact with daily. What’s worse, you’re also missing out on countless new clients. Engaging with existing clients and attracting new ones isn’t exactly easy with Twitter. Fortunately, it can be a more rewarding experience than advertising through other means. Twitter targets your audience based on their interests, including who they follow and what they’ve searched for in the past. The platform also puts your message in front of their eyes at the time when they’re most likely to engage. Lastly, Twitter charges based on engagement, which can save money. With just one click, you can reap a low-cost conversion. Few other marketing tools are organized like Twitter, so you’ll want to determine which type of ad corresponds to your end goal. Check out your options below: Promoted Tweets If you’re promoting a property or unit, your best bet may be a Promoted Tweet. Promoted Tweets integrate seamlessly into users’ timelines amongst non-ad tweets. Offer all of the information needed for a renter to make the decision about the unit online right now. Include location, floor plan, cost, and a link for more info. Don’t forget to add an image, which can boost your conversion rate by 306%! Promoted Videos If you’ve created an awesome apartment tour or a heart-wrenching tenant testimonial, Promoted Videos can place your short film in users’ timelines. Promoted Videos increase users’ intent to purchase by 28% compared to similar TV commercials. Promoted Trends Another good alternative could be Promoted Trends. These hashtags begin or...

Where were you on the night of August 6? While you were probably sleeping (we certainly were), Google rolled out changes to the way local businesses appear in search results. This update affects everyone from restaurants and retail stores to—yep, you guessed it—apartment communities and property management companies. What? Google has updated how local results appear to both desktop and mobile searchers. Before the update, seven local businesses would appear under the map that displays local search results. After the update, only three local businesses appear. What was known as the “7-pack” by SEO experts is now the “3-pack.” Instead of ranking in the top seven local results for a search, you now have to rank in the top three to show up on the first page. Why? While Google has called this an update that “provides people with more relevant information,” multiple sources have suggested that this might be a move to encourage more businesses to use AdWords, Google’s pay per click (PPC) advertising tool. When the chance that you will appear in organic search results is reduced, you will probably be more inclined to pay for priority placement. How will it affect property management? Less space is dedicated to local results Before your business had to rank in the top seven to appear organically, now it has to be in the top three Less information now appears under the local listings; exact addresses and Google+ links have been removed Business hours have been added On mobile searches, reviews and the click-to-call button appear (websites do not) On desktop searches, reviews and website links appear (phone numbers do not) Although fewer local listings are now instantly visible, when a user does click through to get more information about local results, 17 additional local...

Recently, our RentCafe client services team held a webinar focused on “The Prospect Experience.” The intent was to dive deep into creating the perfect interaction with a potential renter. Strategies for quickly grabbing their attention, capturing contact information, and gently urging continued engagement were all part of the outline. To recap or if you weren’t able to join the session, here are a few of the highlights, conveniently summarized in infographic form. For more information about Yardi’s Marketing Suite products, visit our...

Do you know how to take the leasing lead in your market? It might be easier than you think! The results of our recent leasing strategy survey revealed that smart multifamily firms have multiple opportunities to increase performance and out-market, out-lease, and out-renew the competition. But to beat the competition, you have to know what they’re up to, right? To that end, we put together these top three takeaways from the responses to our survey of multifamily marketing and leasing professionals across the industry: 87% of property management companies surveyed don’t recognize/reward good follow up activity. Create a strong follow up tracking and recognition program to shape your company culture to instantly outperform 87% of your competitors! 64% of companies have no way to monitor resident relationship activity (interactions with residents). Track and reward resident relationships to prevent the loss of good residents. This will also help you impress new leads coming from other communities who don’t carefully manage the resident experience. 52% of responders don’t set a cost-per-lead goal, and 42% don’t have a cost per-lease-goal. Set concrete goals and measure your performance after one quarter. Is there room for improvement or are you doing better than you expected? Adjust accordingly. “Marketing budgets are limited,” notes Esther Bonardi, industry principal of Yardi Marketing Solutions. “Without standards and measures in place to ensure you are getting enough traffic for your marketing spend, you will easily end up with fewer leads than companies who use ROI reporting to make good marketing decisions.” It’s critical to identify opportunities where you can exceed competitor performance and commit to improvement in those key areas. Establishing standards and tracking results is essential to keeping your team on top of the market. Other interesting survey findings include: 46% of respondents...

Savvy marketers know the importance of having good data to draw on when making marketing decisions. Google Analytics is the most widely known, free analytics platform available. Last month, the digital marketing experts at RentCafe hosted a call to dig in to the importance of using analytics data to understand your online audience, traffic, and conversions. One of the biggest complaints we hear about Google Analytics is that the information provided is overwhelming, making it difficult to know which reports are most important for property managers. In fact, a large percentage of people on our call said that they find it too confusing to use regularly (see below). We think that’s a shame! There are bits and pieces within each reporting segment that are relevant to all marketers. With the right questions in mind, you can use the data to make informed decisions about your marketing strategy. Who are you marketing to? The Audience tab provides in-depth reporting into who your current website audience is. It offers a broad overview of your audience profile, including how much time they spend on your site, where they’re located, and information about the devices they use. You can also learn a great deal about the demographics of your online audience. To put this information to use, start by taking a look at how well your online demographic information matches what you see on the property itself. Ask yourself if you’re actually reaching the people you want to target. If you’re trying to shift the demographics within your community, have you positioned your website to appeal to the new prospects you want to attract? Geo-location information will help you see if the audience visiting your site is coming from the cities you’d expect. Which channels are you relying...

We’re looking for some geniuses in leasing and marketing strategy to share their thoughts with us in our newest survey. If you have just 5 minutes to spare, we’d love to pick your brain! Take Our Leasing Strategy Genius Quiz This quiz is ideal for multifamily marketers and management executives—the ones who create the standards and set the bar for high performance. Sample questions include “Do you incentivize renewals?” and “How many lead follow-ups do you require?” To show our appreciation for your time, all surveys completed before Friday, May 29th, will receive a brief summary of the survey findings. You will also be automatically entered into a drawing to win a $250 gift card. A complete list of rules and regulations can be found here. We designed this survey to gain insight into your company’s leasing habits and standards in 2015. Your answers will help us better understand your needs, so we can provide educational resources while prioritizing product updates to add significant value to the marketplace. After all, you are the true expert when it comes to the real-world application of leasing technology and strategy. All answers are completely confidential and will be used only to aggregate survey results. “Marketing and leasing are inextricably bound together and form the foundation for your success,” says Esther Bonardi, industry principal of Yardi Marketing Solutions. “Your responses to our questions about lead follow up, resident retention, and marketing ROI will be used in a benchmark report that will help you analyze your approach, while guiding the team at Yardi as we explore new features to support your efforts.” The Yardi Marketing Suite is the only completely mobile solution supporting the entire prospect and resident lifecycle, from a desktop or out in the community. As always,...

HUNTINGTON BEACH, Calif. – in a competitive Washington D.C. multifamily market, WC Smith released a secret weapon to lease up its 2M property in NoMa: an adorable, social media-savvy English  bulldog puppy. “Everyone loves pets (in D.C.), but no one has time to take care of them,” said Holli Beckman, Vice President of Marketing and Leasing Operations for WC Smith. Beckman was speaking on a panel focused on creative lease up strategy on Day Two of the 2015 Apartment Internet Marketing Conference. Joined by Billy Pettit, Senior Vice President of Pillar Properties, and Gianna Negretti, Marketing Account Director at Alliance Residential, the panelists broke down ways to use social media, local business relationships, blogger influence and location as advantageous resources. Beckman impressed the crowd with the story of Emmy the 2M pup (pictured), who not only acts as a therapy dog for residents of the 2M community, but helped the leasing team get national media attention for the property when a story about her escalated from the D.C. blogosphere to the Huffington Post and the Today Show. But more important from a leasing perspective, the publicity helped Beckman and her team lease 2M without offering rental concessions, which many competing properties in the neighborhood were using to entice prospects. Emmy now has nearly 2,000 followers on Instagram and continues to spend her days in the 2M leasing office and nights with the property manager. Residents in need of puppy time can “borrow” her for an hour for a walk or a visit to the on-site dog park. Capitalizing on a location that may have seemed less than ideal, Pettit shared the approach that Pillar Properties took to lease up Stadium Place, a 500 unit development next to the Seahawks Stadium, but also adjacent to...

Pretty much everybody (and their mommas) is on Facebook. With 1.44 billion monthly active users at th end of Q1 2015, you can’t afford to not be on Facebook. But you can’t afford to waste your time on the platform, either. In 2013, Facebook changed its algorithm so that your content will only reach 3– 5 percent of your fans. To reach more people immediately, you must pay. To reach more people organically, you must build a long and reliable bridge to your fans using value-driven content. Value-driven or value-added content is an age-old approach that has received a fresh breath of life in the social realm. In the past, when we were told to add value, we took the request quite literally. We immediately wanted to ask, “How can we make their lives more simple?” “How can we save them money?” We’d offer coupons and discounts. When we became more in-the-know, we’d offer subtle goodies like life hacks. While these tactics are all great in their own right, there are more substantial ways to offer value-driven content while taking advantage of Facebook’s unique social media mega-status. But first, let me tell you a story. Super Bowl 2002. I only watched the game to spend time with my dad. When the half-time ads came on, I prepared to turn off my brain and settle into a bean dip- induced coma, but a certain image caught me by surprise: solemn townsfolk watched as eight Clydesdale horses marched from their perspective towns in America’s heartlands, and then through city streets. The horses stopped upon icy, isolated land overlooking the city of New York. In unison, they bowed to the recently altered skyline. My entire body shook until I burst into tears. My father nodded slowly in...

Native marketing is a term that Gary Vaynerchuk made popular in his book, “Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook.” The term describes how social media marketing must be customized for each platform. As you can imagine, becoming an expert on two or three platforms takes time and money, which are two resources that marketing departments rarely have in abundance. Yet if there is one lesson that you learn from native marketing, it should be that quality social media marketing requires time. There are no shortcuts. I’ve tried useless shortcuts myself. Scheduling tools like Buffer and Hootsuite make it easy to create one post and splash it across multiple platforms. We save time and reach more people, right? We’re geniuses! Unfortunately, it’s not that easy. Each platform is unique, which is why it can thrive in competition against the others. As distinct entities, they have their own languages and codes of conduct. You’ll rarely find success by copying and pasting content between your accounts. You’ve got to tailor it at least, and come up with completely different strategies at best. For example, Twitter and Instagram are havens for hashtags. A similar quantity of hashtags on Facebook or LinkedIn would annoy users. But before you share hashtag-friendly content between Twitter and Instagram, remember that your soft sell on Instagram will be chopped off at 140 characters on Twitter. You can get away with a tweet without an image but an Instagram post with no image—well, that simply doesn’t exist. See the dilemma? And those are just the basics. We’ve got to take the time to learn the best uses for each platform. Then we’ve got to learn how users speak to one another in their respective communities. We must re-evaluate what good marketing looks like. No $899.99...

You’ve explored how to get renters through the door. Now that the prospects have arrived for a tour, don’t sabotage your sale with conversational faux pas! Check out these ten conversational dos and don’ts that will help fast forward the conversion cycle. 5 Convo Faux Pas That Will Kill Your Sales Assuming (Dis)likes “Our community has this great, retro feel that is really hip right now.” Maybe your clients aren’t hip and they certainly don’t “do” retro. You’ve just told them that the community isn’t right for them! Ask what your clients want and highlight those features in your community rather than making assumptions. Try: “You mentioned interest in mid-century architecture. Our units offer modern conveniences with plenty of mid-century charm.” Disrespecting the Competition “You’ve got to be blind to live in a place like Ivy Bluff. It’s so much more outdated than our property.” Humor is a tricky beast. If you don’t read a prospect’s humor right, your dismissive statement or joke about another property can seem unprofessional, arrogant, and make you look childish. Stick to being a cheerleader for your own property and you’ll be too busy to offend a client. Try: “These units were renovated last month.” Making Excuses “We haven’t replaced these carpets yet but our maintenance techs are so busy. You know how it is.” Rather than pointing out your property’s flaws and then excusing them, explain the plans to correct the problems. Try: “I apologize for the appearance of the carpet. It is scheduled for replacement this Saturday.” Conveying Wishful Thinking Like It’s The Truth “All three of you want adjoining units in our low vacancy community? I’m sure we can work that out.” Are you sure? If variables keep you from knowing a definite outcome, assure the...