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Social Marketing Solution
By Yardi Blog Staff on Jun 21, 2013 in Marketing
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 program incentivizes residents to share trusted referrals via social channels including Facebook and Twitter,” said Terri Dowen, senior vice president of sales for Yardi.
Expected to be among the popular features of the suite, the Facebook app allows prospects to check availability at your community, and even lease an apartment, without even leaving their favorite social site.
“It’s a seamless extension of our marketing site. They don’t even realize that they have transferred to another site when they’re on our Facebook page,” said Trent Jones, Regional Marketing Director for The Worthing Companies.
Other noteworthy features include interactive prospect and resident portals, so that prospects can complete the leasing process online, and residents can enjoy online rent pay, submit a maintenance request, or arrange to extend their lease. The resident portals are now equipped to send users directly to Facebook and Twitter to refer friends to your community. You can also choose to incentivize the process by offering rewards, like a discount on a future month’s rent, if a prospect ends up signing a lease due to the residents’ social media referral. And when the prospect clicks through to your community after seeing their friends’ positive recommendation, they will land directly on a customized landing page within your property marking site.
When it comes to that pivotal piece of maintaining the positive reputation of your community online, RentCafe™. is equipped to make that easier too. A powerful comprehensive dashboard allows for at-a-glance monitoring of reviews and comments that have been posted about your community online. And when you are ready to market that newly vacant unit, the ILS Data Syndication feature will submit details of your property to numerous sites all at once.
The Yardi Marketing Suite also includes products that focus on lead tracking and CRM, mobile leasing with the leading edge Yardi Leasing Pad™, and phone, email and live chat services from the Yardi Call Center.™ Find out more about all of these offerings at yardi.com
Yardi Senior Writer Joel Nelson contributed to this report.
