Every property manager hopes to fill their community as quickly as possible, but sometimes external factors put that goal out of reach. That was certainly the case for one community who came to us in need of apartment complex marketing ideas.
Alexan CityCentre is located in one of the most saturated markets in America — Houston, TX. Because of the incredibly high number of existing competitors, Alexan CityCentre wasn’t showing up on the first page of Google. It wasn’t showing up on the second page either, or the third, or the fourth. In fact, it was nearly impossible to find the Alexan CityCentre website unless you already knew the URL. You could type the property’s name in the search bar letter-for-letter and you wouldn’t be able to find the website until you reached the 4th page of search results.
As a result of the property’s lackluster SEO performance, Alexan CityCentre was 1% occupied and 3% leased when the owners came to Threshold/Carve in March of 2017. They needed help, and they needed it fast.
Canvassing the community with digital ads
The first order of business was to get the property’s digital marketing back on track with digital marketing ideas for apartments. Threshold/Carve launched search ads, retargeting ads and geo-targeted display ads for Alexan CityCentre. The geo-targeted ads were specifically targeted at competitor’s property’s; a strategic decision that was intended to encourage residents of other community’s to consider a new apartment. Supplemental digital marketing tools also included Waze ads to drive local foot traffic and Gmail ads to get the logo in front of potential customers.
Kickstarting the SEO strategy
Once those digital ads were up and running, it was time to kickstart the property’s SEO performance. After all, nobody is going to sign a lease at an apartment they can’t find. However, SEO takes a few months to go into effect because of the cumulative nature of Google’s search algorithm. That process can be sped up, however, with a branded search campaign. This branded campaign focused on getting the property’s website to show up even when potential residents misspelled the property’s name. The website’s click-through-rate went up, but conversions remained low because the website still needed to be conversion-optimized.
To address the conversion issue, the Threshold/Carve digital team created a landing page that provided potential residents with property information and a contact form. With these two new digital tools, Alexan CityCentre finally had a way to gather leads and drive conversions.
Digital marketing that drives results
So, what did all that digital marketing do for Alexan City Centre’s 1% occupancy rate? Within a year, it boosted that occupancy rate to 75%. The property was 3% leased when Threshold/Carve got involved, and 84% one year later.
Remember those conversion-optimizations we mentioned earlier? The new landing page and contact form helped Alexan CityCentre earn 178 conversions in April of 2018 after seeing just 3 conversion in December of 2017.
If you want results like this for your property — and who wouldn’t — get in touch with a Threshold/Carve team member today. We’ve got more apartment marketing ideas than we know what to do with, and we’re itching for the chance to put them to good use.