by threshold | Mar 2, 2017 | All
The first challenge for any senior living marketing team is to make sure their target audience finds their property. Whether that’s online or through word of mouth, it doesn’t matter so long as you’re getting in front of both the potential residents and their children, as both end up playing a role in the decision making process.
Unlike with multifamily marketing or student housing marketing, senior housing marketing requires convincing decision makers that your community can play the role of both host and caretaker. A fancy apartment is great, but the community must also display an understanding of the senior’s individual needs. That’s not to say senior living industry doesn’t follow the “luxury amenities” trend. Just take a look at the luxury amenities available in some assisted living communities.
- Beauty salons
- Treetop dining terraces
- Virtual workouts
- Demonstration kitchens
- Destination dining at local bars and restaurants
- Locally-sourced food prepared by executive chefs
- Golf simulators
- On-site concierges
- Art galleries
Some of the communities we work with go as far as to offer Smart Home technologies, giving seniors the ability to turn off lights, adjust thermostats and even close their blinds without ever having to get up.
Memory Care is another emerging area that some communities are really beginning to focus on. Some high end senior living complexes use sight and smell therapy to revive their residents’ memories. By decorating with carefully selected objects and styles from the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, community caretakers are able to continuously take seniors on trips down memory lane. Care providers are finding this to be an extremely effective way to to enhance their residents’ memories.
This nostalgia-based approach has been shown to take the stress out of memory care for seniors. Its a more passive approach to memory improvement. Instead of framing memory care as a sort of class where seniors have to work hard to improve their minds, this approach integrated memory care into everyday life. Besides room decor, certain kinds of music can be another form of memory care.
Some of our senior living clients actually partner with a group called Music and Memory, which provides seniors with iPods that contain preloaded, personalized playlists. The music can tap into deep, long forgotten memories that have not yet been lost to dementia. In some instances, it can even bring back certain parts of a resident’s personality. Caretakers have reported instances in which a resident has listened to the playlist, then rediscovered their ability to converse and socialize.
Beyond caring for their residents, many senior living communities are beginning to care for the environment too. After all, Baby Boomers were once—and in many in cases, still are—the generation responsible for bringing the issue of climate change into the mainstream consciousness.
Most new assisted living buildings are built to adhere to the EPA’s Energy Star standards. A smaller, but still significant percentage of new buildings use renewable energy like solar power, or have eco-friendly practices like serving their residents vegetables grown in organic gardens and providing locally sourced food in the dining room. With so much competition in the senior living market, new communities have to find ways to set themselves apart.
If your community needs to set itself apart with beautiful marketing materials, Threshold can handle all your senior living design needs for websites, brochures, information packets and more. We can also improve your community’s digital presence, which might be necessary since more and more seniors are using smartphone technology. Give us a call today.
by threshold | Feb 15, 2017 | All, Marketing
The demand for creative residential marketing ideas for apartments is higher than ever in this saturated market. After all, the seven year luxury apartment boom may finally be ending. U.S. apartment rental rates have increased 26% since 2010, however, rents only grew by 3.8% in 2016 compared to 5.6% growth in 2015. Furthermore, the Commerce Department has released figures that suggest fewer newly-constructed apartments being rented out this year than last year. In short, rent prices have stopped skyrocketing and new developments are slowing down.
Differentiation is more important than ever in a saturated market. In Threshold’s many years of experience in residential marketing, however, we’ve learned that differentiation is an easily misunderstood concept. Differentiation is not just a unique amenity or industry-first service offering. Differentiation is answering the question, “Why would your ideal resident choose your property over the property down the street?”
Some communities try to differentiate by offering services like bike repair, tanning beds, and even dog washing areas. While the overall service and amenity offering is important at any apartment community, it’s unlikely than any one amenity will convince someone to choose your property over the competition.
Differentiation is as much about identifying your target audience as it is about having a unique marketing message. Here at Threshold, we work with many different residential industry clients and as a result, we end up creating marketing collateral for many different audiences.
When crafting a marketing strategy for senior living communities, we must consider both the potential resident and their child who is often the final decision maker. The same holds true for student housing, though the audiences are obviously vastly different. It’s vitally important in that industry to create messaging that speaks to Generation Z students, but to not do so in such a manner that we alienate the parents who are actually paying the student’s rent.
Multifamily housing presents a different challenge altogether. In that case, the potential resident is also the decision maker, but that person could be anywhere between 22 and 70 years old. Marketing to millennials is just as important as marketing to empty-nesters, and we often have to accomplish both using the same messaging, design and marketing collateral. Advancements in apartment digital marketing tools have helped target specific audiences, but market research and understanding the client’s property is still just as important.
Differentiation doesn’t happen just because your property has the biggest pool in the market or the lowest rent. Differentiation happens when your property is properly positioned—through strategic messaging and design — to fill a gap in the market. Threshold has positioned over 3,300 properties during our combined 242 years of residential experience. Here are a few examples of positioning the client’s property as filling a gap in the market:
- The no-frills, affordable apartment that still offers a hint of luxury.
- The place to gather for a diverse community of young professionals
- The rustic living space in an urban environment
- The senior living community that helps residents maintain an active lifestyle
- The student housing community closest to campus
- The student housing community that doesn’t feel like student housing
As you can see, positioning can be as simple as a location or as complex as a lifestyle promise. Of course, each of these positioning statements requires many hours of research and competitive analysis. In the end, by identifying the target audience and comparing the client’s property to the competition, we’re able to find the differentiation opportunity. It then becomes a matter of crafting the messaging, digital campaigns and residential marketing collateral that best speaks to the primary differences between your property the one down the road.
by threshold | Feb 1, 2017 | All, Marketing
A recent survey of 2,352 marketers revealed that content marketing and big data are expected to be the two biggest marketing trends in 2017. We say trends, but these two residential marketing tools are going to be around for a long time. The truth is, property managers can no longer expect to drive digital traffic or foot traffic with advertising alone. The market is so saturated and the competition is so fierce, brands need to provide something of value before they can expect to receive any customers. That’s where content marketing comes into play.
Effective content marketing is both highly valuable and remarkably difficult to get right. The Content Marketing Institute defines content marketing as, “creating and distributing valuable, relevant and consistent content.” The problem is that the definition of “valuable” changes depending on your property’s target audience, as does the definition of, “relevant.” At Threshold, we combine audience insights from our digital team with copywriting services to create effective content marketing strategies for our clients. Understanding the pool of potential residents is the first step toward developing creative marketing ideas for apartments.
Big data will steer marketing decisions in 2017 in many ways. Modern data measuring tools haven given marketers the ability to accurately measure the success of marketing campaigns, reveal and analyze target audience demographics and target potential customers by filtering through dozens of audience identifiers.
Marketing automation is another digital marketing tool that will drive leases in 2017. Marketing automation can take on many different forms. At Threshold, we developed HOLA (Handy Online Leasing Ambassador) to nurture our clients’ leads from the first point of contact through the signing of the lease. HOLA and other automated marketing tools are much more valuable than simple e-blasts because they’re dynamic. Prospects are funneled into different channels depending on their level of interest and follow-up. Automated marketing systems are especially popular in the residential industry for a number of reasons. For starters, automated systems like HOLA free up the leasing staff to focus on in-person leads and community tours. Secondly, marketing automation can be used to build and maintain digital relationships with current residents, increasing the likelihood they’ll renew.
Geo-specific mobile marketing is another way to increase leads and draw residents away from your competition. Everyone carries a GPS in their pocket these days, which makes marketing to millennials a whole lot easier. Savvy residential marketers are now able to use smart phone location functionality to target prospects within a certain geographical location. We take advantage of this in a couple ways here at Threshold. First, we use geo-targeted advertisements to display a client’s mobile ads to prospects who happen to be near that client’s property. The other method is to target residents who currently lease from the competition. Geofencing allows us to define areas as small as a single building (like the other luxury apartment building down the block) in which to display mobile advertisements. Hey, it’s a competitive world out there.
If your properties don’t have the latest apartment digital marketing tools, contact Threshold today and let’s get your property on the path towards 100% occupancy.
by threshold | Jan 25, 2017 | All
Name: Ashley Germaine
Title: Creative Operations Manager
Ashley keeps the gears turning in our multifamily marketing machine by seeing projects through to Completion. She is a big reason why our apartment marketing ideas come to life every day.
Get to know Ashley below!
What are 3 words you would use to describe Threshold?
Collective | Inspired | Neoteric
If you had an office nickname, what would it be?
Ca$hley
What is your favorite line from a movie?
“It’d be a lot cooler if you did.” – Dazed & Confused
If you were stuck on an island, what three things would you bring?
Honey / Sunglasses / a solar Kindle with unlimited books
What is the title of your autobiography?
Plan Plan Plan (Or just wing it….)
What is/would be your motto or slogan?
You have total freedom to choose, but you are not free from the consequences of your choice. Choose wisely. (Also, never make eye contact while eating a banana)
If you had a superpower, what would it be?
Teleportation
What is your hidden talent?
Baby Whisperer
If you were famous, what would it be for?
I have zero desire to ever be famous!
Favorite Austin eats?
Chi’Lantro for the win!
by threshold | Jan 18, 2017 | All, Marketing, Tech/Web
If Threshold’s skilled residential marketing designers only cared about getting the most information to the customer, our websites would look a lot like this blog post. We’d see a whole lot of text and the sites would have very little visual appeal.
That approach works well for blog posts and articles, but websites are a sensory experience; a virtual market where people spend their time enlarging floor plans, scrolling down lists of amenities and clicking through gallery images.
Of course, many prospective residents don’t spend much time on websites at all. Marketing to Millennials is all about keeping their attention, but plenty of lost customers see the homepage and immediately click away after deciding the property isn’t for them. In today’s post, we’re going to take a look at the most important elements to keep residents interested in your property, and get them to click on those important action buttons.
Animation
Animation helps communicate messages with style, drawing the user’s eye towards moving images instead without them having to load a video or click a “play” button. Animation can be as simple as rotating sliders on a homepage or as complex as animated water in a resort-style pool. Even the most simple movement can be the difference between grabbing and losing a customer’s interest.
Material Design and Beyond
As anyone in the digital marketing industry knows, when Google makes changes, the rest of the web follows suit. Google was the first big company to take “Flat Design” and turn it into something with depth and layers. Material Design pairs geometric shapes with shadows, movement and overlays to create visually appealing websites and web apps. That’s not the say that Material Design is the only way to make websites, but it’s certainly a look that internet users are familiar with and understand intuitively, which is always a positive. Speaking of making sure users can understand your website…
Navigation
Most property sites need the same standard pages in the navigation bar: About Us, Floor Plans, Amenities, Gallery, and Apply Now. Obviously, there are some exceptions, but every property website needs to cover those basic pages before moving on to anything else. Navigation doesn’t have to only happen via Navigation Bar though. In fact, more and more websites are using the “long-scroll” look, where all pages are accessible when the user simply scrolls down from the top of the homepage.
The whole point of a website is to get the prospect to take action, so keeping the complex navigation to a minimum helps steer prospective residents toward the “Schedule a Tour” button or the “Apply Now” button without too much extra fluff. Most properties sell a lifestyle just as much as they sell an apartment, so it’s important to convey that lifestyle with big, bold images and impactful design. People will locate the amenities and floor plans if they are interested in learning more, but they won’t be interested in learning more without a simple, impactful message on the home page.
Customized Google Maps
Most of your website’s visitors will be familiar with the look, feel and functionality of a Google Maps plug-in, it’s very common in residential marketing. So much so, that they may just glaze right over it. Customizing your Google Map, however, offers prospective residents a totally new experience with a tool that they’re already familiar with. At Threshold, we often highlight certain locations around the property, such as restaurants, shopping centers, gyms and coffee shops. This gives residents an idea of what life will be like living in the neighborhood.
The best website designers know how to quickly — and beautifully—convey the lifestyle promised at every property. This is where animation, navigation tools, and customization come into play. Each element helps create a feeling within the website visitor that (hopefully) convinces them to explore the website and property further.
Is your property’s website up to date? Let Threshold’s designers come up with some creative marketing ideas for apartments in your portfolio. Our website development team will then create a responsive websites that drive traffic to your front door.
by threshold | Jan 3, 2017 | All
Social media is making the transition from an affordable way to perform apartment digital marketing to the centerpiece of many residential marketing plans. A recent webinar from NUVI showed how just many people engage with various social media platforms every day, and the numbers are startling.
1 hour of video is uploaded to YouTube every second
500 million tweets are posted every day on Twitter.
4.5 billion likes occur each day on Facebook
It’s more important than ever that we, as apartment marketing experts, help our clients generate leads through well-curated social media pages. Here are a few ways in which social media can help the residential industry be successful in 2017.
In the residential industry, reputation is everything. Nobody chooses an apartment or even schedules a tour without first checking reviews online. If you can speak directly to your audience, you can have some control over your reputation. With social media, never before has it been so easy to reach right out and speak directly to a geo-targeted, demographically segregated audience.
At Threshold, we develop creative marketing ideas for apartments, but creativity is only effective when paired with strategy. Our social media posts are always specific to the client’s target audience, be they kids in a college town, young professionals living downtown or empty nesters looking to downsize. Our clients trust our social media team to post content with depth. Engaging social content is about more than just the product; it should also offer a glimpse of the lifestyle associated with your property.
Engaging social content turns a like on Facebook into a click on the website and a call to the leasing office.
Anyone with a little marketing experience has probably heard the phrase, “Content is King.” Not only is it catchy, but it also alludes to the fact that your message and the value you offer your audience is extremely important. However, it’s also the title of a 20 year old essay by Bill Gates. A lot has changed since 1996, and the need for engaging content is now a given. That doesn’t mean brands should ease up on the creativity, but it’s the way in which you present that engaging content that makes all the difference in an oversaturated arena like social media.
So what medium/content pairings work best in the residential industry? A good rule on social media is, “if you’ve got it, flaunt it.” Show off those amenities with Facebook 360 Photos and video tours. Offer prospects some branded floor plan layouts and links to interactive floor plan views. It’s all about getting your audience to pause for a second, and the aforementioned mediums are far more engaging that traditional mediums.
Without giving away too much of our internal strategy, we can say that potential residents want a taste of life in their new apartment, and current residents want to feel appreciated by their new apartment. The largest single payment residents make each month is their rent bill, so doesn’t it make sense that the management company receiving all that money would show them some love in return?
Whether its an update to the company’s Facebook or a new photo on its Instagram page, thoughtful content attracts people to your page, and eventually your website. You wouldn’t put an ad in a magazine without giving it some real thought, and social media content is equally as important when marketing to millennials — and its far less expensive. Check out our solutions page to see how Threshold can help your property fill vacancies through social media.
