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.
by threshold | Dec 15, 2016 | All
Regular readers of the Threshold Blog may have noticed some unusual pictures in our Thresh Faces blog series. We call these pictures “Hero Images” and they’re actually an important part of the culture at our residential marketing agency.
When we hire new team members, one of the first things we do is ask them to tell us about some of their heroes or role models. We do this for a couple reasons. First of all, its a great way to get to know the new employees a little better by understanding who they look up to and why. Secondly, our designers like to immortalize new employees and their heroes in carefully-photoshopped pictures, which we then hang on our “Hero Wall” in the office and feature on our website.
We’re up to 20 people in the office now, which means there are 20 framed pictures of Threshold Employees hanging out with their role models. The Hero Wall features a real cast of characters these days, including Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Matt Groening and Rosa Parks just to name a few. These influential people and their Threshold Employee counterparts hang on our Hero Wall as a reminder that everyone here has their own values and their own way of doing things. They’re also great fodder for conversation. Asking someone why they chose their “Hero Image” is a much better conversation starter than, “Some weather we’re having, huh?”
One of the perks of working for student housing marketing firms is that we get to feel young. We do a lot of marketing to students which means we can’t act stuffy or boring. We try to keep it light while also doing meaningful work, and the Hero Images represent that part of our culture. As we grow, we’ll be adding more Hero Images to the wall in 2017. Until then, continue to look for more Hero Images featured in upcoming posts from the Thresh Faces blog series.
by threshold | Dec 8, 2016 | All, Culture
Name: Tyler Holmes
Title: Account Manager
Tyler has been working in student housing marketing since college, and now he’s absolutely brimming with apartment marketing ideas and multifamily marketing strategies. On top of that, he also owns the world’s cutest dog.
Get to know Tyler more below!
What are 3 words you would use to describe Threshold?
Innovative, Fun, and Full of Swagger
If you had an office nickname, what would it be?
The Tyl… Squirrel!
What is your favorite line from a movie?
Guys, if I don’t bleed to death pretty soon, I’m gonna die of boredom. – Suicide Kings
If you were stuck on an island, what three things would you bring?
Booze, Bacon, and more Booze
What is the title of your autobiography?
My Life with a Side of Bacon
What is/would be your motto or slogan?
It’s all good!
If you had a superpower, what would it be?
Telekinesis (bascially can do anything!)
What is your hidden talent?
I use to sing in showchoir… so yeah… there’s that…
If you were famous, what would it be for?
Dog Rescuing
Favorite Austin eats?
Rudy’s BBQ
by threshold | Dec 1, 2016 | All
Marketing to millennials is all about positioning your property as a notch above the competition. If you have a luxury apartment complex, you’re in luck. There are housing communities with luxury amenities, and there’s everyone else. Nothing is going to convince a prospect to pick your luxury property over the budget apartment down the street quite like mind-blowing amenities. However, amenities won’t attract anyone unless they’re marketed correctly. When every luxury apartment in the neighborhood has a pool, naming and describing the benefits of your pool becomes a whole lot more important than simply announcing that it exists.
If the competition offers a pool, you should be offering an “Expansive pool, tanning space and outdoor cabana.” If the competition offers a study room, your property should be offering a “Smart Study Lounge with blazing fast Wi-Fi.” With so much competition in the housing industry, multifamily marketing is more important now than ever before.
So you know you need to do some marketing, and you have amenities you want to show off. The next step is making sure your marketing efforts are seen in the right places to effectively reach prospects and residents.
The days of putting up a website, handing out brochures and calling it a day are long gone. Marketing student apartments is a year-round job. Well maintained Facebook, Twitter and Instagram feeds are just as important as a cutting edge website. The first step to creating effective month-to-month social media content is actually having things on the calendar to promote. Luckily, luxury apartments are easy to market through social media.
Its easier than ever to post high quality videos on Facebook and Instagram thanks to advancements in smart phone camera technology. It takes 2 seconds to snap a video showing off your pool or fitness facility and post it on Instagram. Facebook’s cool new 360 Image feature is also an ideal way to post mini-tours available units or just a quick shot of your hardworking leasing agents.
Clubhouses and fitness centers are also great spaces to host quick and easy events like Taco Tuesdays or Waffle Bar Wednesdays. Post a couple times on Facebook to promote the event and watch residents and their friends line up outside your door. Sometimes you need to post on social media just for the sake of keeping your page up to date, but its a lot more effective when your property actually has some events to talk about. Hopefully your event calendar reaches the point where you’re able to create event pages on Facebook and let residents invite their friends. Say hello to more prospects and more referrals.
In this post, we’ve established that events are an important tool for marketing on social media. But creating a diverse calendar of events is no easy task. As the marketing agency Austin apartment experts flock to, Threshold has a ton of experience filling out property’s monthly event calendars. We’ve been doing this long enough to know which events work and which are total busts. One event that always attracts a crowd is a partnership up with a local non-profit. Not only does philanthropy attract well-meaning attendees, it also acts as a boost to your public relations image around the community.
There are more new multifamily marketing ideas where that came from, so feel free to contact our team of experts next time your event calendar is looking a little thin.
by threshold | Nov 17, 2016 | All, Marketing
Keeping track of apartment marketing campaigns used to be like packing for a vacation in the 90s. Remember when you had to pack way too many different gadgets before boarding your plane? You had to keep track of your cell phone, your iPod, your digital camera, your laptop and your camcorder. Not to mention your boarding pass, some maps, and a bunch of batteries to keep everything running. It was a hassle.
These days, all those things live inside your smartphone. Life is easier when everything you need is in one place. At Threshold, we decided to apply the same principles to tracking and reporting on our digital marketing ideas for apartment communities.
Introducing ThreshBoard, our brand new real-time digital reporting dashboard. Lets break down what that means.
Brand New – We created the software in-house so its customized for the residential industry.
Real-Time – The data is constantly updated so you’re seeing up to the minute campaign results.
Digital Reporting Dashboard – A dashboard displays multiple channels of information in one place. Clients will have full access to the ThreshBoard where they can view all their analytics at once, instead of having to comb through different sets of data.
So why does ThreshBoard exist? At Threshold, we’re always trying to think of ways to provide better services and tools to our clients. We recently discovered that there isn’t one perfect solution out there that would allow us to manage seemingly disparate campaigns under one umbrella. We invested in this software so we could not only provide more accurate data for our clients, but also help us identify more ways we can give a boost to their digital marketing campaigns moving forward.
This software is part of our effort to continue providing our clients with cutting edge data tools so they can make quicker, more informed decisions. Currently, clients have to skim across several sets of data in order to understand how their digital marketing campaigns are performing. One client might be looking at an AdWords report, another a social media report and yet another combing over email campaign reports. Now, clients who use Threshold for their digital marketing will be able to track the success of their campaigns in one place using ThreshBoard’s reporting and analytics software. Cutting down the time it takes to manage digital marketing increases the time our clients have to focus on filling vacancies and taking care of current residents.
Not only will clients be able to view the results of their campaigns in an easily digestible way, they’ll also be able to compare those results to industry benchmarks. These industry benchmarks simply weren’t available before ThreshBoard. Clients will now see their campaign results in real-time and immediately know how they stack up against the competition.
The up-to-the-minute data and benchmarking makes Threshold much more valuable than reporting that simply measures engagement or costs per click. We will be able to see how one campaign affects the other campaigns using one tool, instead of having to review separate reports to get those answers. Plus, ThreshBoard was created by residential industry experts, for clients who need multifamily and student housing marketing. In short, ThreshBoard was made to fill vacancies.
