by threshold | Aug 12, 2022 | Design, Digital Marketing, Marketing, Tech/Web, Thought Leadership
Anooj Francis
How does website development impact lead generation?
Did you know that in today’s digital age, over 90% of prospective renters and homeowners begin their search for a new home online? Miles before most people decide to contact a realtor, online searches are the most common way to discover available properties. How are these properties found so easily? Strong website design and development.
When building a real estate website, there are two significant aspects to consider: your customers and search engines. When prospective customers search for properties, you need a well-optimized website to show up on Google or other search engines. Though, you can’t just leave it at that; you also need a well-designed and user-friendly website so customers can find their desired future home quickly and efficiently.
Additionally, websites are able to do the work when humans are not. Unlike landlords, property managers, and real estate agents, websites don’t have office hours. A prospective renter or homeowner could visit your website at any time, of any day, of any week. Let’s not forget, websites allow you the chance to brand your company as well as your properties. First impressions can be tough, but when it comes to having a well-developed website, the first impression of your property will always be a positive one.
Don’t forget, your website is a way for you to not only showcase your real estate properties but also your organization. Include a section that can showcase all of your accomplishments, and show why you and your properties should be chosen over the competition. Any awards, client testimonials, and other ways to (tastefully) brag on your success is a great way to subtly set you aside from the crowd.
Why is optimized web design important during website development?
Nearly 80% of prospective renters will sign a lease without ever visiting the property. You read that right – without visiting the property. What makes them so sure about making such a commitment? Having all of the information they need right at their fingertips. High resolution photos, videos, and offering virtual tours are more often than not the deciding factors for prospective renters when it comes to committing to a lease. None of this could be done, however, without an optimized website design.
When we talk about optimized site design, we’re referring to the design process that is used during development which allows the site access to prime optimization for search engines such as Google and Bing. It also covers the on-page SEO best practices designers and developers must follow when building websites.
Think about it: how can you expect to generate leads online without a website strong enough to rank on the first page of the SERP (search engine results page)?
Any traffic to your website that is not the result of paid advertising is referred to as organic traffic. These are customers who landed on your site after performing a Google search based on its suggested results. Referencing an article from Smart Insights, the top ranked search result receives nearly 40% of all organic traffic clicks, followed by the second result at only 18.4% – less than half of what the first listed website receives. The third search result? Only 10% of clicks.
Ask yourself: when you’re conducting your own Google search, where do you start?
Because there are an astronomical amount of real estate websites out there to choose from, the challenge for many website owners and developers alike is finding a balance between user-friendly and SEO-friendly websites. Many organizations have independent teams for web development and digital marketing, which – while often formed with good intentions – can sometimes further complicate matters if not handled properly.
While the goal of the digital marketing team is to ensure the site has enough content for Google to rank it effectively for user search queries, the development team focuses on keeping the visual and user aspects of the site as simple as can be. Collaboration is only possible in companies that know the importance of digital marketing even before the site is designed. At companies like Threshold, the marketing team and the development team work hand in hand to give valid inputs to be considered at the time of creation.
How does Threshold Agency develop well-optimized websites?
If someone is searching for a specific floor plan in your area, how can you ensure that your listing will populate first in the Google search results? There are a few ways we can help with that. At Threshold, we know high-intent organic traffic is more valuable than any other traffic form, which is why we develop highly optimized websites to increase search engine rankings leading to more high-quality leads.
During the discovery phase, the marketing and creative teams ensure that we are creating websites that work well and are easy for visitors to navigate so they can find the information they’re looking for.
The designers will then take that information and design the website based on the ideas evolved from the discovery phase. Included in this second phase, a writer from our creative team will develop the website copy, which focuses on the target audience and a high-intent, high-quality organic keyword strategy.
Once completed with the second phase of development, the designers pass on their design to the developers. In this stage, the developers ensure everything the designers envisioned is working effectively with the site’s optimization so as not to cross the search engine boundaries.
To give you more of a focus, here are a few areas that our developers make sure to optimize during the early stages of development that impact the final rankings of a website in a search engine.
Website Speed
One of the most critical factors of Google page ranking is website speed, simply due to the fact that no one likes a website that takes an extended period of time to load. Anything past a couple of seconds and most users will bounce to a new site. To help decrease load time, our developers optimize the file sizes (images, videos, scripts), only use trusted plugins, and use an advanced caching system from the host site.
Mobile Responsive Design
Based on an article from CNBC, in the next three years, 3/4 of the world will use mobile devices to access the internet. A responsive website ensures your target audience has a seamless experience whether they are browsing your site from a computer or mobile device. This also helps to boost your search engine ranking, seeing as Google promotes mobile-friendly websites above those that are only desktop friendly. With 3/4 of the world moving to only using mobile devices, can you blame them?
As the website is created, run data scans and collect metrics through each phase of the development process. This allows for any changes to the website’s design or coding to remain monitored.
Sitemaps
Even though search engine bots are brilliant, it’s a good idea for us to point them in the right direction, and we do this through sitemaps. Sitemaps include all of the indexable web pages and links on a website. If we have a sitemap declared in the robots.txt, the search engine bots will first crawl through those pages. Simply said, if search engines are not finding your pages, this means means that organic traffic won’t find your pages. And as we said earlier, organic traffic is the most important traffic you want reaching your website.
Accessibility
While getting customers to the website is the main focus of an optimized site, many forget that the website needs to be accessible by everyone. At Threshold, we use Google Tools and User Way to ensure the website meets all the accessibility standards. This means your site is easily ready and accessible for people with physical and situational disabilities, as well as socioeconomic restrictions on bandwidth and website speed.
Indexable Content
Nowadays, in the web industry, we say content is king. Search engines use more AI technologies to crawl through the entire content of websites. If it can’t be crawled, it is not an SEO-friendly site. It means the likelihood of that page appearing in the search engine results is very low. At Threshold, creative writers write content for the targeted audience, and developers use the WordPress editor to apply the content where the content is in HTML and is easily indexable by search engines like Google.
The key to creating a well-optimized site is to bridge the gap between web development and search engine optimization. The collaboration between various teams from the start ensures that your website is fully optimized for SEO and usability. Providing value for customers is the key to impressing search engines. Where there is high-quality content, strong on-page SEO and excellent user experience, you will improve your presence on the internet and increase qualified leads.
In Conclusion
As the need for strong digital marketing in real estate increases seemingly by the day, so does the need for having a well-developed website. Today, real estate website optimization is so much more than metrics on a chart, it translates directly into potentially hundreds, if not thousands, of new leads.
So, ask yourself: are you confident in your real estate website?
by threshold | Jul 25, 2022 | Creative, Digital Marketing, Marketing
We know it isn’t easy to find a place to start when it comes to creating a marketing strategy for brand new developments. That’s why we’re here to help you! Check out this list of real estate marketing tactics for your new development, and let us help you get started.
Always Start With Market Research
Not sure where to start? Market research is the perfect place to begin to define your product and audience. Who are you trying to target? What are your biggest selling points? What differentiates you from your competition? Hold a focus group to see what really resonates with the audience you’re looking to target. Researching your market is only the first step in effectively building your brand and marketing strategy. In order to truly implement a successful marketing campaign for your new development, you must stay on top of marketing trends within your market and target audience.
Develop Branding Early On
After your market research is complete, it’s time to start branding your new development. Building your brand, even if you know exactly what you want to create, can be a challenging process, but take it one step at a time! Trying to do too much at once can result in your final product feeling rushed, and that’s the last thing you want for your brand.
Naming
Simply put, decide what you want your brand to go by – this is the fun stuff! Keeping your name simple allows you to focus on what you’re trying to promote so it doesn’t get lost in your messaging. Remember that focus group we recommended? Present your favorite 3-5 names to a diverse group of people who fit within your target audience to determine what name will resonate best in the market and with your audience.
Logos
Once your name is chosen, start working on your logo design. The most important thing for you to keep in mind when designing your logo is what kind of scheme you want to follow. Your logo will drive the rest of your brand, and creating a cohesive brand across platforms is what will set you apart from the competition and will seriously boost your brand image!
Voice
Similar to brand image, brand voice is something that needs to be established early on in the development process. However you want to be known is up to you, but keeping that voice consistent across all platforms and communication shows that your brand knows exactly what it is and what it wants.
Create An SEO-Friendly Website
Once you’ve nailed down your branding, it’s time to start building your website. The best way to connect with current and prospective tenants is to allow access to a functional and well constructed website. Launching a branded landing page while your full website gets built is the best way to begin building an audience while capturing valuable traffic. Encourage VIP sign-ups through your contact form and send them teaser content about what’s coming to the market.
While your landing page is getting to work on capturing leads and traffic, this gives you time to spend on your full website. Here are some key considerations you’ll want to be sure to include:
- Invest in high-quality interior and exterior renderings to display until you have hi-res photography of your new development
- Invest in high-quality 2D or 3D floor plans and prominently display them on your home page and floor plans page
- Consider PMS integrations like Entrata or Yardi for a seamless user experience
- Include virtual tours for those that may not be able to visit your property in person
- Utilize a chatbot for lead capture and engagement
- Include videos of your community or walk-throughs of your floor plans
While video and high quality renderings and photography are important to include on your website, don’t forget about including a well researched SEO marketing keyword strategy. Building a website that not only looks good but is built with foundational SEO is key to increasing organic traffic to your website for high volume, low competition keywords. And we can’t stress this enough, ensure that you have added Google Analytics to your website to measure traffic and user behavior on the site.
Design Branded Marketing Collateral
Even though our world is becoming increasingly digital, marketing collateral still has a purpose. If you are trying to save on print costs, one of the perks of brochures, flyers, or floor plan sheets is that they can all be digitized and sent through email or displayed on your website.
- Printed or Digital Brochures
- Printed or Digital Flyers
- Stickers
- Pocket Folders
- Printed or Digital Branded Floor Plan Sheets
- Permanent Signage
Bonus: Take advantage of QR Codes on your marketing collateral! Rather than just including a link, give them that direct and instant access with a QR code to whatever it is you are highlighting in your promo product.
Promotional Products
Let’s be real – every offer is a little sweeter when there’s swag involved! Creating and developing promotional products offers a sense of personalization. Always make your residents (both current and prospective) feel like they are important, because they are! When choosing your promotional products, be sure they are items useful and relevant to your target audience. You won’t want to give koozies and bottle openers to senior living residents, just as you wouldn’t want to give an eyeglass case to those in student housing. Stay on top of marketing trends to know what the best supplies are for your target market!
Take advantage of your location as well! Live near a beach, lake, or river? Items like sunglasses and beach bags are great products! Located near the mountains? Custom hiking and biking accessories could be a great way for you to develop that relationship with potential and current residents. See where we’re going with this? Marketing assets are all around you if you know where, and how, to look.
While it can be fun crafting designs for your promotional products, it’s best to keep things simple – you don’t want to overwhelm your promotional products. Using your brand’s color scheme and including a simple, clear logo is going to be far more effective than creating a flashy design that takes away from the purpose – to promote your brand!
Don’t Forget Content Marketing
Social Media
In today’s age of social media, it’s no surprise that it has become such an important part of marketing – especially in real estate marketing. Promote yourself across different platforms, like Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok, to ensure that your message reaches the maximum potential target audiences, focusing on content that sets you apart from your competition. No matter which platforms you use, remember to stay active to gain new followers, and to engage with them frequently.
Email Marketing
Email marketing, when done correctly, can still be a very powerful tool that helps drive and nurture leads. If you’re looking for how to more effectively utilize an email marketing campaign, we recommend taking a look at our recent post on How To Use Email Marketing To Nurture Leads & Learn More Leases.
Google My Business (GMB)
Completing and verifying your GMB profile is not only a great tool for boosting engagement and your online presence, but it also improves your local SEO ranking. GMB profiles provide the opportunity for people to review your business and it gives you an opportunity to engage with and respond to the reviews. But do you know about GMB posts? Promote events or offer limited time specials through your posts to drive traffic to your website. GMB posts are a must to help share relevant content and information all while building your location authority. This tells Google that your business is legit, so over time, you’ll rank higher in the search results.
Invest In Digital Marketing
Now that you’ve identified your brand, built your brand, and teased your brand through organic content, you might be thinking you’ve done everything you need to do. Not quite. Knowing how to effectively implement paid strategies during each phase of your new development is another great tool to have in your pocket. We recommend breaking your real estate digital marketing strategy into four phases:
Phase 1: Brand Awareness
Starting with a small budget, build brand awareness in the early stages while your new development is being built through the use of display campaigns. Serve ads through the Google Display Network or start with a social ads campaign with “Coming Soon” or “Sign Up For Our VIP List” messaging by targeting a local radius and specific audiences, like people who are “renters” and “moving soon.” As you continue to drive traffic to your landing page or website through both paid and organic channels, you’ll be building an audience that can be retargeted later on in your lease-up strategy.
Phase 2: Pre-Lease
As you move into pre-leasing, it’s time to think about ramping up your budget for paid advertising to drive as much traffic as you can to start signing leases. We recommend launching a Search campaign at this stage while utilizing “Now Pre-Leasing” or “Secure Your Spot Early” messaging. As you drive traffic to your website through targeted keyword searches, consider pairing your paid search campaign with a strong retargeting campaign to target previous website visitors to continue to build brand awareness and drive even more traffic to your landing page or website.
Phase 3: Now Open
Congratulations! Construction is complete and you are ready to start actively leasing for people looking to move-in now. Adjust your messaging to drive urgency around immediate move-ins. And if you haven’t had professional photography taken, now is the time. Don’t even think about decreasing your budget just yet! If you haven’t reached 92% occupancy, those paid advertising dollars are still going to be put to good use as you lease-up your remaining units.
Phase 4: Maintain
We think another congratulations is in order now that you’ve reached your leasing goals. Once you reach stabilization, we recommend pulling back on your digital marketing budget, but don’t turn everything off completely. You’ll start to move into renewals soon and may see some turnover, so it’s best to continue maintaining your online presence to create a steady flow of traffic to your website to capture renters at all stages of their journey. When they are ready to make a decision about their housing search, we want them to make that decision with you. Plus, turning off your paid advertising and turning everything back on later leads to higher costs down the line. We recommend checking out a previous post about Why You Shouldn’t Pause Digital Campaigns Once You’re 100% Leased.
If you enjoyed these new development marketing tips, feel free to reach out to our real estate marketing experts today to help you with any questions, concerns, projects, or tasks you may have involving your new developments!
by threshold | Jul 15, 2022 | Creative, Digital Marketing, Marketing, Thought Leadership
Mai Mongelous
We often think of a brand as just a logo and the name of a business. However, while a name and a logo are important visual elements for brand recognition and customer loyalty, it only scratches the surface of what branding can really involve. A brand strategy must be integrated in all aspects of marketing and development in order to create brand awareness, and to stand out from competitors.
The following are the 3 main brand components that are essential to address when building out your brand, and what types of strategies can be put in place to further develop these components.
A Strong Brand Identity
Create a meaningful visual identity: This consists of your overall brand image including logo, brand colors, website, and any other visual marketing materials. It represents the “look and feel” of your brand. This is the visual representation of what your clients will remember.
Consider your colors carefully – different colors have different meanings, and the colors you choose can speak to a specific target audience, resulting in various psychological impacts. As an example, many fast-food restaurants use red and yellow, because that combination of colors is thought to stimulate the appetite. Once chosen, ensure that you use consistency throughout all materials. (Always use the same typefaces, colors, brand patterns, etc.)
Questions to consider:
- Is this unique enough to stand out from competitors?
- Is it just a current trend, or will the design be timeless?
- What is the meaning of the logo (icon, font, color)?
- How will this resonate with the target audience?
Identify your mission: What is the business goal, and how does it reflect who you are?
Establish a Unique Value Proposition (UVP): This is a statement of how you will benefit your customers, how you will meet their needs, and why your offer is unique.
Increase your brand recognition: Think about different marketing methods such as building on different platforms and creating content that is optimized for SEO. Be sure to consistently add and improve upon new, fresh content under your brand guideline.
A Strong Brand Image
A brand image is similar to your brand identity. The key difference is, rather than how you want your brand to be perceived, your brand image is how your brand is actually perceived. Your brand image is like the reputation you have with the public.
Ways to build and maintain a positive brand image:
Establish a consistent social presence: Use social media platforms to engage with your customers, and keep them up to date on the latest news and product launches or programs. Engagement on a personal level can lead to increased overall customer service satisfaction.
Create innovative and high quality content: Content helps increase brand awareness by bringing in more web traffic while building your brand authority. You will become a trustworthy source of information, which will result in improving your reputation and increase brand trust.
A Strong Brand Culture + Brand Personality
Brand culture refers to your company’s core values and what you do everyday to live by those values. To establish a strong brand culture, consider the following:
- Define your values: What exactly are those values?
- Spread awareness of your values: Let your clients know what they are by promoting them
- Ensure that your company is always reflecting those values (Always practice what you preach!)
In order to have a strong brand culture, your brand personality is an important factor in connecting with your audience on an emotional level as well as making your brand relatable to your customers.
In order to keep a consistent brand personality, consider these questions:
- Learn who your audience is exactly; what is their age and location?
- Be consistent in your tone; is it playful and bold, or mature and sophisticated?
To wrap up, a strong brand requires a strong brand identity, a strong brand image, and a strong brand culture and personality. By implementing these in your brand strategy, it will increase loyalty, trust, and awareness, and your brand will always continue to grow. In real estate, it is crucial to building a brand that will differentiate you from your competitors.
So the question is – how will you create a strong and impactful brand?
by threshold | Jun 27, 2022 | Digital Marketing, Marketing, Tech/Web, Thought Leadership
For some, real estate marketing can feel like a shot in the dark; throwing money at separate tactics, crossing your fingers, and praying to whatever deity you believe in that people see your ads and there will be a line of a thousand future tenants at your leasing office’s doorstep the next morning.
Fortunately, it doesn’t have to be that way. A Business intelligence (BI) tool leverages technology to allow your team to collect, prepare, visualize, analyze, and present your performance data across all marketing channels. These insights help inform several types of business decisions, allows you to optimize your budget in the most efficient way possible, and improves marketing processes and outcomes.
So why should your business invest in a BI tool? Let’s go over the main benefits a little more in detail:
Identify trends and recognize opportunities
With a BI tool, you have the ability to splice, drill down and analyze large amounts of data at the few clicks of a button. This gives you full visibility into your marketing campaigns as well as allows you to derive external insights such as current events and the economy that may be affecting performance.
With regular analysis of both campaign performance and external factors, your team essentially creates a self-optimizing feedback loop that continually improves your campaigns over time.
Determine how to allocate spend
It’s hard to know how to allocate marketing spend when your current view of your data is limited by factors such as time, metrics, attribution, or visualization features that prohibit you from extracting valuable insights. When using BI for marketing, you can assess which tactics drove leads—both in quality and quantity—and which tactics didn’t.
When you assess which strategies were effective and which weren’t, you can optimize your investment by shifting your budget towards the most effective methods and away from those that underperformed.
Understand your audience
As you begin to collect more data and create more robust dashboards and reports, you will begin to get to really know the types of future tenants to go after with your marketing efforts. Using BI, you can begin to understand your audience’s demographic characteristics, their interests, the technologies and platforms they use, and so much more.
This will give you a better idea of what messaging and imagery to incorporate into your ads that will resonate with your target audience.
Improve internal efficiencies
Not only can you use business intelligence to make your marketing spend more efficient, but you can also use it to detect inefficiencies within your internal processes. Project management tools often provide limited insights into how your company is spending its time and what it’s spending it on. Once you pipe the data from your project management tool into your BI dashboard or report, you will be able to extract custom insights around inefficiencies within your internal processes. As you uncover and address more of these insights, your marketing processes will become more efficient, improving your overall return on marketing investment (ROMI).
An advantage over competitors
There’s a good chance that some of your competitors are already leveraging business intelligence to identify and target the same potential tenants that you are. Investing in BI will not only level the playing field but potentially surpass them as well as any competitors who haven’t yet made that investment.
Revenue growth
Ultimately, leveraging a BI tool helps you drive revenue and reach your leasing goals faster. As you make better decisions and continually improve your processes, you’ll see improved results from your marketing.
Now that you understand the benefits, it’s time to go out and implement your tool of choice. Looker, Tableau, PowerBI, and Domo are all tried and true options. No matter what the tool, you’ll want to identify your goals in using it, set up processes for collecting your data from various sources, and begin organizing it into dashboards and reports for your team to analyze. Business intelligence is an ongoing process. As you extract more interesting and valuable insights, your reporting and visualization needs may change and you will continue working through these steps and refining your techniques.
Congratulations, your team can now begin to make truly data-driven decisions. The insights that were once difficult, impossible, and/or time-consuming to gain are now readily available at your fingertips. Your team is now able to take action much much faster on valuable insights, increasing your ROMI and leasing up your property in a much faster and more efficient manner.
by threshold | Jun 14, 2022 | Digital Marketing, Marketing, Tech/Web
What role does email marketing play in your larger real estate marketing plan? What does your email nurture path look like? How effective is your email messaging and design?
If you’re unsure of the answer to some of these questions, you could be missing out on one of the most cost-effective digital marketing strategies available today. Although other digital tactics like search ads and SEO tend to get more of a spotlight, email is still one of the most effective ways to nurture leads without overspending.
There are a lot of advantages email marketing has over other areas of digital real estate marketing. For example, it excels as a retargeting strategy, keeping your property top-of-mind at various stages of a prospect’s housing search or reminding a current resident of all the reasons to renew. It’s also easy to track performance, with open, click-through, bounce, and unsubscribe rates all easily visible in any major email client. Plus, it reaches your audience whenever and wherever they are, with most people checking emails multiple times every single day.
If you’re looking for general email marketing tips, try starting with our post on Email Marketing for Apartments: Best Practices That Actually Earn Leases. That post will get you started with some of the core principles and tactics behind successful email marketing. If you’ve read that article and you’re ready for more email marketing ideas related to nurture paths, online reputation, improved analytics tracking, time-saving tactics, and more, then keep reading. These are the tips for you.
Set Up a VIP List or Waiting List
Setting up a VIP List for a new development that hasn’t begun leasing or a waitlist for your fully leased-up property is a great way to get more leads into your leasing funnel and get a headstart on leasing down the road. After all, email marketing is only as strong as your list of email addresses; you can’t make the most of this strategy if you have no one to send marketing emails to.
For VIP Lists, be sure to add a sign-up form to the landing page for you community and entice sign-ups by giving VIPs the chance to be the first to hear about development updates, availability, and special offers.
To implement a waitlist, consider adding a sign-up form on the floor plans page with messaging that directs users who are looking for currently unavailable floor plans to sign up for the waitlist to be notified when this floor plan is available. That way, once this floor plan has availability you can send their notification email and start them on a lead nurture campaign that includes info about special rates and other community perks to keep your community top of mind.
Define Your Email Nurture Path(s)
Speaking of nurture paths, do you already have an automated nurture path set up in your email client of choice? If not, you’re likely missing out on the full potential of email marketing. Even with a great CRM platform, it’s easy to lose track of all the individual touchpoints that add up to effective email marketing campaigns when you haven’t automated the process.
Creating an automated Customer Journey is possible in most leading email clients, including MailChimp and they’ll save you a lot of time and headache in the long run. Customer Journeys (what we’re calling Nurture Paths) help you create a customized series of emails depending on the behavior of your audience. For example, you can automatically send a welcome email with some basic information when a contact is added to your email list. Then, depending on whether they open that email, you can send different follow-up emails with targeted messaging to try to engage them further. Or, if they clicked a particular link within the email, you can set up an automated email to send them more information related to the link they clicked on. This way, you tailor your marketing messaging in accordance with each user’s individual priorities and needs.
One way to further specialize your customer journey (AKA nurture path) is to create tags for different types of leads coming in. For example, student housing communities might have tags for parents vs. students and senior apartments might have tags for seniors vs. their children while multifamily communities might create tags for resident referrals vs. leads generated by paid marketing strategies. That way, the only manual step you have to do is tagging each new contact that comes in wherever possible. Tags like these help you target your email content based on different segments of your audience and what is most important and relevant to them.
Send Timely Emails About Special Rates
When you implement a special, you want to make sure everyone knows about it. After all, a special rate can easily be the deciding factor in a prospect’s housing decision. Make your specials work harder by sharing them with your leads as soon as they are implemented.
Improve Your Online Reputation By Earning More Reviews
Prospects aren’t the only ones you should be marketing to. Email marketing can also be used to turn current residents into brand advocates. For example, a friendly email asking current residents to leave a review can help improve your online reputation and entice more future residents.
To increase the likelihood of positive reviews, consider the timing of this email. A good time to send review request emails might be after a maintenance request has been completed in a timely manner or after a successful resident event. You can also send tour follow-up emails after a prospect has taken a tour in order to thank them for coming, remind them of any specials, provide an application link, and prompt them to leave a review about their tour experience.
Get Better Insights By Using UTM Codes
UTM codes are added to the end of a URL so that Google Analytics can identify the source of a click more easily. Incorporating them in your emails can help you get more digital marketing insights to understand how your audience thinks and behaves. For example, with a UTM code in place, you can explore the user journey on your site when someone arrives after clicking an email. How many pages (and which ones) do they view after clicking in an email? Do they take certain actions when clicking through from one email more than another? What email content corresponds with more conversion actions? Implementing UTM codes in your email links can help you gain powerful insights like these.
Save Time With Ready-To-Send Email Templates
Designing an email that impresses prospects and stands out from the sea of other emails in their inbox isn’t easy. After all, the message is only part of the puzzle and a poorly designed email could even backfire by making you seem amateurish. But great design takes time and graphic design isn’t a skill most property managers have in their back pocket.
That’s there email templates can come in handy. Whether you create a template internally, buy one for cheap from a site like Threshify, or work directly with a real estate marketing agency to create ready-to-send email templates customized for your brand, using a template can save hours of time, saving you money and headache in the long run. Consider creating templates for everything from tour confirmations to rent reminders to maintenance request confirmations to review requests to rent renewal notifications. Remember, marketing shouldn’t stop after a resident moves in. Emails are a great way to improve resident experiences and earn more renewals, referrals, and positive reviews.
At Threshold, we regularly create ready-to-send email templates customized for seasonal events, leasing milestones like tours, move-ins, and lease renewal reminders, or ad hoc templates requested by clients. In fact, our templates are typically animated in order to increase email engagement and really wow prospects and residents alike. Ask your real estate marketing partner if they can create email templates like these for your community or reach out to us if you’d like to learn more about Threshold’s email marketing services.
by threshold | May 24, 2022 | Digital Marketing, Marketing
In the world of student apartment marketing, what you do during the spring and summer months can make all the difference in next year’s occupancy rates. If you’re struggling to fill your final beds for summer or fall semesters, this blog is for you. These digital marketing tips can help you get heads in beds fast.
Use Geofencing To Your Advantage
Know when your target audience is likely to be in town and take advantage of it with geofencing campaigns targeting specific locations. Housing fairs, new student or transfer student orientations, and community or leasing events open to the public are the perfect kinds of events to capture. Once you’ve captured your audience through this geofencing campaign, retarget them with tailored messaging to increase brand awareness, encourage tours, and increase foot traffic. Event retargeting allows you to connect more personally with the audience you captured because you know they attended a specific event for a specific reason and you have a solution to a need that they are looking to satisfy—a place to live.
Raise Your Ad Spend Now When It Matters Most
With most student housing properties, we see August move-in dates and May-July move-out dates, so don’t be afraid to spend your marketing budget in the spring when it matters most and you’re down to the wire to fill beds for summer or fall. Spend your budget on digital marketing tactics that will drive qualified traffic—like search ads—or increase brand awareness—like geotargeting or social ads. Speaking of social ads, don’t just stop at Facebook and Instagram. Think about TikTok and/or YouTube where a video component can go a long way to encourage online engagement. And don’t forget to implement a retargeting component to keep your brand top of mind as prospects continue shopping.
Scale your budget back when you’ve reached your leasing goals and maintain a presence online without breaking the bank. Then do it all again next year. Being flexible with your ad spend throughout the year helps maximize the impact of your ad budget by allowing you to solve for leasing challenges quickly or proactively get in front of them before they even become a challenge.
Strategically Expand Your Audience Targeting
Expand your audience targeting by creating custom audiences based on websites your audience may have visited such as a university housing page. Several tactics allow for customer matching or lookalike audiences. Use data that you already have collected to find similar users.
Refine Your Messaging to Earn More Qualified Traffic
What REALLY sets you apart from your competitors? Ask yourself the question, “Why would a student choose my property over our competitors?” Focus on one or two key differentiators in your ad messaging in order to tap into the segment of your student audience that really values what makes your community unique. For example, if your community is located right across from campus and your competitors are a mile away, focus on your location, using clever phrasing when you can. “Tired of taking the shuttle?” is a great way to get your point across in a playful way.
If you’re not sure what messaging to focus on, try listening to feedback from prospects and residents. What questions are they asking when they call you or visit your leasing office? What feedback have they given you about other properties they have visited in the area? What do they mention in positive reviews on your community? Notice any trends within the feedback and incorporate into your messaging where possible. Getting a lot of calls about pricing? Prominently display pricing in your ad copy and utilize price extensions in search. Getting a lot of questions about a specific floor plan layout? Create a carousel ad on social highlighting that floor plan, detailing the features, and incorporate some photos of that specific floor plan.
And don’t forget about the parents. Parents are still involved in housing decisions and are most likely paying the bills, so don’t leave them out. Your messaging can still be amenity focused and playful while still taking into account the things that are important to parents: all-inclusive living, fully furnished, privacy, etc. Just remember where your parent audience is. Most likely, parents are on Facebook while students are on Instagram, TikTok, or YouTube. Remember to use multiple ads and select different placements so you can tailor your messaging for students and parents.
