by threshold | Nov 9, 2021 | Digital Marketing, Marketing, Tech/Web
If you have a real estate website, when is the last time you dove into your Google Analytics? While most real estate marketers have a Google Analytics account set up for their website(s), many of them still underutilize this tool.
Not only is Google Analytics (GA) a must when it comes to integrating your Google Ad campaigns with site data like traffic volume and on-page conversions, it’s also one of the best tools at your disposal for understanding your online audience. Whether your goal is to reach more qualified users, improve conversion rates, or just gain a deeper understanding of who your audience really is, Google Analytics can help. You just have to know how to use it.
Today, we’re covering some of the best features of GA and showing how they can help you understand your audience better so you can execute more effective real estate marketing.
How To Find Out What Content Interests Your Audience The Most
Finding out what areas of your site draw the most attention from your audience can teach you a lot about what motivates them to take the next step and eventually become a tenant or customer. You can then use this information to make it easier to reach those sections of your site or even link users directly to this information by creating Search, Social, and Display Ad campaigns with messaging related to this information. For example, if users are engaging most with your floor plans page, you may choose to run ads highlighting your floor plan availability, or you may even choose to run a special on specific floor plans that are getting attention.
There are two key ways to gather this information: Screen Performance reports and Event Performance reports.
This report can be found in the Behavior section under Site Content. This will tell you the top pages on your site so that you can see which areas draw the most users. Bear in mind that this can be influenced by how easy it is to reach that section of your site, so take this information with a grain of salt. Think about how many clicks or turns of the scroll wheel it takes to view an area of your site and compare this to how many users actually view that area. If you have easy-to-access sections that no one is viewing or difficult-to-access sections that many users are seeking out, that can help give you ideas for site improvements or marketing campaigns.
This tool can also show you the time spent on each of these pages and the bounce and exit rates for each page, which offers further insights into which pages are your most successful drivers of prospect engagement.
Your Event performance can be found in the Behavior section under Events. This shows you what events people take most often on your site.
This information can help you diagnose whether people are taking the actions you want them to take on your site. For example, if you want people to use the contact page to get in touch with your leasing staff, you can check how often this event actually occurs on your site. If it’s not occurring very often, this could indicate that your contact form is difficult to find or use. It may even help you catch problems with your form, like a broken link or other UX issues.
Similarly, GA can show you your top conversions along with an Event count for those conversions. This can be found in the Conversions section in the left panel. Note that in order to get accurate conversion information, you first need to tell Google Analytics which events count as conversions.
How To Use GA To Tap Into Your Audience’s Interests
Did you know that the user demographics information in your Google Analytics account can show your users’ interests as well as their city, gender, age, and language? Not only that, but you can see which user interests correlate with the highest site engagement and conversions. This is located under “Audience” in the left pane, in the Interests section.
This information can help you create more accurate audience personas and inspire more effective marketing tactics. For example, if you find that many of your users are interested in the automotive industry, you might be inspired to draw more attention to your attached garages, covered carports, or EV charging stations through ads with targeted messaging or an amenity highlight on your home page, Google My Business page, or social accounts.
How To Find Out Who is Most Likely to Convert
At the end of the day, you want visitors to your website to take further action like scheduling a tour or starting an application. Luckily, Google Analytics has tools to help you understand who is converting, where they’re converting, and how often.
Engagement Reports
Engagement reports show you what actions users take once they’ve reached your site. An engagement report can be found by selecting “Audience” then “Behavior” and then “Engagement” in the left panel. These reports help you determine how well your site gets people to engage (by comparing total site users to users who actually engage). It can also show you which users are most likely to convert across factors like how they navigated to your site (e.g. organic search, link from social, search ad click, etc.) and user demographics.
Retention Reports
Similar to engagement reports, retention reports can tell you which users are interested enough to become a return visitor. A retention report will show you the number of return visitors you have over time, but it will also show you your number of return visitors by cohort. A cohort is a group of users who share a common characteristic such as when they first viewed your website. This feature is useful when you are making website updates, because it helps you determine whether those changes result in more return users, fewer return users, or no change. If a site update results in more return users, that’s a great sign that it’s generating more interest, more brand awareness, and ultimately more brand loyalty.
If you’ve configured your conversion events, you can easily compare users who convert to users who don’t convert. Navigate to Audiences in your left pane, then create an audience that includes a particular conversion event and another audience that excludes that conversion event. Once you’ve created these audiences, you can compare them in your reports. This will help you compare the behavior and attributes of converters vs. non-converters directly.
This can tell you the user behaviors and attributes that are most likely to lead to a conversion. For example, it might reveal to you that users who navigate to your floor plans page first are likely to convert, while users who visit your amenities page tend not to convert. This can help you diagnose site issues and show you where you should direct users through ad landing pages, home page links, or social media posts.
How To Understand Your Audience’s Full Renter Journey
Acquisition reports and user journey information in Google Analytics can teach you a lot about how users find and navigate your site and what behaviors make them most likely to eventually become a tenant. These features are particularly useful for understanding how your audience thinks as they navigate your site and can also give you insights into how to make your site experience more conducive to conversions.
Acquisition Reports
Acquisition reports are a small glimpse into your prospects’ renter journey before they have arrived to your site. It tells you where the user was before they came to your site and/or what action resulted in them arriving on your site. In other words, clicking on the Acquisitions section in the left panel will bring up reports showing you the sources bringing in new users; that might be organic searches, ad clicks, referrals from your social media accounts, or other behaviors like typing your URL directly into their address bar.
Knowing how users tend to get to your site is useful because it shows you where your energies are best spent when it comes to digital and print marketing strategies. For example, if people are coming in from organic searches, that could mean SEO enhancements are your best low-hanging fruit to gain even more users. But, if people are clicking over directly from your social media accounts, that means putting extra effort into your social media presence could deliver the highest ROI when it comes to generating site traffic.
Not only that, but these reports can show you whether a particular acquisition source correlates with higher rates of engagement and conversion. This information provides additional insight into how your different marketing tactics are resonating with users and whether a particular marketing tactic is aligning with what users eventually find on your site. For example, if users arriving from ad clicks tend not to engage with your site very much, you might want to ask yourself whether your ad messaging and design is consistent with what a user sees when they first land on your site.
User Path Exploration
One of our favorite features of GA is the ability to explore a user’s full journey through your website. The path exploration or Behavior Flow feature allows you to see how users tend to move from one screen, page, or event to another.
For example, it could tell you that users tend to start at your home page, scroll to a CTA button about amenities, click that button, arrive on the amenities page, then bounce. Or, it might show you that a common user journey is arriving on your floor plans page, clicking on a particular floor plan, viewing a virtual tour video, then navigating to your contact page and filling out a contact form. Each step of the way, you can see how many users make it to the next step, how many end up somewhere else, and how many exit your site altogether. You can even dive down into a specific user’s journey to help troubleshoot a specific user flow or create an audience segment based on that specific user flow to help you gain further insights into your audience.
All this information about how users move through your site can be an eye-opening experience for real estate marketers, designers, and web developers. For one thing, it can help diagnose problem pages that lead to the most exits and give you the opportunity to redevelop those pages. Or it can help you identify which landing pages lead most consistently to a conversion action further down the line, giving you the opportunity to direct more of your ads, social media links, or links in email campaigns to that page. Whatever you discover, diving into path exploration really helps you get in the mind of your users and see what’s important to them, what they find most eye-catching, and what messaging leads them to keep exploring and/or take action.
by threshold | Nov 2, 2021 | Digital Marketing, Marketing, Tech/Web, Thought Leadership
Written by Michael Smart, Digital Strategist
The world of digital apartment marketing is a constantly evolving, confusing, and sometimes even chaotic one. Staple advertising platforms like Google and Facebook are changing their UI or adding new features on an almost monthly basis. New extensions, targeting capabilities (or limitations, thanks to updates like those introduced by iOS 14) are constantly changing, making it difficult to know what’s resulting in leads and what isn’t.
But outside of diving into the individual platforms and looking at the performance from a siloed point-of-view, how do you know if all of these efforts are working? What does your combined Cost Per Acquisition look like across all platforms on a month-over-month basis? How does your performance compare to this month last year, when the scramble to find housing began to slow down? More importantly, how can you prove to stakeholders or property managers that their marketing dollars are being spent wisely?
This is where developing a digital marketing performance report comes into play. A digital marketing performance report can come in the form of a dashboard or recurring static report that marketing strategists, managers, and property owners alike can use to quickly analyze campaign performance, spot trends, and optimize where needed.
First, sit down with relevant stakeholders and discuss what information and metrics are most valuable to you and your team. While this should ultimately result in multiple dashboards updating in real time and automated reports that are relevant for different teams, we suggest starting small and defining what metrics have the biggest impact determining performance and ultimately, attracting new tenants to your property.
Here are a few basic cross-platform metrics that should be included in your performance report:
- Impressions
- Conversions
- Conversion Type (Applications, Calls, Contact Forms, etc)
- CTR (Click-Through-Rate)
- CPA (Cost Per Acquisition)
The fun doesn’t end there though. It’s important to add as much context to these metrics as possible. For example, if your Search campaign has a 15% CTR, what does that actually mean? How does that compare to the same month last year? How does it compare to last month? How does it compare to benchmark in the same “subvertical” (i.e. Student Housing, Conventional, etc.)?
While all of these questions can be answered in the form of pretty looking graphs and charts, the most important thing is to identify any outliers that need immediate attention. Set up some conditional formatting that highlights your campaigns that are performing in the bottom 15th percentile. Identify campaigns that have 0 conversions over a certain period of time, or after spending a certain percentage of budget.
If you can add as much context as possible to a campaign’s performance and back it up with as many data points as you can that make sense, this will allow for your digital apartment marketing team to quickly decipher what’s going on and where optimizations can be made. The more context you add, the quicker and more accurate the analysis. The quicker and more accurate the analysis, the more optimized your ROMI (Return On Marketing Investment) is and the quicker your property becomes leased up by happy tenants (hopefully). Who knew data could be so much fun!
by threshold | Oct 26, 2021 | Digital Marketing, General, Marketing, Tech/Web
The housing market can be a difficult place for Class C and D properties. With older construction, less flashy amenities, and less affluent neighborhoods with fewer public services and attractions, Class C and D properties can struggle to appeal to prospective renters. And with plenty of new developments filling out the ranks of A- and B-Class properties, the competition can seem especially stiff.
But the truth is, there’s a market for C- and D-Class communities; the challenge simply lies in figuring out how to tap into it. From our years of experience in apartment marketing across a variety of property classes, we’ve never met a community we couldn’t connect with the right audience, even amid waves of new starts offering additional competition. If you have a C- or D-Class property you’re struggling to market effectively, here are our top four tips toward better apartment marketing results.
Understand Your Audience
If you’re asking yourself why anyone would choose to live at a C- or D-Class property when there are so many A- and B-Class communities out there, you may be overlooking entire sections of the American renter audience. Understanding who your audience is and what motivates them is the first step to a successful real estate marketing strategy.
Start by letting go of your assumptions. Although you may be starting with some good ideas, it’s also important to overcome any potential bias you may have about your audience, especially if you’ve never lived in a C- or D-Class apartment community yourself and therefore lack this insider perspective.
Instead of operating on your own assumptions, it’s time to do some research. First and foremost, get out there and ask actual people what motivates them when choosing where to live. Conducting quick surveys on the street in the neighborhood surrounding your community is an excellent place to start. If you have trouble finding participants, offering to enter people into a drawing for a prize can help overcome this hurdle. You can also send surveys online, gathering responses through services like Survey Monkey or Qualtrics.
In addition to this on-the-ground research, research the demographic and sociographic information of your neighborhood. You might be surprised how much information you can find for free online. One tool we often use is the ESRI Tapestry Segmentation profiles, which provides demographic and sociographic info for over 60 different audience segments in the US. ESRI also has an in-browser Know Your Neighborhood app which allows you to look up audience segmentation info by zip code (scroll down and click “Explore Your Zip Code”).
Don’t Be Afraid of the Word “Affordable”
Now that you’ve ditched your biases in favor of a data-driven approach, it’s time to overcome another common instinct we tend to see among apartment marketers, owners, and property managers. If you’re afraid of the word “affordable,” you’re far from alone. But avoiding this term doesn’t serve you or your audience.
The truth is, one of the primary reasons some residents are drawn to Class C and Class D communities is because they know they’ll get a better deal that suits their budget. For many, cutting-edge amenities and brand new interiors are simply out of their price range, or they’d prefer to save the extra money they’d otherwise spend on these nice-to-haves and instead focus on the essentials. Don’t snub this audience by avoiding terms like “cheap” and “affordable” like they are dirty words. In nearly every market, keyword research shows that search terms including the words “cheap,” “affordable,” and “low cost” get plenty of search volume, revealing just how many are interested in precisely that. By including these words in your website and ad copy, you help this audience weed out the communities that don’t fit their needs and find a community that is perfect for them—namely, yours.
Just in case you still have some hesitation, consider this: There certainly are those for whom “cheap” and “affordable” carry negative connotations. Some prospects will indeed see those terms and use that as a reason to not click on your ad or your website. But this is actually a good thing. The more you qualify your audience by connecting with people who actually want what you offer, the less time, energy, and money you waste on prospects who are more likely to look elsewhere.
Show Your Online Reputation Some Love
Class C and D properties tend to be on the older side, which means you’ve had plenty of time to accumulate reviews—and we all know people are more likely to leave a review when angry than when they’re satisfied. Plus, older communities tend to face added maintenance challenges, which are common catalysts for negative online reviews, even if those challenges are resolved later. Not only that, but for Class C and D properties who are in neighborhoods that enjoy less financial stability and less access to public services tend to face higher instances of on-site vandalism, theft, and other crimes, which is also a common reason that some upset residents are inspired to take their concerns online.
These overlapping factors can all come together to spell disaster for your online reputation if you’re not careful. But there’s a lot you can do to turn your reputation around and show residents both current and future that you care. To see the tips we’ve compiled from our own Reputation Management experts, check out the posts below.
How To Make Online Property Reviews Work for You
How to Give a Boost to Your Business’ Online Reputation
Enhance Your Online Visibility
Do you have a modern website? Updated Google My Business page? Social media accounts? Active search ads? Just because your building may be older doesn’t mean your marketing tactics have to be. These days, nearly every housing search begins online, so enhancing your online visibility is one of the quickest ways to connect with your audience.
For starters, be sure to keep your Google My Business page up to date. Even if you don’t have a shiny new website with great UX, simply having an up-to-date GMB page with accurate contact information, leasing office hours, and property photos helps make you visible to the wide range of prospects who begin their apartment search on Google.
If you don’t have that shiny new website with great UX we mentioned, it might be time for an update. It doesn’t have to be anything fancy, but an outdated website with broken links and missing information is easy for prospects to spot and likely to disqualify you early on in a prospect’s buyer journey. If building a new website from scratch isn’t in the cards, consider at least creating a single landing page with all your most important information and links to apply online. A single landing page can be cheaper, quicker, and sometimes just as effective as a multi-page website.
Finally, get in front of your audience with strategic ad campaigns. For example, YouTube ads are a great awareness tactic, especially for Gen Z and Millennial prospects. And you don’t have to have stunning photography or videography assets to make them work for you—stock photography and videography, paired with upbeat music and a compelling message can be all you need to make a difference. Geofencing may also be a useful tactic to reach more renters who may already be living or working in your neighborhood and looking for a place to live. And Google Search Ads are a must for driving site traffic and conversions among prospects who are actively searching for housing.
by threshold | Oct 12, 2021 | Digital Marketing, General, Marketing
Gone are the days when senior living was a monolith (if those days ever indeed existed). Where once the ideas of the “retirement community” and the “nursing home” were all seniors had to look forward to, now adults of retirement age have more of the options they deserve. Nowadays, Assisted Living and Memory Care communities are joined by Independent Living and a new boom of Active Adult housing that is quickly becoming the new face of senior living.
As senior living options expand, so too have the types of people senior apartment marketers must appeal to. In fact, senior housing has long had two primary audiences: folks of retirement age for whom living independently has become difficult and—sometimes more directly—the adult children of seniors who are looking for a home where their parents will be cared for. Now, in addition to these two groups, senior housing caters to additional segments, such as adults seeking to downsize after years of home ownership but not in need of additional care or a place to “slow down.”
As new developments and new generations of seniors converge to redefine the market, senior apartment marketers may well be due for an updated look at the expanded and shifting audiences their branding, creative assets, and digital tactics must now appeal to. Perhaps due to these recent shifts (exacerbated, no doubt, by garden-variety ageism), misconceptions still very much plague the industry of senior apartment marketing. So let’s take a deep dive into some of the primary audiences of senior living and what motivates their housing choices.
The Audience of Active Adult Housing
Active Adult housing communities typically attract seniors who have recently reached retirement age (55+) and live independently on a day-to-day basis without the need for additional care. This type of housing community is a relative newcomer to the senior living industry and has represented the bulk of new developments in recent years. Active Adult communities often focus on lifestyle conveniences and concierge-style services along with abundant programming and resident events to provide a sense of tight-knit community and exciting opportunities that outweigh the benefits of owning a single-family home.
With this audience typically consisting of adults around 55-75, it’s primarily Boomers and a few older Gen Xers who are likely targets for Active Adult marketing. This group tends not to see itself as “old” and even though they are so-called “retirement age,” they aren’t always retirees. What defines them as a group is their motivation to downsize, find community, and enjoy the conveniences of renting (like maintenance and added amenities). This decision often comes after parents become “empty nesters” after years of living in a single-family home where they raised their children. This group typically has one or more sources of income without relying exclusively on social security and similar programs. On a related note, this group is predominately affluent and white, resulting partly from the fact that most of today’s Active Living communities primarily cater to a luxurious lifestyle at a higher price point than many can afford, especially adults of color who are impacted by significant wealth and income inequality.
According to ESRI data, this group has the following additional characteristics:
- They frequently use the internet to read up on the news, shop online, and use social media.
- They are generous supporters of the arts and charitable organizations.
- They subscribe to cable TV, enjoying news, sports, and on-demand movies.
- They often use professional services like housekeeping to minimize their household chores.
- They pursue a variety of leisure activities like tennis, golf, boating, fishing, and reading.
- They live active social lives, enjoying museums, live shows, and travel.
- They prioritize a healthy lifestyle, aspiring to good nutrition and fitness habits.
- They are likely to have some college education or even a graduate degree.
The Audiences of Independent Living
Independent Living communities offer some additional care and services to help aging adults live primarily independent lives. These services include things like housekeeping, security, meals, transportation, and access to on-site personal care and health services. Often (but not always), Independent Living communities are combined with Assisted Living and Memory Care communities, making it easy to acquire additional care as needed as these residents age.
While this group includes adults with disabilities at a variety of age groups (some as young as 55), the primary audience for this sector of senior living is older Boomers and members of the Silent Generation (around 70-90 years old). This group doesn’t necessarily live with disabilities, and those that do may be able to manage them without special assistance most of the time. Even so, this group is motivated by the added conveniences of a service-oriented approach to senior living, where things like meals and housekeeping may be taken care of.
This audience includes those who may not be as affluent as those who live in Active Adult communities, but they are still disproportionately likely to be white (compared to the US average). This is likely due to the same systemic wealth and income gaps mentioned before, alongside the fact that younger generations of Americans are more diverse overall than older Americans.
According to ESRI Data, this group also has the following characteristics:
- They are politically engaged, often contributing to political organizations and causes they are passionate about.
- They prefer entertainment options like book clubs, crosswords, sudoku, and card games.
- They enjoy cable TV, including premium channels like HBO, and often watch news, movies, sports, and history channels.
- They use the internet for news and social media, but still prefer to do some things in person, like shopping and banking.
- They like to travel, including visits to foreign countries.
- They shop at large retail chains like Sears, Target and Walmart, appreciating these options for their convenience.
- They are health-conscious, with shopping often including exercise equipment, health foods, and supplements.
These seniors are not the only audience Independent Living marketers must appeal to, however. In many cases, the adult children of these seniors are also involved in the housing decision for this group. In some cases, they are even the primary decision-makers, though often they work collaboratively with their parents to come to a final decision.
This group of adult children is primarily composed of Gen Xers and younger Boomers (around 40-60 years old), though it is also beginning to include a small segment of elder Millennials in their late 30s. When this group is involved in the housing search for their senior parents, they are motivated to find safe communities with a high quality of care at the best possible value.
According to ESRI Data, this group also has the following characteristics:
- They prioritize convenience, reliability, and comfort over cutting edge bells and whistles.
- They tend to live in single-family homes, often in and around large metropolitan areas.
- They are budget-conscious and value-oriented, especially when it comes to choosing the ideal long-term home for their aging parents.
- Many have children of their own who are currently in school and financially dependent on them.
- They rely on the internet for news, social media, shopping, banking, and entertainment.
- They entertain themselves with movies and TV, online gaming, family-friendly activities, and outdoor recreation.
The Audiences of Assisted Living & Memory Care
The audiences of Assisted Living and Memory Care communities have significant overlap with the audiences of Independent Living discussed above, though they tend to skew older as they primarily serve aging adults in need of daily care. Assisted Living communities feature additional care and more regular staff interaction compared to Independent Living. These additional services may include helping residents keep up with their health routines, appointments, and medications, assisting with shopping, and helping with bathing and grooming. Memory Care covers many of these same needs, plus an added focus on assisting seniors with memory loss, Alzheimer’s disease, and other forms of dementia. Environmental safety and round-the-clock care are priorities of these communities in order to assist those whose dementia causes confusion and interferes with independent functioning.
These groups of seniors tend to be members of the Silent Generation, as well as some older Boomers. They typically have one or more disabilities that create barriers to living alone on a day-to-day basis, although their needs can vary widely and many prefer to remain independent in many respects, accepting additional care only where they cannot avoid it. Some seniors in Assisted Living and Memory Care communities have partners, but many are singles living on their own. For more information on these seniors, see the section on Independent Living above.
Because of the specific needs this group of seniors faces, their adult children tend to be even more involved in their senior housing search than in the case of independent living. Appealing to this audience of adult children is especially important when designing senior living marketing for Memory Care communities. For more information on this group of Gen Xers and younger Boomers, see the Independent Living section above.
by threshold | Sep 28, 2021 | Creative, Design, General, Marketing, Thought Leadership
Written by Mike Krankota, Art Director
There are a lot of elements that go into creating a real estate brand. Everything from voice and tone to visuals like color palettes, shapes, and patterns must be considered in order to develop a coherent brand identity…but in the process of developing a visually striking brand, design efficacy sometimes becomes an afterthought. When this occurs, marketing results suffer, because if your brand doesn’t stand out from the pack, then it doesn’t really matter how pretty it is. In order to stand out, a brand has to not only be eye-catching, but also interesting and memorable against the backdrop of other competitors. As we discuss how to create effective real estate branding, we’ll focus on logo design specifically, but these principles can and should apply to everything from naming to advertising.
Consider brand logos that you’ve encountered and remember. Chances are very likely that it’s not something that looks ‘trendy’ or similar to other brands in its space. The reason it sticks with you? Boldness. For example, consider the candle aisle at your local Target or similar. Can you think of one single brand that has a memorable logo? Not really. They all kind of look the same. It’s either filigree and florals, or stark and modern. “But,” you may be saying, “who cares about the logo, it’s the scent, right?” But when you do see something that stands out for being different, you’re compelled to at least pick that candle up and give it a sniff.
The same applies to your property. Ultimately, a flashy logo design isn’t going to compel potential tenants to live on that property. It’s going to be the interiors, the amenities, the space, the location. So why even care about a big bold brand?
Easy! Because we want to be bold and eye-catching to make that potential renter stop and take a look. We want something that will pique interest and make that person think, “I could see myself living here.” This is doubly true for new construction. When what you have is a construction site and fence wraps, creating an entire vibe with bold branding is extremely important for pre-leasing and lead generation.
Be smart with your logo design as well. The days of just being able to slap some trees flanking “The Oaks at Washington Heights” or whatnot are over. Consumers have become more sophisticated, and demand brands that are tailored to their lifestyle. More to the point: brands that are tailored to their perceived idealized vision of self. It’s always aspirational. This especially plays into the importance of a decision like where a person is going to live. You’re not just selling a place to store your stuff. You’re selling a community. An area. A lifestyle. And overwhelmingly, people want to feel cool and interesting—and to have their home reflect how unique and interesting they feel.
So how do we do that? By embracing the unexpected. Take elements from the location. Consider the design of the property. Analyze the area. Establish the target demographic. And then the key is to execute based on an idealized aspirational vision of that target demographic. For example, a bold brand that targets millennial creatives who want a live/work/play kind of community is very different from a bold brand catering to active adult senior living. But both can be achieved! It all starts by asking the question, “If I were the target resident for this property, what would be a logo that would inspire me to stop and learn more about this cool looking place?”
As you’re considering the answer to this question, don’t fall into the trap of believing everything has to pretty and perfect. Embrace dissonance. Perfectly perfect design is often boring. It’s blandly pretty, with no unique features that create a WOW factor. Imperfections, asymmetricality, bold typographic choices, and even unexpected bursts of color can create a pleasantly dissonant effect that will get your brand described with those words all marketers love to hear: Edgy! Bold! Brash! Unique! Interesting!
Ultimately, the goal is not to blend into the neighborhood. If it was, you could simply put a for rent sign out and not even bother naming the building. Your real goal to stand out. Yes, you want to create something that resonates with the community and the target demographic, but you also want to be a linchpin of that community and not simply a cog. In order to accomplish that goal, it’s important to prioritize bold and impactful design choices over elements that are pretty, but innocuous.
by threshold | Sep 14, 2021 | Creative, Design, Marketing
Apartment branding isn’t what it used to be. In just the last five years alone, the landscape of apartment branding across North America has adapted to dramatic fluctuations in the housing market which have led to new innovations in naming, logo development, and brand identity.
As an apartment marketing agency with expertise in naming and branding projects, we’ve had a front row seat to the shifting needs of renters, owners, developers, and asset managers during this time and enjoyed a position at the cutting edge of the branding innovations that these shifts have inspired.
This experience has not only fascinated us, but also empowered above-market results for our clients, and we hope it will do the same for you. So without further ado, here are the key shifts we’ve seen in apartment branding trends across multifamily, student, and senior living markets within the last five years.
Branding Is No Longer an Afterthought
We couldn’t write about the changes in apartment branding trends without first acknowledging that the attention paid to branding has increased. That is to say, not only have the types of branding choices apartment marketers make shifted over time, but real estate creators and managers are also making these choices earlier and with more care than ever before.
Before the pandemic hit, many rental industries were experiencing a boom of new developments, causing increased competition that required developers, owners, and asset managers to focus their efforts on how they would differentiate their new developments from the competition. This also prompted existing communities to up their game to compete with newcomers, which made rebrands more common than before.
Now, even after the effects of the pandemic, the trend of thoughtful branding has continued because it has become the expectation among consumers and apartment marketers alike.
These days, crafting a brand for a new development typically occurs in tandem with the development and tends to inform and be informed by architectural and interior design processes.
More often than ever before, branding involves a careful research and discovery process, professional assistance from an apartment marketing agency, and the creation of in-depth brand guidelines documents to keep the branding consistent and effective over time and across multiple platforms.
Apartment Names are Bolder & More Memorable
Five years ago, you would find many new developments adopting names incorporating the street number of the complex (e.g. AMLI 5350) or a classic two-word formula featuring words like “Estates,” “Pointe,” and “Vista.” Nowadays, you still see plenty of those formulas being used, but more often, apartment brands are breaking the mold in favor of unique and memorable names that might have felt too bold just a few years ago.
For example, apartment marketers often eschew the familiar in favor of the unique so that brands feel “iconic” instead of “traditional.” Instead of “900 West,” or “Clinton Gardens,” new developments are more likely to be dubbed “NTX,” “Lumen,” or “Mosaic.” Also increasingly common are anthropomorphic names that instantly inject a sense of personality into a community, like “Emara,” or “The Guthrie.”
This trend is particularly true in student housing, where it’s generally understood that Gen Z prospects will overlook the boring and traditional. However, student housing does not have a monopoly on this trend. Even senior living brands are becoming more bold and adventurous, especially as we see a surge in Active Adult communities that emphasize an active lifestyle and resist the narrative of “slowing down” in their retirement-aged residents.
Sustainability & Social Responsibility Have Taken Center Stage
Climate change, racial justice, and public health have all taken center stage in the public zeitgeist, causing renters to pay increased attention to how their housing choices play a role in these factors. Especially among Gen Z and Millennial renters, green living, inclusive marketing, and public responsibility have become important factors in determining whether a brand resonates with them enough to make it into the consideration phase of their renter journey.
Apartment communities new and old have responded to these priorities by incorporating names, taglines, colors, textures and patterns, and brand voices that underscore themes of responsibility, cleanliness, sustainability, and inclusion. For example, brands looking to resonate with eco-conscious renters are adopting greens and blues in the brand colors or incorporating organic elements like plants and animals into their logos.
Student Housing Brands are Ruled By Gen Z Sensibilities
With the oldest Gen Zers now twenty-four years old, student housing has spent the last five years adjusting to the priorities of this generation of renters. That means student housing brands are emphasizing technology, social media presence, sustainability, and affordability more than they were when Millennials were their target audience.
How To Get More Leads & Leases from Gen Z Renters
For example, today’s student housing brands are incorporating messaging that emphasizes “an option for everyone” rather than “exclusive amenities” or “upscale living.” Of course, luxury student apartments are still being built, but even these communities are often leveraging themes of inclusion and attainability in their brand messaging and imagery in order to avoid the impression that they are catering to the wealthy few rather than to the millions of Gen Z renters who came of age during an economic recession and enjoy less public funding for their tuition than any generation before them.
Multifamily Housing Brands are Ruled By Millennial Sensibilities
While the oldest Zoomers are becoming renters in multifamily communities, the largest group of multifamily renters is still the Millennials. Many of these 20 and 30-somethings are experiencing fledgling careers (often changing jobs every two years or so), new parenthood, and mountains of student loan debt, which is making affordable housing, spacious apartments, family-friendly amenities, and work-from-home opportunities more attractive than ever.
Multifamily communities are responding to these needs by emphasizing how their apartments support residents’ careers, families, and physical health while providing an excellent overall value. As with student housing, luxury multifamily housing is still being developed, but the sense of luxury is often communicated through the highlighting of work-from-home conveniences, more spacious interiors, state-of-the-art fitness facilities, and convenient lifestyle perks like housekeeping services, pet grooming, and other factors that make adult life a little bit easier.
Senior Living Brands are Adjusting To The Active Adult Housing Boom
Senior living was once considered only in terms of Independent Living, Assisted Living, and Memory Care facilities, but that’s no longer true. These days, new senior living developments are more likely to be Active Adult communities than the “retirement homes” of yesteryear. This new trend appeals to Boomers and older Gen Xers who are ready to downsize after becoming empty nesters or reaching retirement age, but who are not interested in “slowing down.”
How Senior Living Is Changing
These generations of seniors are redefining what it means to be “old,” and showing apartment marketers how much seniors have been subject to limiting stereotypes and lackluster housing options in the past. It’s no wonder that the Active Adult sector has seen such a boom within the last decade, prompting the senior living industry as a whole to incorporate themes of adventure, discovery, activity, and connectedness in their branding.
