by threshold | Sep 15, 2016 | All, Culture
Sarah delivers exception promotional products for apartment marketing, and she continues to come up with effective student housing marketing ideas every day.
Get to know Sarah below!
What are 3 words you would use to describe Threshold?
Innovative, Resilient, Diverse
If you had an office nickname, what would it be?
Promo Princess
What is your favorite line from a movie?
I’m not crazy, M’Lynn, I’ve just been in a very bad mood for 40 years! ‘Steel Magnolias’
If you were stuck on an island, what three things would you bring?
Matthew McConaughey…..the end.
What is the title of your autobiography?
Simply Sarah
What is/would be your motto or slogan?
STRENGTH….a river cuts through a rock not because of its power but its persistence.
If you had a superpower, what would it be?
Time Travel!
What is your hidden talent?
I don’t know…it must REALLY be hidden! : ) Singing.
If you were famous, what would it be for?
A vocal artist
Favorite Austin eats?
One Slice, any food truck, Buenos Aires, Zaks, Via 313, Jacoby’s
by threshold | Sep 13, 2016 | All, Marketing
Digital multifamily marketing and student housing marketing are dynamic industries, and we at Threshold pride ourselves on consistently working on the cutting edge. Today we’re talking about an update to Google Adwords that will affect many of our current and future clients.
Google is doubling its ad text limit, meaning the 25-character limit on headlines will be scrapped in favor of two 30-character headlines. More text will be allowed the description too, as Adwords switches from two 35-character lines to one 80-character description line.
According to Google, “Starting October 26th, 2016, AdWords will no longer support the creation or editing of standard text ads,” meaning all ads running after that date will be in the expanded text format. There’s no reason not to take Google up on their offer to include more text, since competitors surely will be saying more in their ads as well.
Google decided to make the change after considering what an Adwords ad would look like if it was invented today, in a mobile-first world. Screen space is the big factor here. The new expanded ads have a more succinct URL display, allowing more room for relevant text and a larger presence on the mobile screen.
URL’s will only show the initial domain name, so instead of showing:
http://thresholdagncy.wpengine.com/our-solutions/branding/
The ad will only show:
http://thresholdagncy.wpengine.com
..but still take users to the specific page on the site.
So what’s the takeaway? Extended text ads will only add to the importance of strong messages and concise copy. When every advertiser can say more, what each advertiser says becomes the differentiator. Consumers will get more information about the link that they’re being asked to click, and advertisers will be able to push more relevant information to the user to entice them to click on the ad.
A larger ad with more information should mean higher click-through-rates, but monitoring CTRs is still going to be key. All the Adwords tools associated with standard text ads will be compatible with expanded ads, so the Threshold digital team will continue monitoring the variables in different campaigns to see which words and phrases are proving most effective for our clients.
Innovative apartment marketing ideas are the most successful when they’re brought to life with the right tools. As Google makes changes to their product to fit a mobile-first world, they will also be eliminating the mobile pop-up ad. Websites that use pop-up ads will soon be devalued in search results. Since Google SEO has become the guideline when creating websites, you can say goodbye to pop-up ads as Google phases them out. Threshold’s team of digital marketers has already begun implementing extended text ads with success, and will continue to stay ahead of mobile pop-up changes to create effective, measurable campaigns for our clients.
by threshold | Jul 28, 2015 | All, Marketing
Mama Mia you don’t have to live in Chicago, read The Book of Mormon or be An American in Paris to deliver Wicked marketing while increasing Rent.
If you work in the residential housing business, you know its lights, camera and ACTION all day, everyday. So if this were New York’s theatre district we would focus on lighting, set design, the script and the actors. Each of these elements is an opportunity to sign a lease or a renewal. Our business offers the same opportunity everyday to roll camera, shoot and get it right. So grab the clapboard!
Lighting-What is your focus? You have to have a strong message, intent or story. If you are a new community in lease-up mode…ask what makes you different: the architecture, the location or some great new concierge-type of service?
Set Design-How is your community staged online? What does your website look like? Have you looked at your Google Analytics to access your bounce rate and time spent on each page? Does your photography draw people in? What colors are you using, does the mood reflect the lifestyle and demographic of your clientele? It’s about getting their attention, keeping their attention and getting their feet in the front door.
Script-Are your employees trained on the art of conversation and the sale. What are your best closing tools? Do you ‘role play’ proactive scenarios to get the conversation focused and meaningful? How do you answer the phone, respond to emails, and greet people as they walk in the door?
The Actors– Whether you are in student living, senior living or multi-family, you know your greatest asset is your actors (your staff) and their art of conversation and communication style. In the residential business, communication is key to success. You need ability to communicate that only comes from experience. In this business, experience is the best teacher. Whether you start as a Community Assistant at a student housing community, a General Manager on a multi-million dollar conventional high-rise, or a corporate marketing director or trainer…..the experience and language you learn in this industry is priceless. That experience is the WOW factor.
So stage your asset right, get your props set and your people the tools to blow your audience away with charm, information and a welcoming attitude. And then sit back and enjoy the positive reviews (and leases!)
-End Scene-
by threshold | Jul 23, 2015 | All, Design
At Threshold Agency we have the ability to combine important, relevant information and great innovative design. The melding of the 2 worlds is what makes us marketing experts in the multifamily industry. But how do we achieve that design? Where do our designers look for inspiration and fresh ideas? What are the trends in residential marketing design? Is your marketing design trending?
Trends in the design world are always evolving. They can be similar to any trend in the sense that they can be difficult to follow unless you keep up with it. When you are a designer, following the trends in this industry can keep you from falling into a creative rut. During my research I found a lot of information, and I mean a lot! I’m only going to go into detail about my absolute favorite trends, and the ones that are mentioned over and over again or this blog would get out of hand rather quickly.
I’ll start with the similarities in both print and web design; the most prominent being the size of the media we design for on a regular basis. In print design, you have many different projects and an immeasurable amount of document sizes per project. If they can print it, you can design on it! Web design is not as temperamental, but since responsive websites are the industry standard, you have to think about the different media your end user will be experiencing. Users can view the web on many different sizes of screens (TV, laptop, tablet, phone, etc.) and some of those screens flip from horizontal to vertical depending on how you’re holding them. That seems like a lot of different ways to think about how one website is viewed! Other similarities between print and web are the trends of using large images, large blocks of text and going back to the classics/modern/simplistic/clean design.
Sticking with the web design trends, the most commonly talked about trends I’ve come across are large background images, video background images, parallax scrolling, flat designs, mobile first websites and one/single page web layouts. My favorite is the single page website layout. With a single page website layout all the user has to do is scroll down the page, or click on the navigation bar and the website will scroll down to the part of the page you want to see. It’s easy to navigate through, looks great on all devices and is faster because you only have one page to deal with.
One of my favorite trends in my research are being made in Typography. Handwritten fonts, letterpress printing, delicate scripts, and fonts with imperfections are so much fun. I got married in May of this year and searching for invitations was my favorite part of wedding planning. I really wanted to design my own, but it was easy to choose one since there were so many beautiful ones out there (and let’s be honest, it was less time consuming than doing my own.) Handwritten typefaces seem to be more personal to me and I enjoy utilizing them for logos when I can. I think that style of personalization is a huge part of building a brand. Find it in your budget to invest in letterpress printing, trust me, it’s worth the cost. This finished quality makes your printed piece look very polished. Another trend in typography are icon fonts. Icon fonts are basically a series of symbols set to letters and numbers, so when you type (A, B, C could be a Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram icon). These are more prevalent in the web world. They are clean vector graphics that help your users interact with your site in a new and simple way. They can be used in a countless ways especially as social media icons. Everyone knows if you click on the Facebook icon on a website it will take you straight to their Facebook page. This is a simple, efficient way to use icon fonts.
Logo trends are always fun to follow. A website I love to browse is logolounge.com. They posted a lengthy analysis of current logo trends of 2015 and my favorite is the contoured logos. This type of logo can be parked right in-between a logo with only one color and a highly detailed logo. If you are familiar with gradients, they are used inside of simple shapes to make up a logo that reads well in a small format and is slightly more detailed when viewed on a larger scale. Although these kinds of logos are more difficult to turn into a black and white format; I think they are visually interesting without being too over the top. Another trend in logo design is to create a singular brand and use that brand for the rest of your business, assuming your business has multiple branches. Threshold did the below logo for the Lennar Multifamily Communities called Crest.
You don’t need to be the trendy design expert or follow current designs to have something amazing—you just call me! If you’re in the creative business like us at Threshold Agency, it’s good to keep up with the trends and keep your mind fresh with new visuals. We love to thrill and exceed our clients expectations. That’s why…we’re trending! #GoThresholdorGoHome
by threshold | Jul 8, 2015 | All, Marketing
If there is one thing that everyone has heard about various media outlets, it’s that “print is dead.” Across multiple industries, this mantra has been transformed into a rule of thumb for residential marketers seeking to implement a successful marketing campaign. Gone the way of the dinosaur, print seems to be settling, at least in the public view, wedged somewhere between the rotary dial phone and coal-burning stoves. Quaint and nostalgic, but ultimately inefficient. The past decade or so of dramatically declining subscriptions to printed newspapers and magazines seems to support this, and has served as a catalyst for daily publications like the New York Times and The Guardian to focus on maintaining a strong online presence over trying to regain print readership. The thing is, I don’t think that print truly CAN die, not as long as we human beings continue to be fascinated by our physical surroundings. Print: King of the Undead.
To be clear, this is not a blog bemoaning the fate of the printed word, or about how we had best not forget the skills of screen printing (although screen printing looks beautiful when done well, and I would love to learn on my own time). On the contrary, I think the evolution of digital and web design has led to a dramatic shift in how we think about the way information can be presented to reflect an apartment community’s brand, and I love being able to design something that doesn’t have to be constrained by a physical space, and won’t eventually end up as pretty landfill.
There is still value in choosing to print materials instead of opting for a digital campaign. We’re tactile beings, and I’d be willing to bet that there has been at least one instance in the last month where you have picked up some piece of collateral or marketing swag, turned it over in your hands and thought, “Wow, this is really cool.” A digital invitation would have looked great, and a cohesive web campaign is inarguably valuable when marketing to a large audience, but it was that extra detail that pushed me to mark it on my calendar.
I think the key to deciding whether or not to pursue print within a particular campaign is to ask yourself these three things:
Is it interesting? Printing just to have something to hand out isn’t always as effective as it seems. Simply giving someone something to hold onto without ensuring that it looks different from anything else in the stack of papers they might be holding isn’t going to guarantee engagement with a potential resident. A die-cut shape, an interesting fold, foil overlays, printing on an atypical substrate, there are endless ways to ensure that the materials you’re physically giving to someone looks and feels completely different than everyone else’s.
Is it useful? Sometimes, a flyer or brochure just won’t have the impact you want for your apartment community, and you’re going to need to use a more utilitarian angle. Is there a way to brand an object that has a further purpose than looking beautiful that delivers the message you want to send? Bringing utility to your marketing materials elevates them from potential junk-pile fodder to something interactive.
Is it innovative? Nothing beats the element of surprise. There are always details that often go unnoticed by both the user and producer that can be incorporated into a brand campaign. Free coffee at a resident event? Brand the cup instead of going generic. Use opportunities to make your mark in places where most people substitute anonymous materials. This attention to the “small stuff” speaks volumes about how you or your company thinks about branding and identity.
