To succeed in today’s online marketplace, apartment marketers must create flexible budgets rooted in strategic planning. Despite all the changes we’ve seen (social video, increase in virtual communication, etc.), there are still a few guiding principles that will help you navigate any digital landscape and set your budget up for success:
- Meet prospective residents where they are
- Reach prospects across a variety of channels throughout their leasing journey
- Tailor your budget allocation to your community’s occupancy needs
Where Today’s Prospects Are Online
Time spent on digital video increased at the start of the pandemic, and we saw this trend continue into 2022. TikTok became the most downloaded app in the world and rose to popularity among 18-24-year-olds, who make up 43 percent of users, and 25-34-year-olds, who make up 32 percent, according to DataReportal. The platform’s growing user base presents property marketers with an incredible opportunity to reach a target audience in the market for student and multifamily housing.
Amidst the rise of TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook remain top platforms for social media consumption. Advertising across these social platforms presents apartment marketers with the opportunity to target prospective renters near a property with interests that align with the community’s unique offerings.
Among our own multifamily client base, Google Ads remains the highest-performing advertising channel, outperforming social video channels for click-through rates, website conversions and lead generation.
In addition to social media advertising, display advertising is also an incredible channel for finding nearby prospective renters online and re-engaging website visitors through retargeting.
Marketing Mix Budget Strategies
Knowing where to reach prospects online is only one aspect of creating a successful budget strategy. How you allocate your marketing budget across channels is key to designing a strategy that will help you reach your occupancy goals. It’s well known that a prospect must hear a message seven to 10 times across channels for unaided brand recall.
At Conversion Logix, we combine a mix of push and pull strategies and adjust the allocation of spend across these as communities face different stages of occupancy. Segmenting channels by these categories allows us to gauge if you are investing in the right balance of strategies to meet your goals.
Push Marketing Channels
Push strategies are focused on brand awareness and promotion. These channels build awareness and recognition for a community, communicating its unique selling points and driving demand among a target audience.
- Facebook & Instagram Feed Ads
- Instagram Stories and Reels Ads
- In-Stream YouTube Ads
- TikTok Ads
- Display Banner Ads
- Connected TV Advertising
Pull Marketing Channels
Pull strategies capture traffic from high-intent prospects seeking out a community online. These strategies focus on showing up when prospects are searching for a community in Google, retargeting prospects who have previously engaged with a website or email, and converting traffic into leads so you can remarket them through personalized email campaigns and text nurturing.
- Google Ads
- Google Business Profile Optimization
- Organic Search Engine Optimization
- Display Banner Retargeting
- Facebook & Instagram Retargeting
- YouTube Retargeting
- Email Marketing
- Text Nurturing
Tailoring Your Marketing Mix to Your Occupancy Level
When communities are in lease-up mode, going through a rebrand, or facing downward trending occupancy levels, we rely on a greater mix of push strategies to build awareness and fill our client’s pipelines. Push marketing grows your audience and creates new opportunities for pull marketing to become effective.
When communities are stabilized, we recommend investing more in pull strategies like search and retargeting to ensure prospects can find the community online and re-engage previous website visitors. While pull marketing strategies tend to be the highest converting strategies, they must be supported by push strategies to remain effective.
Take Your Budget Planning to the Next Level
In our Budget Planning 2023 webinar, we dive deeper into this topic. Conversion Logix marketing experts joined Candace Kelly, director of Marketing at FPI Management, to share insights into their budget planning process and tips for maximizing your budget based on seasonality, your market and occupancy level.
Sign up to watch a recording of the Budget Planning 2023 webinar and access downloadable slides from the presentation.
