21 Apartment Marketing Ideas That Will Immediately Improve Your Website Leads
Do you secretly say to yourself, “I hate our apartment community website?” Or is it more like, “Our apartment website kicks some serious butt!”
Whatever conversation you and your website might be having with each other, this comprehensive list of apartment marketing ideas will undoubtedly boost that love affair in the way of more leads.
#1 Showcase your reviews.
Create a “Resident Review” page on your website. This page will help combat any negative reviews floating around on other sites like apartmentratings.com. It will also serve as a convincing tool for visitors to your website.
Here’s a quick 30,000 foot overview of this:
- Create a Review Page on your website.
- Make sure the On-Page SEO of this page is properly done. (You want this page to rank when people search your community name + reviews. The goal is to outrank Apartmentratings.com & Yelp)
- Create 3-5 fun signs about your community. Basically positive statements.
- Ask residents to hold the sign and you snap a photo of them.
- Upload photo to your review page.
- Rinse & repeat the process
Why I Love This Strategy
Yes – it’s all one sided, positive reviews about your community, but who cares… What I really like is your capturing the demographic of your community in a visual way and posting it for all prospects to see.
It answers the question, “Who lives here?” Now the prospective resident can see photos of people that they can relate with. A huge hand up for your community.
BUT… And this is a huge but… This strategy only works when you knock it out of park like the example I shared above. You need lots of photos, not just a few. Make it a point to get 20 to start.
#2 Include Google Earth for showing distance.
We had a client that wanted to show how close their building was to the ocean. By utilizing Google Earth, we were able to zoom in and grab really unique looking imagery that captured the distance quite well. See for yourself above. Can you do this for your own community?
#3 Go big on your Pay Rent button.
If you accept online rent payments (which you should), make sure that button is highly visible on your website. Ideally in the top right hand side of your website and on every page. This takes the question out of the prospects mind, “Can I pay rent online at this community.”
#4 Add a lifestyle video.
If you have a luxury property with high rents then it’s worth investing in a quality video. Roughly costing around $18k you can show off the lifestyle aspect of your luxury community, models included. Even better to add the drone aspect to give the video a unique look and feel. Here’s a great example below:
#5 Use video backgrounds.
I personally love when I come to a website and they have a video playing in the background. It’s something that’s unique and not alot of communities are utilizing this effect in multifamily. It can easily elevate the look and feel of your website. Just be careful with the load time of your website.
#6 Increase cool factor with weather widgets, surf report, etc.
If you have a coastal apartment community why not add the surf report to your website? Apartment community in the mountains? Add the ski report. Want to just show the weather? You can do that as well.
There are website widgets available for all these and more. This is a simple way to make your website appear fresh and updated.
#7 Add a Special Offer optin form.
Do you run specials? Why not push these out through a type of pop up form, where the visitor has to put in their email address to get it. Now you have a way to market back to this person. Plus, you know their interested as they just gave you their email for your special offer.
There are several tools for adding this to your website. Optinmonster.com offers the most variety of website pop-ups and is inexpensive.
#8 Visualize website activity with heat maps.
This is an easy way to see how visitors are interacting with your website. A visual blob of color shows where people are clicking on your website.
Seriously useful for determining how visitors are navigating through the different parts of your website. Hotjar is the tool I like to use. It’s easy to install and their’s a free and paid version.
#9 Add a chatbot.
This is a super, simple way to engage website visitors immediately… And most chatbots are fully automated so you don’t have to do a thing.
Schedule showings, showcase community amenities, show floor plan videos, highlight move-in specials and showcase the neighborhood – are just some of the things a chatbot can do for you.
#10 Increase your phone number size.
Put your phone number at the top of every page on your website. Make sure it stands out. You’d be surprised at how many website providers don’t do this for their clients. Does yours?
#11 Use “you” more than “we”.
Use the word “you” and you’ll speak directly to your prospects. Rely on the word “we” and they’ll switch off and go elsewhere. Talk about your customer, not yourself – you can’t bore someone into renting from you.
#12 Mobile first. Duh, you know that already…
By now, you already know this one. Mobile first should be the approach you take with your website. This means making sure your website is “responsively designed” where it will resize to whatever device the prospect is on – iPhone, iPad, desktop computer.
#13 Use short sentences.
People’s attention spans are getting shorter – and some say they weren’t too long to begin with. If you want prospects to turn into actual leads, get your point across before they have a chance to nod off.
#14 Break up your text.
Use short paragraphs, lists, pictures, quotes, subheadings, and boxes to give your website variety. If you do, people will read what you have to say.
#15 Ask for the lead.
It’s as simple as adding “call to actions” next to the areas where customers can contact you. If you have a phone number add, “Call now to check availability” next to it. Same thing goes for email forms. “Fill out this form to check availability” or like the example above, “Join Our VIP List.”
#16 Avoid cliches.
They’re dull. So are words like “innovative”, “passionate” and “excited”. They bore people – they’ve already read the same phrases dozens of times this week.
#17 Cross promote other properties.
Anytime a prospect fills out a contact form on your website, have the Thank You page they see after clicking “Submit” promote your other properties and their websites.
#18 Photo the heck out of it.
This is the best investment you can make for your website. Look for a photographer that specializes in Real Estate. Create a shot list, pick a nice, sunny day and make sure the common areas are clean.
Have a luxury property? Bring in models to show off your properties best assets. Don’t forget, you can use these photos in all your marketing. Here’s an idea – Ask a few residents to become part of the photo shoot. Get action shots of people diving into your pool. Real life shots of dogs playing in your pet park. Get creative, like the shot above.
#19 Makeover your rates & floor plans page.
When visitors come to your website they want to know three things- Location, cost and what the floor plans look like. Spending the extra time making over your rates and floor plans page is something you need to do. Crisp, clear floor plans, nice page layout and clearly illustrated pricing will help the website visitor experience and probably result in more leads. How does your rates & floor plans page look?
We have alot of clients at Resident360 upgrading their 2D floor plans to 3D floor plans. This is one of the easiest upgrades you can make. I think giving the website visitor the option to view both is ideal.
#20 Create a “Content” model.
Add a blog to your apartment website. Update it monthly with fun things that are happening either at your community or in your area. Then syndicate these blog posts on your social media profiles to help create more social links pointing back to your website. Prospects love it, residents love it and it will help you rank better on search engines.
#21 Get creative with your fonts.
Website fonts are one of the most under-utilized marketing tools out there for multifamily. Experiment with 2-3 different font styles for your website to make your text come alive. It’s one of the easy things you can do to improve the look of any website.
I’m a fan of handwriting fonts and big bold fonts. Some of my favorites are Manus and Dancing Script. Good places to search for fonts are dafont.com and google.com/fonts.
Wrapping Up & What You Should Do Next
This list just scratches the surface of things you could do to improve website leads. Bottomline is you need to take one strategy and act on it. That’s the first step in making a difference. If we can help you out in any way, please let us know.
Enjoy this post? Please share it your colleagues and friends.
Written by Josh Grillo
Josh Grillo is a #1 Best Selling Author, Speaker and Co-Founder of Resident360.
