Apartment Marketing: Summer Outreach Edition
APARTMENT OUTREACH MARKETING: START BY PICKING A THEME
It's summer, guys- so summer is an easy theme to go with, and you can have so much fun with it. We love thematic marketing at Sprout. It's just easy, because it lets you really bring it to life all the way from start to finish (or from outreach to retention).
Here are some fun dates that are coming up in summer that you can easily turn into a marketing theme:
So August is actually the mack daddy of a month. There's so much going on. It's National Night Out for everyone but Texas (Texas' is in October), Family Fun Month, National Simplify Your Life Week (we all need that one), International Beer Day, Watermelon Day, Cat Day, S'mores Day, Waffle Day, Dog Day... No matter what kind of community you have, one of these would be awesome. And then, it ends on the 26th, with Women's Equality Day.
Okay, so hopefully you've picked a theme, step one, and remember, think of something that you could carry all the way through with your retention.
We're gonna run with our Paradise Summer Campaign and show you how to bring it to life.
Note: all designs and resources shown in this article are part of the Sprout Membership. Become a member here and get thousands of resources each month.
DRESS THE PART FOR THE MOST SUCCESSFUL OUTREACH MARKETING FOR YOUR COMMUNITY
Take it one step further (this is not the most flattering picture ever), but go dressed in your outreach marketing. Match that theme! So you could do a luau shirt for the Paradise theme.
But DO DRESS the part, because it gets you in the mode of what you're selling, and again, it makes it fun. And if you do it as a team, not necessarily go out as a team, but you make the initiative as a team, everyone can dress the part.
ALWAYS BRING GOODIES TO GET YOUR FOOT IN THE DOOR WITH PREFERRED EMPLOYERS AND LOCAL BUSINESSES
Next up, you're gonna put together your goodies, and you're gonna make them memorable. And they don't have to be expensive, so whatever your design/campaign is, put together some things that sell the lifestyle.
So if we're selling summer, make it feel like summer in their goodie bag. Check out these pixelated sunglasses from Amazon. Super inexpensive for a pack, and they've been so much fun to use in our outreach. Add some tropical La Croix or coconut water and voila!
Insider tip: Weave this theme and your outreach marketing into your day-to-day life. What?! What we mean is to incorporate it into things your team is going to be doing anyway, and that involve everyone. So we all eat, we all go get gas, we go to the bank, on our free time maybe, ladies, we get our nails done, our hair done, we pick up our kids from school... Hey, those are all outreach marketing opportunities, and they don't have to take a lot of time. So pack your bag, and make sure that you've got your goodies with you at all times, and encourage everyone on the team to do it.
THE SECRET FORMULA TO MAKING APARTMENT OUTREACH A NO-BRAINER
Is there a secret sauce formula? Try this one! It's easy to remember and definitely adds some fun! Start the week off with Make Me Smile Monday. This is just a retention focus day, where you're trying to make a resident smile. It could be one resident, or multiple, it's totally your pick. Make it a 2-for-1 by delivering goodies (and referral flyers) to a resident's work.
Tuesday is Pep In Your Step Tuesday, so it's all about outreach marketing to your preferred employers, so that ensures that everyone knows how to dress on Tuesday, because they're gonna be representing the community, and reaching out to those employers.
Next, is Wild Card Wednesday, so that's just hosting a fun even at your community. Maybe one that you haven't tried before, like a plus one event. It could also be Website Wednesday, when you look at your website, you update your photos, your taglines, Facebook cover images, or anything on your online presence. Again, you can adjust according to your team's schedule. The key is, do whatever will help consistency. All of these require consistency for success.
Continuing, we have Drive-Thru Thursday. So this is where you're gonna use those slivers of time, or where you can sneak in some outreach, doing the normal things you usually do: making a deposit at the bank, getting coffee before work, eating lunch...
Lastly, Follow-Up Friday is all about follow up. We love batching your time. So for two hours on Friday, you could do all of your week's follow up. That could be calls, emails, or mailing things out, but it's again, very focused and everybody knows what they're doing those days.
BUILDING THE BEST APARTMENT MARKETING TEAM: Sit down as a team and decide, what are your daily focus themes going to be? Share yours with us, we'd love to see them!
FOLLOWING UP WITH YOUR PROSPECTIVE RENTERS: THE CRITICAL PIECE
Psst, did you know most people aren't following up with prospects?! It's true. So we're going to give you some ideas for follow up that isn't snooze-worthy.
“The follow-up formula for anything, is a surprise to stand out.”
First of all, just by following up, you're ahead of the pack (which is so sad)! But the reality is, the formula for anything, is just a surprise to stand out. Most businesses are so corporate, that you get stuff in the mail and you immediately discard it. So we just said, let's try our hand at putting together some fun follow ups, and here's what we came up with.
Always: a bright envelope for the win. At the very minimum, if you've got a small budget, do that. You can order a big pack on Amazon very inexpensively, and get different colors to match whatever campaign you're doing.
Then, go the other extreme, and do tiny mail. These are also tiny, tiny envelopes that we put our little quarter page follow ups in, with a personal note. And again, you can add whatever you want to it. If you wanted to throw in a balloon, or whatever, tiny mail makes a big impact, because again, in a stack of mail, it's odd sized, so it'll stand out.
And then, we love to send things in the mail that are just surprising. So if you're trying to sell summer, you could do a Frisbee, sunglasses, or ChapStick... anything that feels summer-ish. And a lot of this stuff is very inexpensive to mail. Who's ever received a coconut in the mail? We've talked about the flip flop, but I love this one. So thanks for visiting Sprout Apartments. Summers are amazing here, we'd go coconuts if you decided to call us home. It's a little bit more expensive to mail, and honestly, you might pick a smaller coconut, but it would definitely make a lasting impression.
Imagine having a little grab bag, where people can, on their way out of the leasing office, make their own little bag of summer goodies (aka labeled collateral). And again, just so you guys know, these were all purchased off of Amazon, Target, even Walmart. So you can make it really inexpensive and fun. You could say to your prospect, "I'm so glad that you toured. We have this little station you can put together some stuff for yourself, or for your kiddos, or for your friends, and I'll be right back to get some of our paperwork that we talked about." In the meantime, write a little personal note, drop it in their bag, and it makes that lasting impression when they get home.
THIS IS JUST A SNIPPET FROM OUR "WHAT I WISH I KNEW ABOUT MARKETING AND RETENTION WHEN I WAS A MANAGER" WEBINAR. MEMBERS: CLICK HERE AFTER JULY 2 TO SEE IT. NON-MEMBERS: GRAB THE RECORDING HERE.
Happy summer marketing!!
Next up? Retention, baby!
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