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Do you think we could attract big corporations to sponsor apartment homes? Not unlike paying millions to put their name on the side of pro football stadium? Can you see the day that we have Park Station Apartments sponsored by Coca-Cola? Where Coke gets to put their message everywhere and anywhere they please in exchange for paying 50% of your resident's base rent? Hmmm....
For those of you that have communities on the light rail lines that serve your respective cities, what if you sponsored your section of the line. In exchange for all the marketing you want to do, you pay of the riders between your stop and the next. Everything from on train announcements to banners and on train billboards, window clings, huge banners at the platform and so on and so forth. WOW!
Suspect Arrested After Attack On Leasing Agent In O'Fallon, MO
Last Edited: Wednesday, 27 Feb 2008, 5:51 PM CST
Created: Wednesday, 27 Feb 2008, 5:51 PM CST
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By Roche Madden
(KTVI -- MyFOXstl.com) --
For the second time in a month an O’Fallon Missouri apartment leasing agent has been assaulted while showing a property. [Click here for the rest]
Please be careful. So much to say on this topic. Any thoughts and feedback that anyone has on the subject please share as it can and will be useful to all.
Our hearts go out to the victims in these two cases.
Revealing Personal Information Still Inhibits Online Shopping
According to a Pew Internet Project survey, released in February, 2008, most online Americans view online shopping as a way to save time and a convenient way to buy products. At the same time, most internet users express discomfort over sending personal or credit card information over the internet.
I wonder how this affects, if at all, the property management industry and the aggressive moves being made to move leasing on line. Although, the above bullet point that states that 75% do not like sending personal information does not imply that consumers don't do it. They obviously do but how many prospects or potential renters will we lose in the margin. Few? I mean they will likely come to the leasing office if they don't feel comfortable doing it on-line.
For
additional information and access to a PDF file, please visit PEW here.
Source: Center for Media Research
I watch this show nearly every morning when I am on the treadmill and I love it. I particularly enjoy the aggressive nature of the three hosts of the show. Very rarely do I see them agree completely and or stall before they respond to guests. I saw that yesterday when Sam Zell was on the show. It's a great 40 min. and I have attached a link to the video here.
Does anyone know what this site is good for? Has anyone ever used it for anything productive? Just curious.
Saw this pic on Seth Godin's site and it made me think of packages...weird? I know!
Is it me or does it seem that lately it has become an us against them struggle with residents in our communities? I see it played out in my very own office from time to time. Chief culprit? Packages.
The mindset I have seen played out is that we think we are doing the resident a favor by accepting their packages and if they don't come in and pick them up then shame on them. Shame on them to the point we boldly suggested sending packages back. Yikes.
Moreover when a resident complains that we did not notify them that their package was in the office, our response is to ridicule the person for not paying attention to the UPS slip on their door. How dare you think that we will put a notice on your door that your package is in our office. That is UPS's job! Yikes.
Let me recall for a moment. The biggest check that most people write every month is their rent check, right? THE BIGGEST CHECK! The most money! The biggest transfer of funds! I have a lot, now I have a little because I just paid my rent!
I say, get over it! If we were really doing it right we would offer to set the packages inside their front door as an added service! We would take the time to figure out how they wanted to get their packages. We would serve the customer instead of complain about them.
”Marketing means solving customers’ problems profitably” Randall Chapman
And how do you do that in the property management business?
Let me share with you how our friends at Urbane Apartments do it. My thanks to Eric and his team for allowing me to share all this over the top and insanely great stuff they are doing! I have never met them personally and I can say that they are class acts in my book!
Check out this beyond cool practice:
As opposed to paper leases and move in paperwork we started using memory sticks with a key chain and our Urbane Logo on it a while back. The resident has all of the pertinent paperwork and their apartment keys all in a match stick sized device that they carry with them. We scan a copy of the signed lease, pertinent phone numbers (we are very transparent at Urbane, every resident has all of our cell numbers posted, we welcome problem calls, it an opportunity in disguise to connect, the 1 in 100 calls that may be inappropriate are told as such and then a different relationship is created, all which is good), information map with our preferred vendors, bars, restraints, atm machines, etc, information about how the resident logs on to the Urbane wireless internet at their community and how they log on to their resident portal to file a Service Request or pay Rent on Line. All stuff that we gave them before, but they would lose them, misplace them, etc. And who wants that mound of paperwork as you reference.
We are preparing to do the same with our marketing material
right now whereas to your point, the floor plans and associated collateral material
for the selected property would all be on a memory stick that the resident
leaves with, and can print off what they need. Plus, it creates a “cool factor”,
because for now it is different and interesting, for something that is mundane.
We are all clamoring to get our ads listed on Craigslist, what if we instead called the people looking in our neighborhood listed under housing wanted? Maybe we could farm leads out of that list and turn them into leases.
Give it a shot; type craigslist into the search box and find your city and then click on housing wanted.
Happy Farming!!
Just a thought.
I struggle with statements like this:
"The key is the taste," Tu said. "Ideally, I don't want people to know what they are eating is vegetarian."
That was a quote from a fast vegetarian food restaurant owner. Now I understand from dollars and cents perspective why he would say that. He has the opportunity to attract both vegetarian's and non-vegetarians or cannibalvegans, those who go back and forth. And furthermore he knows that the mass of citizens are already trained on taste by McDonalds, Burger King and to some degree Wendy's.
But under the guise of being authentic why would you not shout from the rooftops that your product is what your product is? We can't say it enough, consumers want authentic experiences and that includes the advertising that gets them and keeps them coming back. Why would you disassociate your great tasting vegetarian meal from being a vegetarian meal?
Do you think we do that in the apartment business when we market our respective communities. Do we disassociate from the very thing we should be creating connection with?
What do you think?
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