Property Management

Apartment Marketing: Giving residents a choice at renewal time

We all like choice and we all hate choice. We love it when it is easy and we hate it when there are to many options. Or, maybe that is just me.

I came across this post in a random forum. Frankly, I have no idea how I found it but nevertheless I found it interesting. It is an apartment dweller writing to a friend in the forum about options that her property manager offered her to renew.

Now the concept is nothing novel but I was interested to see the thought process of the dweller because it was unadulterated by say the focus group syndrum or the pressure of answering a survey essay question. It was pure.

Here it is:

Got a letter from my apartment management.  Because I have lived here so
long (since 1998) they are not going to increase my rent when my lease is up
at the end of this year.  I also get to choose one item each from A, B, & C:

(A)  $50 off one month's rent OR ceiling fan (one per bedroom, I have 2) OR
carpet cleaning

(B)  $100 off one month's rent OR $75 gift certificate to Target OR $75 gift
certificate to WalMart

(C)  $150 off one month's rent OR $100 gift certificate to Target OR $100
gift certificate to WalMart.

I'm going with the ceiling fans from A, the $75 gift certificate to Target
from B and $150 off one month's rent from C.

Backpage.com

We experimented with this site when it first launched and never really saw the fruits of our labor. They have added some enhancements that I think will help in boosting click rates so we are going for it again. We start tomorrow so I will try to remember to let you in on the results. [backpage]

Post has it's tulips, what if you had your wind powered over the top and amazing light display

Great read over at Springwise. In the guise of green and branding maybe you could come up with a truly remarkable and memorable way to set yourself apartment in the market place using this concept. [click here to read more]

Starbucks launches a version (their version) of Dell's Ideastorm

I have been really bogged down with a number of projects the past two weeks and as such my creative energies and thus blog postings have diminished. For that I apologize and commit to you that I will be back on track over the weekend and into next week as I have a lot on the mind that I need to share.

I did find this interesting piece in my morning reads:

Starbucks announced Wednesday that it is launching a new customer-suggestion site called MyStarbucksIdea. It won't be long before we see this in the multi-family space. Resident portals are becoming more and more common place, at least in conversation, in most major property management companies. That being said, someone somewhere will catch the spirit of Dell, Starbucks and many other companies in allowing the customer to have a voice.

Just to clarify, I am suggesting an open forum very much unlike a resident portal.

Have a great weekend.


Technorati Tags: starbucks, mystarbucksidea, mike brewer, apartment marketing

Apartment Guide

Is it just me or is Apartment Guide missing the point? Unbundle your service already! And, pardon me if you have already done that.


Technorati Tags: property management, apartment guide, mike brewer, property management

Employee Engagement

A 2002 Gallup Poll indicated that just 1/4 of American workers are engaged in what they do. The poll goes on to site some reasons why and the implications for what it means to productivity and innovation.

That being said, I am curious to hear what the group has to say about the topic. [Click here to comment]


Technorati Tags: employee engagement, apartment marketing, mike brewer

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Craigslist is not liable

Many of you will be interested in this story. It's a good short Sunday read. M

TEL AVIV (MarketWatch) - A federal appeals court in Chicago affirmed a ruling that the online bulletin board Craigslist isn't liable for posting housing ads that violate anti-discrimination laws.

...But the appeals court said, citing the Communications Decency Act of 1996, that Craigslist was not the publisher or speaker of the ads and could not be held responsible for the content....[see the rest of the story here]

Technorati Tags: craigslist, apartment marketing, mike brewer

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WhatsTheRent.com

A shout out to a cool new website that creates a whole new definition for the phrase user friendly. We at the Property Management blog are proud to call them friends and welcome you to check out their site [Here]. Below I have posted some information from their About Page do enjoy and have a brilliant weekend.

WhatsTheRent.com was launched early in 2008, and is the web's only 100% free site that offers simultaneous searching for apartments and rooms for rent.

My name is James, and I have been both a renter and a landlord for the past eight years.  I created WhatsTheRent.com after becoming frustrated with the other websites out there. Some are just too expensive, most are plagued with scams and fake listings, and the free ones are featureless and just difficult to find you want.

Although WhatsTheRent.com is free, it is packed with user friendly features. How annoying is it to be forced to create an account just to search for a place to live? Not here! Searching is as simple as typing in a zip code, and then contacting a landlord is just a couple clicks away, still without the need to create an account. However, if you do create an account, you have the ability to save listings to your "favorites" list, as well as receive email notifications of new listings that meet your search criteria. Not just new listings in your city, but listings that actually meet your specific criteria! And how about an advanced search? No problem, you can enter in a simple zip code search or create a very specific search to show just the type of listings you want.

WhatsTheRent.com was built to be mouse click friendly, meaning that you do not need to constantly click back on forth from one page to another to view details about a particular listing. All the information you need is right there on the search results page. Photos, maps, and detailed descriptions can be shown by opening the drop down sections at the bottom of each listing. You can also assign a rating to each listing, or hide listings that you are not interested in. This means that you can systematically narrow down your choices until you find the perfect place to rent.

When you are looking for a place to live, do you ever search for a room to rent and also search for a place of your own, perhaps an apartment? Sometimes you just don't know what you can afford and so you search for both, often requiring you to use different websites. Well not anymore, because WhatsTheRent.com allows you to search for, and display at the same time, rooms for rent and entire units for rent. All your options are right there for you to compare, all on one page.

Another WhatsTheRent.com exclusive is our integrated Google Maps with the ability to show estimated distance and drive time to any address you enter as a reference. For example, you can search for apartments on the edge of Chicago, yet know the drive time to get downtown to your office. No need to ask the landlord "how long will it take for me to drive downtown?" You can also use the Compare Listings feature to show all your matches on one map.

And how about spam control? Some sites do not even make an effort to control spam and fake listings. Some require you to pay to read your emails, and so if a scammer sends you an email, and you pay to read it, then the website just made money. On one popular roommate matching website, I reported fake listing after fake listing, all of which were obvious fakes, yet they continue to show up. My frustration with fake listings and scammer emails was one of my main motivations for creating this site. We promise to take down any listings that are reported as fake, and we will do our best to ban that user from accessing the site again. Also, all initial emails to owners are sent through our system, and we have a complex program that analyzes the email to try an determine if it is a legitimate email or a scammer trying to dupe you into sending them money. We can't promise that we will catch all fake emails, but we promise to try our best, and if we are doing a good job you'll never get a bogus email in your "IN" box. Check out our User Safety page to learn more about what to look for.

From an owner's point of view, WhatsTheRent.com is the perfect place to list your room or property. Totally free, and creating a listing takes just minutes. If you are a property manager, you can turn your listings on and off with just a click of your mouse, and there are no limits on the number of listings you can create. Once you create a listing, there is no need to continually come back to the site to bump your property to the top of the list.

My goal is to make WhatsTheRent.com the web's #1 source for roommates and rentals.  Thanks for visiting, and good luck finding your new home!

James Mattox

Founder

Technorati Tags: whatstherent, apartment marketing, mike brewer

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Voices in the apartment shoppers head

I think what Seth is referring to is not unlike the essence of Eckhart Tolle's new book. Yes, the one that Oprah is pitching this month. Yes, the one she is offering as a class on line. Yes, the one that crashed her website over the absolute popularity it generated. And, yes I am reading it.

Mr. Tolle describes this/these voices as the ego. It is your ego talking to you. And, the ego never wants to be sub-par, defeated, useless, under-rated or otherwise adversely affected. The ego wants to win and feel superior at all times and at whatever cost.

That being said, I think it goes without saying that if you appeal to the ego of an apartment shopper then you can sell them a home. That is not to say that that same ego won't accept sub-par service. So, if you sell it you better back it up with action and execution of the highest order.


Technorati Tags: seth godin, mike brewer, property manangement, apartment marketing

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The soccer mom myth

I am ordering my copy today, I will let you know what I think as I get into it.

The room was a marketer s dream, filled with educated, savvy women with money and the urge to spend it. Holly asked a pointed question: "How many of you in the room consider yourself a Soccer Mom?" The silence reached a crescendo and nary a hand rose.

Every time Holly asks that question, usually only one or two women raise their hands. The numbers never change. Normally, only one to two percent of the crowd identifies themselves as a Soccer Mom. If you listen to marketers and politicians, there are millions upon millions of Soccer Moms out there, yet we've found only about seven.

What's going on here? Why aren't more women identifying themselves as Soccer Moms? Come on, there's nothing wrong with being a Soccer Mom, right? Right?

If women don't consider themselves Soccer Moms, what does that say about the effectiveness (or ineffectiveness) of billions of dollars of advertising aimed at this group?

It's time for a wake-up call about who today's female consumer really is, how she really thinks, and why she really buys both online and offline. Prepare to kick the Soccer Mom myth to the sidelines, and learn how to market to women in a way that translates into more customers, AND bigger profit.

Technorati Tags: the soccer mom myth, apartment marketing, property management, mike brewer

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