So you had another brilliant idea today. It’s so good, you can’t wait to roll it out immediately in every single community! We’re talking an idea so brilliant that it’s just too good to fail! But is it, really? Does the brilliance of an idea alone guarantee that it’ll fly no matter when, no matter where? Sadly, no.

Maybe there was a time when you could get a lot more mileage out of a single, great marketing idea. Properties and markets were similar enough once that what worked well for one property would probably work at least as well for another, requiring only a few minor adjustments from one property or market to another (if it needed adjustment at all).

Today, we live in a very different time. Both our consumers and the products we market have become increasingly segmented in a world driven by transparency, choice, information on demand, and other trends that call for us to be as individual in what we offer as customers are in their wants, needs, interests, and lifestyles.

But along with all that individualized differentiation, it’s also important to present ourselves as a cohesive brand, so to be truly effective today, our marketing efforts have to take a somewhat two-headed approach. This means that for every marketing idea, you have to ask yourself not just the usual “Is this idea brilliantly awesome, or what?!?” but also:

1. Is it in keeping with our branding efforts?
2. Is it in keeping with the wants, needs, interests, and lifestyle of this community’s unique target market?

So what we have there is kind of a two-headed marketing approach that requires you to assess each idea within the top-down context of your overall brand, and the bottom-up context of the community itself. By adding just a few points of consideration to your marketing strategy, you can serve both purposes and help ensure that your branding and advertising efforts meet with success.

Some questions to ask in determining whether the idea is in keeping with your brand (and remember, to be cohesive, each of your marketing efforts should answer these questions in a consistent way):

1. Does it speak to how we wish to represent ourselves as a company?
2. Is it in keeping with our primary mission?
3. If a customer saw this ad or effort alongside others from our company, would they recognize important common themes?

Some questions to ask in determining whether the idea is in keeping with the community’s needs (and remember, this is where your approach has to be as unique as possible in order to stand out from the crowd):

1. Does it address a specific want, need, interest and lifestyle (or all of the above) in this market segment?
2. Does the ad or effort clearly communicate what we’re offering?
3. Is it different and/or better than what’s being offered by this community’s direct competition?
4. Is the message represented so that the customer will grasp the value (what’s in it for them) in a meaningful way?

There’s so much more to be said about making sure your brilliant marketing ideas best match the needs of your assets than we can fit into one blog post, so if you’re coming to Brainstorming 2010, be sure to attend Lori Snider’s two-hour session, Millionaire Matchmaker: Matching Million Dollar Ideas with the Right Asset, on Thursday, September 16th. Her program will include techniques and strategies to help you evaluate whether a specific program or marketing initiative will provide value at a specific asset … and when it won’t. You’ll learn what specific market segments desire and are responding to, how to match your million dollar idea with the right audience, and how to optimize response and minimize wasted effort. You’ll also learn why taking a more multidimensional view of the consumer may lead to larger opportunities than the lease or even renewal, and how to effectively execute your idea. It’s a not-to-miss session for anyone in the business of marketing apartments today, and I hope we’ll see you there!