Make Your Community a Stop on the Tour Route

"If you're marketing to families, why not host field trips to your community from the local schools. This can be an educational opportunity for children to see how a community runs. Have your head service technician explain maintenance. Let the grounds people show off their work and explain their positions. Your office staff can talk about job skills and career opportunities ..." Read More

A Tiny Apartment Transforms Into 24 Rooms

"Our good friend and top Brainstorming Facilitator, Tina Cavaco, sent us this AMAZING link! In Hong Kong, because of the space, apartments are small and expensive. Gary Chang, an architect, decided to design a 344 sq. ft. apartment to be able to change into 24 different designs, all by just sliding panels and walls. He calls this the 'Domestic Transformer." ... Watch The Video Here

Social Media Success for Apartment Communities

"I have a few thoughts to share on the topic of social media today, and I should tell you up front that I intend this post to provoke conversation, and I hope you'll participate! You all know how passionate I am about the need to begin using social media now, because I truly do believe it will play a major role in not only our relationship/retention efforts, but also our marketing strategies. I also happen to believe that its value..." Read More

The Power of Place

"If you've had doubts location-based social networking services were going to really catch on, you should know that Foursquare whizzed past the one-million member mark back in April and just passed 1.8 million; and raked in $20 million in venture funding just a couple of weeks ago. That buzzing sound you hear is the Power of Place, about to go mainstream." Read More

Build the Model Organization of the Future

"Before you invest time and money in traditional strategic planning consider this - only 5-10% of strategic plans are ever implemented. The reason most organizations engage in strategic planning is to reduce anxiety. It's like taking a couple of aspirin for a headache. In this case the headache is the future. The aspirin is a couple of days locked in a room putting checkmarks in the appropriate boxes." ... Read More

Partnerships That Work

"I created and facilitated a one-day workshop called 'Partnerships That Work.' This class was designed for Apartment Community Managers and their Assistants and focused on synergy, teamwork, and delegation. Our challenge and reason for needing such a workshop was that Assistants either felt as though they were not being trusted with enough to do while other felt as though the Manager was dumping ..." Read More

Better Training Through Skill Gap Analysis

"One of the best things you can do to improve your team's training plan is to add Skill Gap Analysis. This step helps the trainer to identify gaps in performance and areas for added training and development.The first step in conducting a thorough Skill Gap Analysis is to create a picture of what ideal performance looks like. This step-called Competency Profiling-takes a look at the attitudes ..." Read More

Five Multifamily Training Ideas

"The Idea - As part of our new manager training we have implemented a Manager Mentor Program. After each new manager comes in for a day of training on company policy and procedures, we select a Resident Manager from the Property Manager's portfolio to provide another eight hours of training at their community or at the new managers community. Both managers are provided with an Agenda ...." Read More

Form An Alliance at Brainstorming 2010: Reality Check!

It's not your typical seminar, conference, or workshop. Unlike any other national Multifamily event, only Brainstorming connects you to the vast power of many individuals working together with one goal: to solve your toughest challenges! You'll receive thousands of ideas worth millions to your company, communities, and career, guaranteed to repay your investment and more! Register for Brainstorming Now!

July Door Hanger Special

Stock up now! All our fabulous door hanger designs (except one - the Halloween design) are on special until July 31st! Buy any two packages at our regular low price of only $25 per pack of 100, and get a third pack absolutely FREE ... that's a whopping 33% discount, making NOW the best time of the year to buy and stock your shelves! Call 727-784-9469 with your order or Click Here to Find Out More!

Reduce Vacancy Loss: Step Up Your Move-In Dates
"You have 24  Notice to vacates for the month ending. How do you rent the apartments quickly and get the new resident to move in as soon as possible? I was faced with this situation several years ago when I had just begun as the new Manager of a community and knew that something must be done to get occupancy back up to the level that the community had enjoyed in the past." Read More

Keep It Real, Keep The Faith, Keep The Resident
"Ours is a business of cycles; and believe it or not, the time is going to come again to raise the rent. In case you've forgotten what that's like, let me remind you that just like every great relationship, the one between you and your residents requires a carefully maintained balance of give and take. When they signed the lease..." Read More

Growing Tomatoes Increases Traffic
"Grow your own tomatoes! We used this as a tag line on all our ads, then showed prospects the two community gardens we had prepared for our residents to grow their own tomatoes. It was a big hit! People called to have a look at the community and several said: any landlord that would care enough to have a garden for their residents would care enough about me as a resident." Read More

Going Mobile
"Let's face it, the world runs on lattes and 5-hour energy these days. People constantly en route from one destination to another, and during these transits they are going ... mobile. What once was a sedentary task, web browsing has evolved: users are accessing the internet via phones and mobile devices from the convenience of wherever they happen to be." Read More

Green Is Lean
"Global warming, oil spills and other environment disasters seem to be on everyone's mind. Business magazines write about "green" businesses. Movie stars drive hybrid cars to look "green". But most companies overlook the single biggest opportunity they have to go green by simplifying, streamlining and optimizing their internal operations." Read More

Go For The Dogs
"This simple idea becomes a habit when you have a pet friendly community. Take a small Ziploc bag full of treats in your pocket when you make community inspections. I keep a large container with dog biscuits in my office. I walk around the grounds and stop to visit with the residents and their dog(s) get a treat!" Read More

Six Truths About Marketing With Social Media
"Yeah, I know you've heard it all ... that Social Media Marketing slices and dices, is the answer to world peace, and will make your teeth up to three shades whiter with only one use. But from the sea of hype that we've been sailing-filled with assertions about what social media is and isn't and what it can and can't do-are beginning to arise some proven truths." Read More

Brainstorming Keynote: People Are the Killer App with Geno Church
Even with all the new focus on social media tools, many organizations struggle with how to incorporate these tactics into a results-driven strategy that truly connects a community of brand ambassadors. Don't miss this dynamic storytelling session centered around the theme of stories as the ultimate connector between company and customer. Register for Brainstorming Now!

The BIG Book of Proven Traffic Generation Ideas!
This invaluable book will quickly become one of your very favorite resources with MORE THAN 500 pages of proven ideas to boost your traffic, starting NOW! It's positively JAMMED from cover-to-cover with HUNDREDS of ideas (including LOTS of low-budget ones!), tips, techniques, articles, tools, and more, designed specifically to generate more traffic now! Only $47.50! Call 727-784-9469 or Click Here to Order Now!

Yeah, I know you’ve heard it all … that Social Media  Marketing slices and dices, is the answer to world peace, and will make your teeth up to three shades whiter with only one use.  But from the sea of hype that we’ve been sailing—filled with assertions about what social media is and isn’t and what it can and can’t do—are beginning to arise some proven truths. Having had the opportunity to put many, many new media opportunities through their paces, we’ve zeroed in on six truths we’ve discovered from personal experience—not in any specific order, but intended serve as food for thought as you decide how to apply social media in your marketing strategies, and prepare for what comes next!

1.  Social Media Isn’t Singular

We really have heard it all … “Show me the ROI.”  “Facebook isn’t a marketing channel.”  “Social media is for conversation, not conversion.”  Fact is, social media isn’t any one thing, and therefore doesn’t fit neatly into any one box.

Follow me here… back when the Internet was new, it took us a while in the multifamily industry to grasp what email  and websites could do; but eventually we came to realize that it was more than a fancy replacement for paper … that it supported a number of functions including customer service, communications, community, entertainment, advertising, engagement, marketing, PR, and more—and all to varying degrees depending on a company’s brand, marketing approach, culture, and (most importantly) how our customers prefer to engage with our brand.

Very much like email, social media is becoming the “Swiss Army Knife” not just of marketing, but also of customer service and retention, product development, internal communications, innovation and idea development, and so much more.  And yet, so many people still insist on trying to fit “it” into their existing marketing structure as though it is and does only one thing.

It’s not a one-trick pony, so don’t treat it like one.

2.  Customer Service Is the New Marketing

This isn’t new news to any of us in the apartment business; but in a world gone social and with increasing consumer demand for transparency, serving your customers remarkably well has become more important than ever before.

Communicating with speed and honesty to issues—and that goes for the flipside, too: enabling your customers and community to communicate to you—has become Priority One in your ability to acquire new customers.  People “talk” … they always have, and now that social media has enabled them to do it pretty much 24/7 and to whole groups of friends at once, they do it more effectively than ever before.  We also know that it’s human nature for them to share bad experiences more readily than good ones.  Ten years ago, a resident told a friend, and maybe that friend told somebody, and perhaps even that friend told somebody else.  Today a resident clicks a few keys on Facebook and tells a hundred people at once; and if that’s as far as it goes, you can thank your lucky stars. And I’m not even going to go into depth about how long a bad rating can hang around to haunt your reputation once it’s been posted to a community ratings site.

In this new social paradigm, your front line and marketing departments need to learn to work hand in hand to avoid bad customer experiences and make it easier and more likely for customers to share great ones!  In the old paradigm, onsite and marketing might have been separated by any number of tortuous lines and boxes on the old org chart; but in the new world, they must be aligned to facilitate the flow of communication between them, and create great experiences for customers as a result.

3.  Your Marketing Department Just Got a Whole Lot Bigger

Because it now includes your customers.  Way back in 1964, Marshall McLuhan told us that the medium is the message, and that’s still true today in that our various social media platforms lend undeniable character to what we convey there.  But what’s different now is that the messages have become vastly more personalized.  A great print ad is a powerful thing, but it will never possess the ability to persuade another human being the way that another human being can. And your social community is entirely made up of them.

Now that said, it’s important to realize that marketing is still marketing; and the game has maybe not changed as drastically for us in that our business has always been about creating and ensuring a great customer experience.  What has changed, though is that instead of working with mostly headlines and taglines and deadlines and other linear processes, you’re now working in the totally three-dimensional, round-the-clock online world where many people communicate to many people all at the same time.  Instead of identifying and managing great creative, your job description now includes identifying, enabling, and encouraging (due diligence) influential fans of your business (channel selection) to convince people that you’re their best possible choice (execution).  The job is still the same, but the medium has changed the game.

4.  It’s ALL Mobile Marketing

We’re all on the go, and most of us are consuming large quantities of our information via a mobile device of some kind or other; and the more that becomes a commonality, the less specialized that communications channel becomes.  It’s on the fast track to become the dominant way that we interact with other individuals and with brands and pretty much the whole world at large.  More customers are going to be interacting with you on the small screen, so if you’re not already focusing some of your marketing efforts on optimizing that experience, it’s time to.  Try to think of “mobile marketing” as less about being a channel and more about reaching people when and where they are (and are willing) to interact with your brand. That’s more and more likely to be via the small screen in their hand.

Oh, one more thing… while you might be tempted to dismiss the iPad as just another slick new tech toy, think again.  There’s a big gap to be filled between laptops and handhelds, and the iPad is just one of many devices rushing to fill that void. With more “tablet” sized devices on the horizon, you can expect more costumers to be found there, as well.

5.  Enter The Chief Marketing Nerd

As more companies come to terms with the fact that technology and marketing have merged, they’ll begin to see the justified need to hire senior level management (Chief Marketing Technology Officers or Social Media Marketing Officers, or some other titular combination that’s equal parts Creative and Geek) to oversee the tech-related facets of the marketing process and help marketing and IT work together as a seamless team.  The few and foresightful professionals out there who have reinforced their marketing expertise with technical know-how will be—should already be—in hot demand.  As even more new channels emerge and the pace of change gains even more momentum, companies that don’t invest in tech-savvy marketing expertise are going to be quickly outmaneuvered by the competition.

6.  Email is Still a Killer App

And finally, social media and mobile delivery may be hogging the spotlight, but don’t forget about your old faithful marketing steady: email.  Maybe it isn’t as hot as it used to be, but it continues to be a tremendously reliable way to deliver a message, engage people with your brand, convey value, and save you time and money … but there’s one important thing you do need to know.  A slight shift is happening as consumers begin using email less often for their personal communications than Tweeting, posting, messaging, or texting—the key word there being personal.  Permission-based email is still today’s consumer’s preferred channel for interacting with companies and brands; but now that more consumers are receiving it on the go, it’s more important than ever to deliver the right message at the right time.

If you’d like to really put your finger on the pulse of today’s marketing, we’d like to recommend three great Reality Check sessions at Brainstorming 2010.  If you’re new to social media, join the inimitable Toni Blake for The Amazing Race to Social Media: Create and Manage a Successful Online Presence and hear Toni’s multifamily plan for "Beginner's Success" in social media. You can join  Chairty Hisle when she presents Social Media Strategies That Work, and to learn even more about the new marketing, join Chantelle Flannery of Firebelly Marketing for America's Next Top Multifamily Marketer and learn four key elements that will make your marketing plan a Super Model of success including: defining and expressing your unique selling proposition; perfect pricing; choosing your vehicles wisely; delivery that doesn’t leave a doubt; and much more!

If you have added the Social Media Optimization Summits to your Brainstoming registration you might like to consider attending our full blown, two and four hour workshops.

Part ONE: You lost me at Hello!

There is a culture shift today between businesses and the customer. This transition is from commercial to social, from product to relationship.  Marketing success is requiring businesses to convert well-calculated commercial messages into an authentic human voice spoken from a word of mouth ambassador. Social does not simply describe the media, but the message and method as well. Social communication strategies are crossing over into all forms of media. Are you ready to shift your ad copy from the detailed physical description of your asset to celebrating your resident’s LIFE at the community?  In this series I hope to guide you through the marketing culture shift from commercial to social in your over all approach to both residents and future residents.

Consumers are tired, bored, over worked, stressed by the economy, looking for answers, quick fixes and the easy button. They are attempting to survive the most serious economic crisis in the history of our planet while keeping track of a virtual renaissance in technology. How can you make their life better? How can you answer a questions, solve their problems, provide them with extra time, money, laughs, love, peace, joy - even one moment of happiness?

How can you help me? Can you make my life better?
Nothing about you matters, unless it matters to them! It is the consumer who has changed the channel. They skip past the sponsor page, fast forward past million-dollar ad campaigns with their DVR, spam-block emails, have added their name to the no call list and check caller ID. Traditional marketing is now being referred to as “outbound” or “interruptive” marketing. Businesses that insist on talking about themselves in commercial terms will continue to be deleted by their potential customers. Setting up a Facebook page with a commercial photograph, with no faces, making friends with your vendors and sister properties and then soliciting in your posts does not count as engagement in social media. It’s time to make it your fervent goal to become a truly valued partner in your resident’s life! Businesses have been talking about themselves for so long that the procedures; policies, strategies, principles, practices, reports, accounting and mission statements are saturated with their self-interest. How quickly your organization can switch from commercial to this new social era will determine the level of your frustration and success.

I agree with every firm who has said “NO” to Facebook until they have a good strategy, and perhaps professional assistance, to be successful in this new world.  Is it better to have Facebooked and lost, then to never have Facebooked at all? YES!!! This is a fundamental change in the way we will do business in the future, which extends beyond social media to every form of commercial language. Today’s messages require a communication style that has true meaning to the life of the consumer! You can stumble on it, tweet it, Facebook it, digg it, share it and post it on YouTube but if you are commercializing your message – YOU LOSE!

Where is your firm’s culture in the shift from commercial to social?  National Marketing Consultant and Speaker Lori Snider shared a great find with me – the “We We Monitor” from FurtureNowInc.com. This is a quick way to test your current message.

Futurenowinc.com has developed a “Customer Focus Calculator” to help you determine whether your message is consumer centric.  When you are ready to see if your “pride” is getting in the way of progress, follow the link above and test your next marketing piece before you publish it.  Futurenowinc.com will evaluate the counts of certain words as key indicators of your customer focus. Discover what your word choices say about your true message.  All you have to do is enter your text (you can copy and paste) and company name, then click on "submit." This first step on the journey is to stop being about YOU and to start being about THEM!

You will need to conduct focus groups. Listen, find interests, discover needs, get in touch with their pain, problems, worries, and stresses. Find out what you do that matters, that brings them joy, helps their cause and keeps them happy. Find out what you can do that will create more support, meaningful service and value in your relationship.  I have a simple, “Home Dinner” focus group plan that you can print down at Apartment Social Media Dance Steps on Facebook that will show you how to create an open environment for your residents to give you this very valuable information.

Are you ready for the journey, are you ready to stop commercializing your message and be social with your customer? This is going to be a series of messages on the Culture Shift from Commercial to Social. In my next message I will address the fears you will need to let go of to engage with the consumer! Get ready to SHIFT– but don’t pack your bags, its time to leave the old behind and find something new! Join me – through your hands in the air and get ready to enter the social world of media!!!

Toni Blake
Host
Apartment Social Media Dance Steps on Facebook