The Multifamily Firm That Does Not Adhere To Technological Advances Is Making A Costly Mistake.

Let’s face it; you’re not the only game in town.
There are apartment communities all over and they may even be right next door.  So why should the prospective resident pick your property to be their new home?  That’s a good question, but it’s the job of you and your staff to insure that everything possible is done to capture that future resident before your competition does.
Let’s walk through the process.  You do all the right marketing. You get your community looking at its very best.  You train your staff on how to look and act professional.  You train them on phone etiquette and how to tour.  Then you wait for the phones and e-mail leads as well as all the walk-ins to start coming in.  But then what?
What happens once a prospective resident does reach out to you?  Are these leads being handled as aggressively as they should?  If you’re looking at the industry statistics, the answer is NO!  It’s a pathetic but true fact that the valuable leads you are paying dearly for are probably not being handled the way they should.  In an article written by Kate Good (Out of Patience: Confessions of a Cyber Shopper), Kate states that “Over 50% of the internet leads we send out at Net Mystery Shopper go unanswered.”  Just as alarming, three out of ten phone leads are missed altogether.
So is it a staffing problem, not hiring the right individuals or something else entirely?
The standard onsite leasing office employs about 1.5 agents per 100 apartment homes.  These exhausted individuals must handle every call, visitor, and transaction related to the community.  And when the economy takes a downturn, reducing the number of employees in an attempt to cut costs makes the leasing consultant’s job even more demanding.
It is common knowledge that potential renters that call before visiting are more likely to sign a lease than those who simply drive by. But with fewer staff members to handle these leads accurately, many fall through the cracks. Rather than increasing occupancy and revenue, companies are just trying to stay afloat.
In addition to the demanding workload, a leasing agent needs to accurately record all customer information from the phone, Internet, e-mail, and in-person interactions.  This information is not only crucial but it is paramount to a company’s success.  In today’s busy market with intense competition, the guest card becomes one of our most important tools.
Unfortunately all too often the agent is more focused on other things and not maintaining accurate records.  Historically, more than 60% of all customer contacts never even make it to a guest card.  And of the ones that do make it, only one-third accurately identifies the ad source and contact information.
Just as important as accurate data is proper follow-up. Toni Blake, the multifamily industry’s Marketing Guru, emphasizes that follow-up starts with getting accurate and key information onto a guest card.  She has found that leasing people who understand the importance of the guest card out-lease their counterparts three to one.
J Turner Research Firm found consistent findings.  In a recent survey, 65% of top apartment executives said they were going to improve Lead Follow-Up when asked what techniques they would use to secure a potential resident.  Another survey titled Industry Outlook for 2009 listed insufficient follow-up as the number one reason for not closing a lease.
Inaccurate Data = Lack of Follow-up = Lost Leads = Lost Revenue
If you are really serious about improving your lead management skills and maximizing the potential of your leasing staff, and you should be, then you will most certainly need the help of automation.  The bottom-line is your community most likely does not need more leads—it just needs to do a better job maximizing the leads they already have.
Studies have shown that the fastest way for any company to increase profitability is to provide its people with the proper tools, training, motivation and feedback to enhance their performance.  Communities have to take advantage of the technology available today to be able to effectively capture and convert traffic to leases.
Here's where concepts like Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and sophisticated online lead-tracking solutions become significant to the property management companies.
Improving productivity is derived from Internet-driven technology.
Today, Internet-driven technology such as the PopCard, created by Lead Tracking Solutions, can consolidate the entire guest card process creating valuable information that will in turn increase occupancy and revenue for a property to succeed.  Productivity-wise, this consolidation of information will do to the multifamily business what the assembly line did to automobile manufacturing.  And, if implemented wisely, the cost of this technology is quickly covered many times over by the resulting synergy—and the quantifiable savings—that it brings to the property, regardless of its size. A company that does not embrace technology will prove to be a costly mistake.
The PopCard is a follow-the-lead program that provides immediate tools to automate, integrate, manage and evolve your prospect and resident communications quickly and cost-effectively for strategic advantage.  All marketing calls and e-mails—even if the call is missed—¬will auto-populate a guest card for the leasing agent letting them know exactly who is contacting them, where they are contacting them from, from what phone number or e-mail address, and from which advertising source.  Along with this vital information, it also acts as a guide for your leasing agent insuring that you are maximizing their true potential. Of course all of this would not be complete without seamlessly integrating with your back-end software which the PopCard does as well.
Clearly, the phrase "Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half." no longer holds true.  The internet and advancing technology offers extraordinary tools for knowledge – right down to the last penny.  Multifamily owners can maximize their employee’s performance and get accurate data by using innovative technology such as the PopCard which will undeniably provide an extremely beneficial map to marketing and employee success.
If you would like further information regarding the PopCard, contact Brian Maguire, Vice President of Sales for Lead Tracking Solutions at 866-209-1700 x104 or email to BrianM@LTSTeam.com.

Note from Tami to multifamily friends: Are you maximizing the use of technology? Please Take a quick  15 question 2 minute survey here

ForRent.com embraces virtual communication through new Layar mobile application
Apartment seekers can search thousands of ForRent.com apartment listings through the world’s first augmented reality browser ForRent.com, anchor Web site of For Rent Media Solutions™,  has launched an augmented reality Layar mobile application. The application lets apartment seekers view their current location through the camera of their iPhone® 3G S or Google Android mobile phone with a “layer” that shows them all the available apartments on ForRent.com within a 10-mile radius.
As a free mobile application, available from the iTunes Store or from Android Markets, Layar shows users their surroundings by displaying real-time digital information on top of reality through the camera of their cell phone. Once the apartment seeker selects the property of their choice, phone and email contact information appears at the bottom of the screen. Through the Layar application, they can also access the ForRent.com mobile site for even more property information.

“Mobile media is a leading method of communication among consumers,” says Terry Slattery, president of For Rent Media Solutions. “According to comScore Media Metrix, 80.1 million mobile users browse or use mobile applications. While an additional 31 percent use text messaging. The Layar application has been well received worldwide. We are proud to be connected to the next step in mobile technology and look forward to the future of mobile media.”

To find ForRent.com listings through Layar, apartment seekers must download the Layar application. Next, they search for the term “apartments” or “ForRent.com” to find the ForRent.com mobile application icon. From there, they simply point their phone in any direction and all available apartments on ForRent.com within a 10-mile radius will appear on the screen as colored pins.

The new mobile application is the latest addition to For Rent Media Solutions’ comprehensive mobile marketing suite of products that cater to the apartment seeker on the go, including the ForRent.com text messaging product, mobile Web site, and two additional mobile applications available through the iPhone™ and T-Mobile G1™ (GPhone).

To learn more about Layar and the ForRent.com application, please contact Mike D’Alba, director of mobile marketing at dalba@forrent.com.

Remember Tom Peter’s ‘Brand Called You’? It has to be one of my all time fav articles.

From the article: “No matter what you're doing today, there are four things you've got to measure yourself against. First, you've got to be a great teammate and a supportive colleague. Second, you've got to be an exceptional expert at something that has real value. Third, you've got to be a broad-gauged visionary—a leader, a teacher, a farsighted "imagineer." Fourth, you've got to be a businessperson—you've got to be obsessed with pragmatic outcomes. It's this simple: you are a brand. You are in charge of your brand. There is no single path to success. And there is no one right way to create the brand called You. Except this: Start today. Or else.”

Fast forward to ‘now’. Personal branding is bigger than ever. But it’s BRAND CALLED YOU 2.0 now. It’s about being an interesting and desirable brand to other individuals. To peers. To friends of friends. To fans. To followers. To family. It’s playlists and videos and pictures, it’s one’s thoughts and creative outbursts, it’s gaming scores, it’s preferences, it’s portfolios, it's stories you can tell, it's knowledge and skills, it’s an entire personal branding campaign trying to impress everyone except perhaps… big corporations.

What can we do? Give some attention to initiatives that are about helping our residents become more interesting to others. Eric Brown did just that with his writing on the walls contest. Click the link below.

The Writing’s On the Walls at Urbane Apts

By David Naffis and Pradeep Elankumaran

The Internet as we know it has certainly changed the business world. And just when you thought the web was as good as it could get, it’s about to evolve again.

Up until now, the Internet was primarily about sharing information. You put up a web page, post a white paper, upload product images and details. Then people search you, your company, or your products and services and eventually find your Web site.

The new evolution of the Internet, however, focuses more on collaboration rather than sharing. Called Real Time Web (RTW) or web 3.0, it enables your information to get “pushed” to the people who are interested in your topics, products or services. In other words, if a person is interested in something your company is involved in, produces, offers, or manufactures (and that person has specified those parameters of interest in their web settings), then whenever you put out information it would automatically get sent to the person rather than the person having to search for it.

As far as using RTW technology internally in your company, it enables you to collaborate with your team members in real time and even edit documents together in real time regardless of where everyone is physically located. You can also get updates from co-workers in real time. So as tasks are completed or projects pushed through to the next phases, you would know about it immediately rather than having to wait for an e-mail update or to physically check the status on something. And you can get the information on both your desktop and mobile device, so no matter where you are you can stay informed.

In essence, the RTW is going to change the architecture of the web and how Web sites interact with each other. It’s going to promote the trusted exchange of user data and tighter integration between web applications over multiple devices. It will also change how we interact with applications, share and utilize information, and collaborate with one another as the next generation of web applications taking advantage of this new paradigm are created.

Unfortunately, because RTW is not well-defined yet, many people don’t know what it is. In fact, we’re just starting to see the first versions of applications like Twitter and FriendFeed that focus on consumer-oriented RTW. So when business owners and managers talk about RTW, they’re not clear about what it is, how it could apply to their business, and how they can take advantage of it.

Whether you’re just starting to investigate the possibilities with RTW or are using some fledgling RTW applications, the following suggestions will help you understand and integrate RTW into your organization.

Educate yourself on what Real Time Web is.

As stated earlier, the web as we know it (or web 2.0) was all about sharing pictures, videos, and information. Web 3.0, or RTW, is all about sharing that information in real time for immediate awareness, collaboration, and sharing. For example, web 2.0 included document collaboration in the form of wikis, whereas the real-time web generation of document collaboration will involve many people editing and updating a document at once, seeing the changes made by others immediately, and collaborating concurrently as opposed to the asynchronous web 2.0 version. Think of it as the web on steroids. Access to information just got faster, meaning clients, customers, co-workers, and anyone else can communicate with you, learn from you, and collaborate with you easier and better than in the past. The time period between you posting something and others seeing it is mere seconds to minutes, rather than the traditional days to weeks.

Investigate the leading real-time applications to get a feel for the technology.

Some examples of RTW applications are Twitter, FriendFeed, Present.ly, and Drop.io. So if you’d like to “see” RTW web in action, a good place to start is Twitter. In fact, Twitter is now given credit for being the first to come up with real time search. Here’s how Internet search typically works: Google goes out and indexes the entire web. When you use Google to search for something, you type in your search phrase and Google displays the results. However, those results are not always up to date. They are only current according to when Google did their last update, which could be a week ago or longer. With Twitter, though, you can find information right as it’s happening. This has been demonstrated with recent natural disasters around the world and other major events. People are going to Twitter to find out what’s going on right now.

Brainstorm how your company can utilize RTW technology.

Your company could gain a lot by being on the leading edge of this movement toward real-time information sharing … or you could lose a lot if you are not planning for it. Here are some ways your company could use RTW:
• You could respond to customers as they complain or voice issues with your company. In fact, some companies have dedicated employees monitoring Twitter to identify upset customers and to rectify the situation immediately before any damage is done to the company’s reputation.
• You could send coupon codes to people where the coupon is only available for the next six hours. Think of it like the famous television infomercial line, “Call in the next 10 minutes and you’ll also get …”
• You can use some tools internally, such as micro-blogging, to stay up-to-date in real time within your own company.
• You could build a brand on Twitter and use RTW to promote your company. For example, a small pizza shop in California posts their menu online every day. People receive it, see it, and make their lunchtime eating decision before they’ve even had breakfast. So as far as marketing goes, there are endless opportunities for leveraging RTW.
• You could send off information much quicker than in the past and have it read immediately by your customers or employees.

Get In Early for the Most Rewards

The bottom line is that those companies taking advantage of RTW are reaping the benefits right now. And the good news is that there’s more to come in the near future. As the months progress, we’ll see new technologies and uses that no one has yet thought of. More and more people and companies are gravitating toward the RTW to power the next generation of Internet. By all accounts, it’s an exciting time to be online.

Dave Naffis is a senior partner and co-founder of Intridea. Pradeep Elankumaran is director of research and development at Intridea. Intridea is a full-service web and mobile consulting firm that helps companies with design, development, and strategy. Their specialized professionals provide simple, intuitive solutions on everything from social and business collaboration to cloud computing to web and mobile applications. Clients include Fortune 500 companies, small businesses, nonprofit organizations, and government agencies. For more information on Intridea’s products and services, visit www.intridea.com.