Connecting the Dots on Marketing Education

Written by: Janet Rosseth | We’re still fresh off of Apartmentalize, powered by NAA, and I’m reflecting on three of the marketing sessions I attended. I always try to connect the dots to common themes out of multiple sessions. The sessions:

1. Taking Control of your Lead Generation Strategy with On-Demand Ad Strategy
2. What’s the Big Idea? Marketing Innovators Pitch Game-Changing Strategies
3. Are We Tech-ing Things Too Far OnSite?

The theme of the “Taking Control of Your Lead Generation Strategy” was just that. We need to become funnel-obsessed like other industries and use our budgets wisely to attract qualified marketing leads into the funnel, and use our sales enablement tools to assess needs and hand them off to our sales teams at just the right time. 

Christopher Bartlett, Maribeth Ross, Janet Rosseth, Jenn Williams

The most important components:

There’s a difference between a marketing lead and a sales lead. We tend to hand all leads off right away to our leasing teams, and that just bogs them down. A better solution is to dial in our sales enablement tools to qualify those leads to a point of hand-off, then pass them to a highly trained leasing agent.

Also, use data and strategic KPIs to develop a proactive marketing strategy that builds and nurtures your pipeline all year long. Our industry tends to operate from a reactionary mode, turning sources on and off as needed, often racing to attract the 45-60 day buying cycle when a solid pipeline would have already captured those leads before our notices were in-hand.

Last, balance your budget across sources that allow flexibility and control. Allocating too much budget to lengthy contracts on spendy package levels leaves very little room to test more flexible and specialized ad strategies.

In the Game-Changing Strategies session, differentiating strategies were highlighted by savvy marketers.

Anne Baum, Esther Bonardi, Israel Carunungan, Josh Draughn

Differentiators included engaging strategies when launching a new website. An example of a scavenger hunt was shared as a way to lead residents and stakeholders through all the components and features of a new website. Sharing was encouraged, engagement was high, and content created word of mouth. What a brilliant way to connect your content to your most important website users!

Another strategy used actual residents in photography and video rather than stock photos. What a cool way to capture those who actually live at, and enjoy your property, AND create excitement around sharing the photos on the website. Residents who participated were happy to share the project they were part of, and that created natural word-of-mouth and testimonials.

Last, an enormous undertaking of KPI’s and data collection was shared. Knowing where your baseline begins is the best way to steer goals in the direction you want performance to go! While not an easy task, data can be one of the most impactful components in inspiring change and striving for greater conversions.

“In the Tech-ing It Too Far Session” with industry icon Lisa Trosien, I was fascinated by two shared stats. Lisa collected feedback from industry teams, covering everything from volume of tech platforms used, to comfort level and training for both employees and residents.

Two of stats I found most interesting:

1. 56% of on-site team members indicated they do not receive hands-on training for new technologies needed for their jobs
2. 67% spend time with residents everyday explaining or helping them use resident-facing technology such as the portal

So the big question…

How are our on-site teams training and helping residents understand how to navigate the tech tools if we aren’t spending enough time training them as the experts?? It seems we could do better by spending a few more hours training our internal users, and perhaps providing better resources for our residents to navigate too. Could there be short videos for Q&A? Perhaps a few tech liaisons or a centralized expert responding to resident portal questions?

Through common themes, it’s easy to connect the dots between all three of these amazing sessions. There’s an opportunity to truly connect with our residents better from the start of their interactions with us through their residency.

Early in their journey, can we connect them with the experiences of current residents? And can we use those experiences in our ad strategy to move prospects through the funnel and connect them to an expert? Frictionless service should be a promoted amenity!

And if we’re hearing that residents are often needing more help navigating our technology, can we respond with better training? And then promote our dedicated services and deeper education of our site teams to new prospects? 

Train. Retain. Engage. Promote.

Every interaction we have that leaves our residents feeling a sense of frictionless service deserves to be amplified. Collect those testimonials, and utilize them in your advertising strategy.

Where are your opportunities to reduce friction and promote your service as an amenity?