Easily Gain New Tenants By Hosting Apartment Community Events
Do you host activities and apartment community events as part of your marketing plan?
If not, you are missing out on excellent opportunities to fill your building. Below is a true story about a property management company that signed two new leases at a recent resident event.
The Mercer Luxury Apartments, a rental community near Seattle, recently hosted a resident event that led to two new customers — a prospect who hadn’t yet made a decision on an earlier tour, and a guest invited to the luau by an existing community resident.
We asked Lisa V., The Mercer Community Manager, how she found success in hosting a summer luau that led to new business for the leasing team. Here are Lisa’s tips:
- Know your residents: What day will apartment residents come out to play at an event? When are residents going on vacation and likely to miss an event date? What apartment event themes will attract residents and prospects to attend?
- Don’t challenge a school event: check local calendars for conflicts to your apartment community event to get the best attendance
- Plan six weeks of marketing: mail postcards to rental prospects and outreach partners, attach notices to resident deliveries and package pickups, hang reminders on apartment doors at event time
Wish Your Multi Family Events Had Better Attendance?
More Successful Apartment Community Event Ideas
Another success story comes from Chestnut Hill Village Apartments, a rental community outside of Philadelphia, that also found a smart way to get residents working together on a project to create a charity donation together.
Apartment Events Coordinator Christine G. told us about one of her recent successes with a food drive she called FILL A CART FOR A NEIGHBOR IN NEED.
For in-your-face visual impact, the team at Chestnut Hill Village used an actual shopping cart donated by a local supermarket to build a display in the clubhouse. Christine says the marketing campaign also included supporting collateral, posters and door hangers, featuring a photograph of a shopping cart and the FILL A CART headline.
“We promoted the event to our residents and prospects with collateral and had a huge result. Our residents responded enthusiastically to fill the cart with non-perishable food items, which were donated to the local food bank.”
Setting the promotion timeline to last 30 days gave both residents and prospects a chance to donate and watch the grocery cart begin to overflow with food. And, the apartment event came at a time when food banks were in the news headlines due to a shortage of supplies. Tapping into this current event allowed Chestnut Hill Village to benefit from the positive public relations that comes from being a good neighbor in a time of need.
The team at Illumina Apartments on Lake Union, an Epic Asset Management community, filled a different need by hosting a School Supply Drive.
Manager Amber D. encouraged residents to add pencils, paper and crayons to the cardboard collection bins to benefit the neighborhood schools. Amber says the main goal was to help students in need but the leasing staff at this savvy apartment community found a hidden benefit: A valuable new outreach relationship with the school district, one of the largest employers in their zip code.
Apartment Community Event Guerrilla Marketing
Have you noticed the common denominator in The Mercer, Illumina on Lake Union and Chestnut Hill Village promotions?
All are examples of guerrilla marketing at it’s finest, the kind that doesn’t use up a large line item in the apartment marketing budget. These apartment management professionals are digging in and executing guerilla-style ideas in the trenches for little or no cost with big results.
Take your apartment community events to the next level with lessons learned from these success stories of real life people working the front lines of the multifamily industry.
Learn More About Apartment Marketing:
1. Over-the-Weekend Apartment Marketing Plan
2. Tips and Tricks for Producing Top Quality Apartment Flyers
3. Word Choice is Key to Effective Apartment Marketing Slogans
4. Write the Best Apartment Community Newsletters in the Industry
5. Building Apartment Marketing Ideas from Key Benefits
6. Benefit of Having Great Marketing Ideas for Apartment Communities