Multi-family marketers and community managers live a life where there’s always something new to be done, but not enough time to do it. In addition to a constantly growing to-do list, disruptions and surprises frequently occur. It’s at times like these that we need to find ways to use time more efficiently.

Marketing strategy can improve the results of marketing efforts, but it is not often thought of as an area that can save time, energy, and eliminate tasks that need to be done. It is crucial that operators constantly control costs while simultaneously looking for areas that can also drive performance improvements. 

How can you market your properties effectively, while keeping your leasing office and day-to-day operations running smoothly? Here are 5 ways to increase your marketing efficiency without sacrificing quality and effectiveness.

1. Know Your Potential Residents

Many examples exist where multifamily marketers spend too much time trying to reach people that simply don’t fit the type of person that would enjoy living in their communities.

What is it that makes your community unique? And who does it appeal to? Is it the Gen-Z searching for their first independent home? Are your properties designed for the soon-to-be empty-nesters looking to downsize?

It’s critical to determine who your audience is and what they’re looking for to then align your amenities and location properly. Knowing who cares the most, what they care about, and where to find them will eliminate wasted time trying to speak to people who simply don’t want or need your information.

2. Streamline Your Processes

A typical property will engage with between 7 – 12 vendors to support their non-media marketing needs, including promo vendors and mat companies. Additionally, it is not unusual for leasing associates to make a quick run to the local Home Depot to grab some last minute items.

This creates confusion and lost productivity, putting everyone in a position of playing catch up. Most of the time, operators don’t have the data to know what’s really happening. This results in higher costs and greater inconsistency.

Streamlining and centralizing the procurement, logistics, and management of these various purchases saves time, creates consistency, and enables team members to stay focused on the most important tasks. This way, everyone has the right data and information to continually optimize the process. With Benson’s Centralized Marketing Platform (CMP), managing your marketing projects becomes simple and efficient. The online Smart Store and purchasing guides allow everyone to order and manage products related to tactical execution. Having one place to call, or one person to talk to is a huge time-saver.

3. Invest Time in Your Marketing Campaigns

Your marketing strategy needs to be all-inclusive and use multiple channels, including today’s biggest influence: social media. Implement social media’s best practices to ensure your posts are being seen. Develop content that drives traffic to your website and make sure your content is what your audience will interact with via like, comment, or share. Tagging relevant people or companies in your posts and utilizing hashtags are also great ways to improve organic engagement. These interactions will ultimately increase the foot-traffic through your property’s door.

Analyze the success of your strategy through marketing KPIs, analytics, and insights. These tools will help you understand what is working on your social platforms and what you need to be doing better.

Once all channels are streamlined and your following has grown, you’ll be able to direct marketing content to a large group of prospects in a short amount of time.

4. Ensure Brand Standards Are in Place

The biggest threats to effective marketing efforts are mistakes and inconsistencies. While it seems like a simple color variation on your logo would be easy to fix, those seemingly little mistakes can be costly and waste valuable time.

For example, when creating a promo product for your property, you want to ensure all colors are exact and the logo file is correct to meet brand needs. If one of these is wrong, it would waste materials and could cost you big bucks to correct.

Brand standards that are managed and maintained save time and allow you to showcase the value of your marketing strategy. A more efficient workflow provides additional control over marketing standards and budget and allows you to spend more time considering strategy instead of dealing with errors.  

Having a single branding guide is not enough to maintain brand standards. Setting your brand standards using a CMP will help manage the thousands of marketing strategies and transactions that will take place annually.

5. Track and Listen to the Data

There’s no question that multi-family marketing is becoming widely important in operators’ overall business strategy. Limiting vacancies through effective lead generation is critical to ensuring the success of your properties.

One way to show the value of your marketing efforts is by tracking, managing, and controlling your marketing spend data. Ensuring you have the right platform and process to record and track marketing spend over a wide variety of categories enables you to make more innovative decisions. This provides insight into what is and isn’t working, allowing you to make necessary adjustments that increase overall tactics.  

Increasing marketing efficiencies is possible when you use the right partners and the right tools. Let your multi-family marketing efforts drive effective lead generation, increase foot-traffic, and show the true value of a competent and valuable team.

For more information about Benson’s Centralized Marketing Platform and what we can do for you, contact Kim Grisvard at kimg@yourbenson.com.