We want to help you understand how to craft your unique property story using digital media. Before you can begin to craft your story, you need to go back to the basics and understand that it all starts with the customer experience. If you don’t first understand how to treat the customer at each stage of the relationship by knowing who your customer is, how they communicate, and what will create a response, you won’t create a connection. And if you don’t create a connection, you won’t get the signed lease or renewal.
At AIM 2017, we introduced the concept of the Happiness Halo¹ and how it helps us understand how to guide customers through an experience — not just another mundane property tour (whether online or in person) or setting them up to leave that colossal negative review based on a lackluster maintenance experience.
Let’s take a brief look at the three main categories:
- Anticipation — Every brand should identify what to hold back to create intrigue, appeal, interest, and ultimately, response.
- Interaction — We all want to be led and directed through the buying decision. Having the ability to immerse a customer or potential customer in your brand while directing them through that decision will lead to higher trust and closure rates.
- Afterglow — Our positive or negative experiences are the determining factor on whether we return to a restaurant, use an airline, order from a brand online, AND even determine if we return to sign the lease. What are ways that you can end strong even when bad things happen (and they will)?
Understanding and applying these concepts will help to strengthen the relationship with your residents.
The next piece of crafting your story is understanding your customer. Demographics disclose key information, such as age, income, and marital status. Millennials, Baby Boomers, Generation X, and Generation Z are all part of the audience landscape. What do you know about these groups in terms of interest, shopping patterns, dining choices, travel selections, and more?
It’s important to know the mix of the generations at your property, or that you are trying to attract to your property, as it will determine marketing messaging, imagery, your event calendar, and even amenities and service offerings that you bring in. I’ll share one key statement to help you get started: No matter the specifics behind the generations, they all desire authenticity from the brands they buy from, they all want to be part of a community, and they all want to be a part of something bigger than themselves. Knowing those keys could help you establish compelling marketing messaging and resident events that appeal to interests versus age.
The last step is to craft your story. Look for your uniqueness in your audiences, amenity set, key offerings available, event calendar, area of the city, maintenance, staff members, history of the site, etc. Your personality needs to shine through so that you are appealing to and attracting the audiences that you desire. Your story can then be crafted into a video, a social media campaign, a digital ad campaign, or an email marketing campaign that impacts resident retention and new lease potentials.
We want to help you stand out from the crowd. If you need help in crafting your story — online or off — we can help. Contact us today at [email protected]. We’ll help connect your uniqueness to the authenticity and community your audiences are searching for.
1 – LIPPINCOTT, The Happiness Halo. 2016.