13 Marketing Ideas for Apartment Communities

Do you represent an apartment community that targets a specific demographic? Maybe you’re a senior services apartment community that targets the 55 and older crowd. Or maybe you’re right off of a military base and you’re looking to get more traffic from stationed personnel as they search for off-base residential quarters? Whatever your community might be, there are some good marketing tactics that you can begin as soon as today that will help you achieve a lower vacancy rate almost immediately.

The focus of any good marketing campaign in this industry is about the value that you can provide. What makes your apartments better than any of the other apartments that someone could decide to rent? When you make that the focus of your marketing efforts, you’ll quickly set yourself apart from the competitors in your local community. There are also a few other proven methods of marketing that will help you stand out too.

Great Marketing Ideas for Apartment Communities

1. Hide money within the vacant apartments and allow renters to search for it as a way to reduce their move-in costs if they have signed a lease. This type of marketing campaign also helps potential renters to be able to see how clean your apartments happen to be. Give them a reasonable time limit, don’t put in an amount you’re uncomfortable awarding in a prize, and people will have plenty of fun.

2. Offer potential members apartment upgrades that they may want so life can be a little more enjoyable. You could paint an accent wall in the apartment, varnish the cabinets, or even put in a new countertop based on their preferences. Even though the apartment might not need an upgrade, it will help each renter personalize their living space and because that option is rare, it will set you apart.

3. Use on-hold marketing techniques to drive up the value of your community whenever you have to put a prospect on hold. You could give them the typical easy listening music, or you could give them a succinct message about why people love living in your community and even record testimonials from current residents about what makes life so great in your apartments.

4. Get small mementos to hand out to people that have your contact information on them. You could hand out small packets of personalized Post-It notes, tissue packages, or just regular stationary that has your contact info. You don’t even have to hand them to people in person – just place a box or basket in a visible location in your leasing office and put up a sign that says they’re free, so please take “just one.”

5. Make sure your landscaping is updated because first impressions really count when it comes to an apartment tour. If you’d invest thousands into staging a touring apartment, then why wouldn’t you spend a few hundred bucks to upgrade your front landscaping that people see when they come into your community for the first time?

6. Create an annual community event, like a bake sale or a garage sale, that will drive a lot of visitors to your community. This is an excellent chance for people to get something they want, hunt for a good bargain, and still get a chance to tour one of your model apartments if they want. You can even hold your own table in the model unit if you want to further encourage people to stop by for a visit.

7. Use targeted products at targeted businesses in a co-op agreement throughout your community. You could hand out bottles of water with your contact information on it at the local gym, for example, or hand out small wrenches or screwdrivers at the local hardware store. Whatever it is, just make sure that the product makes sense for the chosen location. You wouldn’t want to hand out cheeseburgers at a vegetarian convention… unless they were made with beans instead of animal products.

8. Offer residents a small rental discount if they’ll help to promote your community in some way. It could be a bumper sticker on a car, a banner ad on their blog, or any other method that you approve of that increases your overall exposure.

9. Let your residents be your greatest ambassadors and let them show potential tenants all of the benefits that your apartment community has to offer. You can start your own internal ambassadors club if you want, offer incentives to join the club like a lower rent, and even uniforms that will instill a sense of pride into people. This pride will then reflect into every tour they give.

10. Consider becoming pet friendly and you’ll open up a new world of marketing opportunities. Veterinarians make excellent referrers to an apartment community! You can also find referral help from pet supply stores, pet groomers, and even the local Humane Society. Market this aspect as much as possible because pet friendly communities are few and far between.

11. If you do love pets in your apartment community, then a unique marketing opportunity would be to put your logo or brand on pet products that you could hand out at local pet gathering spots, like the dog park. A dog, a new bandana, and a new Frisbee make for a wonderful outreach opportunity.

12. Take your marketing products to your local churches because a pen in a pew is a pretty handy thing to have. Why bother giving products to people who have already found you? The religious community is often more stable in terms of job security and treating property as if it were their own, so you could find yourself a plethora of new applicants just as soon as the afternoon sermon is over.

13. If you live in a community that loves coffee, then your own coffee sleeves can help to promote your wears. Send them down to the local convenience store for free, put them in other high traffic locations, and people will promote your brand without ever really realizing that’s what they are doing with every sip they take.