The Mumbo: What Makes You So Special?

Did you miss me?? Aww, I missed you, too. Sorry about the hiatus, but sometimes life gets in the way of life, and the past two weeks have been like that.

In an effort to expand my network of like-minded folk, I have been meeting with some local search firms in the Denver area. Their reaction to the projects that Multifamily Edge takes on was amusing and reminded me just why we're so great. (Pardon the lack of humility.) Working in industries like multifamily is completely out of the comfort zone for most online marketing agencies. Here are a few reasons why the multifamily industry is so special:

1. Multiple Brands. Multiple Websites. Multiple Locations. Whether or not multifamily companies have a strong corporate brand, they all have community-level brands. Each community is a separate business operation with its own brand, its own name, its own challenges, its own opportunities, its own amenities, and its own address. Each community needs to have presence on the web, whether as a separate website or a subdomain. Each community needs to have a presence on local search. Domain type (corporate, regional, community) needs to be matched to the proper phase of the search cycle. When I tell other online marketers that I work exclusively with website suites of tens or hundreds of sites, jaws drop.

2. Consumer Behavior. One benefit of my background in multifamily is that I know how people search for apartments, and not just because I read articles about Gen Y. When you work with someone outside of the industry, their inclination is to fit multifamily into a box they can handle, like retail. (Ask me later for a list of reasons why multifamily is NOT retail.) Rental search is different in both subtle and dramatic ways than other consumer behavior. Renters tend to use a consistent search path online and offline. Here are a few examples off the top of my head: renters usually look approximately 3 months out and within 5-25 miles. They typically start their search online, then offline (driving around), then online, then traditional (for a certain demographic), then online again. They typically do seven online searches during their apartment hunt. They are more pragmatic and less emotional than home buyers and car buyers. Don't pay (directly or indirectly) for someone to do this research, or find out the hard way that the search strategy doesn't fit search behavior.

3. Keyword Research. A lot of search agencies require that companies use them for a pay-per-click campaign in addition to search engine optimization. Why? Because otherwise they don't know what keywords are effective. We know how to research keyword combinations specifically for multifamily so that the keywords implemented from the get-go are the ones that will bring a high volume of high quality traffic. (Tip: it's not "Miami apartments" or "2 bedroom floorplans"!)

4. Conversions. A typical conversation with an online marketer goes like this. OM: "What kind of sites are they?" Me: "Lead gen." OM: "Ok." And that's all they need to know. But it's not all you would want them to know, is it? Anyone can generate leads. Just make a big, shiny, prominent simple lead form and give away free stuff. Then push a bunch of traffic to it. What you want is leads that will convert to leases, and that's a whole different story. It takes a more sophisticated strategy to drive qualified leads, from traffic to design to tracking.

You're special, multifamily people, and don't you forget it. Don't let anyone try to put you in someone else's box. You won't fit.