Apartment Lease Up Marketing Plan

Have you come up with your apartment lease up marketing plan yet? If you haven’t, it’s time to do it now: according to data collected by apartment lease up experts, new apartment constructions surpassed 320,000 units, so you can expect that there will be a growth of advertising in apartment complexes competing with your apartment marketing plan. So, if you haven’t drafted an apartment leasing action plan, it’s time to do so or else, the competition will have an advantage.

If you're a property owner, marketing director, or property manager, and are competing with well-established communities in your area, it’s time to design an apartment marketing template and strategy that will place you at the top of the list. If you don’t know where to start, don’t worry: this article will teach you some outreach marketing ideas for apartments to develop an apartment lease up marketing plan that will bring interested customers to your new property.

How to Create a Successful Apartment Lease Up Marketing Plan?

1. Using 2D, 3D, and Virtual Walk Through Floor Plans

The #1 step to the marketing plan (or the first marketing strategy) is to use 2D, virtual walk-throughs, or the more advantages 3D floor plans to market apartments. This custom 3D apartment rendering is used to promote and showcase on social media, advertising shout-outs, and more importantly developer’ website. Using 3D floor plans for lease-up apartments, and showing your property with detail is one of the best ways to increase occupancy rate in apartments and to attract potential customers. Any interior, aerial, walkthroughs, and floor plan renders will boost your prospects’ interest which drives potential sales.

3D architecture renders & virtual walk through 3D renders are now becoming mainstream as COVID-19 is impacting the real estate market, and the average apartment shopper is wanting info faster. Remember: showing every small feature is essential for every marketing for Apt lease-ups (especially if it’s a multifamily marketing plan or if you’re drafting marketing ideas for luxury apartments in coveted districts) as this can convince your potential customers to lease up.

2. Set Up Your Website and Property with Google My Business

Ensure that your website stands out among the crowd. When selecting a domain name for your property, be sure to make it type-friendly, short, without hyphens, with a .net or .com extension, and very specific keywords to place your property on the radar (think of [Community] + Apts.com or [Community] + [Neighborhood].com). From here, it’s not hard to catch people’s attention, as people looking to live in your area might bump into your listing right away, especially if there are prominent banners around the site of your new construction advertising the community's name.

Craft an appealing logo/ID, design the brand concept, look, color palette and graphics, and, alongside your property site plans in 2D or virtual 3D Floor plans, use photos, videos and renderings of your building and the neighborhood to add color, visibility and appeal to your property. Afterwards, post updates on your listing in Google My Business with status updates of layout concepts, materials used, featured amenities, floor plans, etc.

3. Set Up Defensive PPC and AdWords Campaigns

A website alone won’t drive the traffic straight to your property: it’s time to set up local listings so that it is easy for prospects to find you specifically. For this, you need to have PPC and AdWords campaigns up and running to defend your keywords (basically, the search terms that include your community's specific name i.e. Apartments in [city] or Luxury Apartments in [City].

These defensive campaigns will ensure that searchers see your property and that your campaign remains at the top of the browsers’ results through your keywords, and more importantly above the competitor property’s. Don’t stop there, though: post banners everywhere, create branded social media profiles, post your building on Craigslist and other marketplaces for apartment rentals and leasing.

4. Set Up Google Analytics and Track Your Site’s Traffic

It's important that you track your marketing sources, monitor performance, and correct where needed. Get to know your traffic through Google Analytics which shows insights to; where is your traffic coming from? What pages do they look at? How long do they stay on your site? Do they return to your site?

Knowing these things will help you improve the property’s visibility, learn how prospective residents are finding your community.

5. An Epic Grand Opening

Plan some apartment grand opening ideas, and if your property is new, consider promotional new construction lease-up deals. This is the time to interact the most with your future residents. Plan to stage the interiors, showcase important features, and have brochures, business cards, flyers, and giveaways such as branded bottles or branded t-shirts to make a memorable statement.

Apartment Lease Up Marketing Plan

Yes, filling a new apartment building isn't easy, much less drafting an effective apartment lease up marketing plan. However, the tips above have been proven by apartment marketing agencies, and developers. It’s just a matter of how fast you can have the apartment leasing action plan dialed-in and execute it successfully. For future properties, it’s best if the marketing team creates an apartment lease up schedule that encompasses the above tips to nail down future properties more efficiently.

Lease Up Glossary

What is property lease-up?

It refers to the time between the announced launch of a new apartment community, usually six to 12 months after opening. Once the period is over, occupancy should be already on its prime and residents should start paying rent rates at or above average market rate.

What is a lease up schedule?

It’s the time it takes new properties to attract tenants and reach a stable occupancy. People involved for this to happen tend to be the building's owner, property manager, and construction team.