#AptChat

Social media may have recently surpassed email in terms of total share of our time spent online, but email is still an incredibly effective way to reach your audience (and email is still the most popular online activity on smartphones).

With that in mind, we asked Mark Juleen and DJ Waldow to help us understand how to get more out of our email marketing efforts. Mark (known to some as the Apartment Nerd) is the Director of Marketing for JC Hart Communities in Indianapolis, and DJ is the Director of Community at email service provider Blue Sky Factory.

They’re certainly not the only ones with something to say about the topic … it was exciting to see a number of faces – new and old – jump into the conversation to share their tips and ideas.

Here are the highlights from the discussion:

Why do I need to incorporate email into my marketing strategy? Aren’t the autoresponders to prospects enough?

• Jonathan Saar: autoresponders are not personal … you are in fact emailing people.
• Charity Hisle: Integrate, Integrate, Integrate! Tactics should work together to be effective.
• Heather Blume: Auto responders are never enough. They’re canned, impersonal, and often get filtered out by SPAM filters. Keep it human.
• Courtney Anderson: Auto responders are some of the most interacted with emails because they are real time – positively impacting deliverability.
• Erica Campbell: Auto responders can b effective if they r done correctly like using personalization & dynamic content to meet their needs.
• DJ Waldow: Why Email Marketing? Easy. According to the DMA it had a $43.62 ROI in 2009 (assuming you do it correctly)
• Courtney Anderson: The more interaction recipients have w/the email the more favorable the ISPs rate your IP reputation.
• Kim Cory: Auto responders are usefull and effective for certain situations. Better than no email at all, but has 2 be custom
• Kim Cory: If U send junk, that’s exactly where it will go! Don’t get lost with the other 100′s of emails your customers get daily. B unique.
• Michael Pickens: We send out autoresponder but require the properties to give a personal response within 2 hours.

Typical emails might be an auto-responder, then a custom response. How else can we use email to reach our audience?

• Courtney Anderson: Interaction based emails, welcome emails, drip campaigns, surveys, many more.
• Jonathan Saar: Newsletters for residents and non
• Kim Cory: We use email for surveys, resident alerts, announcements, holiday greetings, newsletters, promotions, list is endless.
• Meg Fowler: Most marketers treat people like opens, not readers. Content strategy exists beyond the blog.
• Erica Campbell: Email plays a huge role in multichannel marketing – other channels drive before the inbox and after the inbox.
• DJ Waldow: Send updates about cool new apts in their area. Targeted FTW.
• Laurel Zacher: Love email to drive new visitors to our site/fb/videos (from my sig). i just wish I could better quantify it!
• Mark Juleen: We do surveys, monthly news, notifications, introductions to social, etc. and more to come.
• Meg Fowler: How about emails with neighborhood profiles — links to amenities, stories of happy residents… along with rentals.
• Ryan VanDenabeele: Email is a great communication tool with residents. Not as invasive as text. I still wouldn’t like to get text from my community.
• Erica Campbell: Email is great 4 viral marktg, promoting sweepstakes/contests, internal cross promotion, affiliate program referrals.
• DJ Waldow: Consider pics and video when sending email to apartment folks. Keep it real, human, interactive.
• Meg Fowler: Don’t forget to link to social properties. you could even have “apartment love stories” of folks who found a great place.
• Meg Fowler: I also love the idea of checklists on how to assess an apt, how to set a housing budget, how to work out a lease…

What are some of the best ways to capture emails? (Online or offline)

• Duncan Alney: Email and SMS/text should both be opt-in with value added content.
• Meredith Mobley: SMS email capture is a good one.
• Gillian Luce: Homepage sign-up is a good one!
• Erica Campbell: Offline list growth printed materials, direct mktg, in-store display, CS/IT, reg, call center/outbound, tradeshow.
• Charity Hisle: How about capturing emails thru Facebook apps for those that want to learn more about your community?
• Joe Foster: Mailing list sign-ups at community events. Great for refreshing your resident list and scooping renters.
• Ryan VanDenabeele: Offline … we’ve been doing door hangers with tear-off tabs to submit emails to win prizes like ipads & TVs.
• Erica Campbell: I saw a newsletter sign up for weight watchers on the box of their microwave meal- pretty neat.
• Courtney Anderson: If I am in need of an apartment accepting my large dog, an email with properties that do is a great idea.
• Meg Fowler: As far as capturing opt-ins, I’m a big fan of eBook offers — give content sample to assure value.
• Sue Anne Reed: Apartment decorating on a budget would be a great ebook / lead generation campaign for multi-family.
• Sue Anne Reed: As someone who just recently moved, I think you should put a 9 or 10-month trigger on prospects.
• Courtney Anderson: Be compliant with CAN SPAM such as link to unsubscribe, physical mailing address, etc.

We mentioned timeliness earlier. Successful email campaigns are both timely & valuable. How do you ensure timeliness?

• Vacancy.com: Pick your days carefully. Don’t send out an email campaign late in the day- be aware of when your audience will view it.
• Charity Hisle: Email to Poll their move-in experience, Check-in again monthly.
• DJ Waldow: Capture “what is your timeframe for new apartment” info on email capture. Use to send timely emails.
• Resite Online: We find that our marketing emails get better response when sent in the middle of the week. We are B2B though. Know your audience.
• Ryan VanDenabeele: Traditionally Tues & Wed are best email days. Then after 9:30 But before Noon. Before 9, people get delete happy with morning email.
• Mark Juleen: Automate what you can. We often leave too much responsibility to a human scheduling an activity.
• Laurel Zacher: I think we can all learn from the ILS’ outreach emails: useful content about process during search, recontact 9 mo later.

Is your email social? What are some ways you can integrate it with the rest of your marcomm efforts?

• Erica Campbell: Decorating tips, integration w groupon, coupons, partnership deals w local bars ect r effective retention based emails.
• Mike Whaling: Once you have the email, use tools like Flowtown, Blue Sky Factory or MailChimp to see where else your audience is online.
• Resite Online: Include links to your social networks in your emails. You could even give them a taste by including your latest feeds.
• Erica Campbell: Take the HTML version and copy it into your FBML on your FB profile and create a monthly message tab.
• Mark Juleen: Email strategy needs to integrate w/ your social, or your social and/or email will only get you so far. LINK, SHARE, SYNDICATE.
• Meg Fowler: Email only as social as YOU are — if you’re just broadcasting, it’ll read that way. if you’re starting a convo, it’ll ring true.

What metrics are you using to evaluate your results?

• Courtney Anderson: Standard ones, open rate, click thru rate.
• Vacancy.com: A/B testing is a great way to see what worked best.
• Courtney Anderson: Leads per email sent, lead per email open help gauge performance ie bottom line indicators.
• Erica Campbell: For an ILS- guest card submissions, CTR, unique clicks, open rate, opens, % of traffic to overall site traffic.
• Charity Hisle: Subscription counts, web visits, email referral counts are all good metrics.
• DJ Waldow: Opens are a start, click-throughs better, conversions WIN.
• DJ Waldow: Shares/fwds create more eyeballs which increase opens and potential clicks & conversions. Double win.

Videos responses from Mark Juleen:

• Q1: “Have an ongoing strategy to follow up.”
• Q2: “The sky is the limit.”
• Q6: “Besides metrics, keep in mind how you can be ‘top of mind.’”

More resources:

• Full transcript of this week’s #AptChat
• 50 Ways to Build Your Email List (Free ebook from Blue Sky Factory)
• Ways to integrate email marketing and social media (Presentations by DJ Waldow)

How are you using email as part of your marketing and communication mix? What is working well for you? What gives you the most trouble? Share what you’re doing … tell us about your experience with email marketing in the comments!

This week’s chat included 404 tweets from 56 different contributors.

If there’s one apartment company that’s been recognized for its success using social media to reach it residents and prospects in the community, it’s Urbane Apartments in Royal Oak, Michigan. The founder of Urbane, Eric Brown, is a regular participant here on the Apartment Chat, but this time, we aimed the spotlight on him to learn more about how they’ve done it and where they’re going next. It was quite a chaotic discussion with a LOT of great questions from the group. Here are some of the highlights:

Urbane runs a successful, active company blog. What’s the secret sauce, and how do you keep it going?

• Eric Brown (EB): Participation and support to and at the community at large.
• EB: We use our Digital Reach to promote local businesses, restaurants, bars, and any other places our Residents hang out.
• EB: Think about your Community of Interest, (followers, friends) and its size and correlation to your apartment community.
• EB: SM Marketing is Word of Mouth on steroids, and when it works, your friends rent the apts for you.
• Erica Campbell: So true! “91% say consumer reviews are the #1 aid to buying decisions” (JC Williams Group)
• EB: Provide content that folks want/need, or find interest in.

With the myriad of other duties the property has, how do you prioritize their blog participation?

(Submitted by Jon Harrington)

• EB: I think the time constraints of a Social Media Program is overrated.
• EB: Bottom line, we still need/must rent apartments, but we also carve out the req time for effective SM marketing.
• EB: One thing we cut out were “Tours”, We use a Go Solo Program, (lots of folks don’t agree with this angle) I love it.
• Mike Brewer: I think the really successful companies will resign themselves to the idea that it requires more than 9 to 5.
• Lisa Trosien: Have seen properties been able to cut their ‘out of office’ outreach marketing time by investing in SM.
• Gillian Luce: Social Media shouldn’t replace but rather act as a complement in your marketing mix.

You talk a lot about the benefits of partnership marketing? Can you explain this & provide an example?

• EB: We just partnered with Coke, and their Vitamin Water brand, Partner with like demographics to your brand.
• EB: The Big Red Machine (Coke) drops off product to use every week for Move In Packages, plus stocks a branded fridge in Urbane.
• EB: We partnered with Chevy on a project, and were included in thousands of targeted tweets and word of mouth chatter.
• Lisa Trosien: It would make sense to me for them to go with a major player, larger bldgs, more residents, etc.
• EB: You would be surprised what Big Brands will do if you just ask.
• EB: Remember, Local Brands can and are very effective to partner with, too.
• Leigh Curry: Eric’s ex-employer at Village Green has done a very good job of co branding.

I’m sure you hear that you can do what you do because Urbane is small/niche. How can we scale it? Can it scale?

(Submitted by Doug Chasick)

• EB: We have LESS resources, not more, that is a myth.
• EB: If I had a large portfolio to work with, it would be intoxicating the things you could craft.
• EB: Large portfolios are still segmented by region, there are just more of them.
• EB: People, Training and Culture, but mostly Culture.
• EB: All regions should be operating under the same premise.

What are the top things you would recommend to a company that wants to use social media to reach their audience?

• EB: Start with a Community/Company blog, That is by far and away our biggest lever.
• EB: Next would be tossing out your own dumb rules that some desk jockey originated.

What do you think of outsourcing blogging and/or SM efforts?

(Submitted by Sara Graham)

• EB: I think in most cases you must outsource blogging and SM Marketing.
• EB: I also think when you outsource blogging and SM, the focus is lead generation.
• EB: All of our bloggers are profiled on the blog, and 98% of the comments are answered by the blog writer.

Check the transcript for more details on the Go Solo program and other topics discussed throughout this week’s chat. Thanks to Eric for giving us some insight into his operation, and thanks to everyone else who participated.

What tips can you share from your own experience about successfully building buzz and incorporating social media into your efforts? Who else should we interview for a future #AptChat?

More Resources:

• Full chat transcript from WTHashtag
• The Urbane Life blog
• Eric Brown’s blog at TheUrbaneWay.com

Location is hot lately. Especially when it comes to location-based social networking sites like Foursquare, Gowalla and Brightkite. (Here’s a comparison between two of the more popular services, Foursquare and Gowalla.) A few #AptChat-ters have started testing marketing ideas using these services, and a number of others had expressed interest in the topic, so we wanted to ‘check in’ on the category and see what apartment pros are doing. Shall we?

What the heck IS Foursquare anyway?

• Resite Online: Social networking site that is location based
• Joe Foster: FourSquare is a way of telling your friends what you’re up to.
• Heather Blume: If used properly, can not only up traffic generation but also give you a list of outreach marketing partners. = AWESOMENESS.
• Heather Blume: It’s user driven. Your business might already be on there. Have you checked?
• Meredith Mobley: Foursquare also lets people know where you are.
• Eric Brown: Foursquare also increases your Brand Awareness on Twitter.

How do you add your property? What if it’s already on there and it’s been added wrong?

• David Kotowski: It’s really easy to add businesses. More tricky to edit unless you’re a Superuser, but they’re usually on it.
• Eric Brown: We have entered all of our communities into Foursquare data base for correct addressing and information.
• David Kotowski: While we’re talking about adding businesses, you can also claim yours by clicking the “Are you the manager of this business?” link.
• Mike Whaling: Start here if your business isn’t yet listed on Foursquare: http://foursquare.com/add_venue.
• David Kotowski: Claiming your business is free. There is a verification process than can sometimes take time. Once done you can add specials.
• Elysa Rice: Once you’be been active enough on 4sq you can edit venues from the website.
• David Kotowski: You can claim apartment communities and add specials. Some can be for the “mayor.” Some can be for x # of check-ins.
• Elysa Rice: if you’re wanting to claim/add specials/etc save this link: http://foursquare.com/businesses/
• David Kotowski: Technically you can add ANY place in the world. However, I recommend to just add community. Add your amenities as tips.

My property is on there and a resident added a negative tip. What do I do?

• Heather Blume: Respond like you would on any other ratings site. Don’t get pissy, don’t ask for it to be removed, etc.
• Christian Flickinger: Leave it. the truth is the truth. respond if you can, and fix their issue/THE ISSUE for future residents.
• David Kotowski: One of the cool things about Foursquare is you can “ignore” certain tips. Enough ignores and it gets removed.

Why should I be on Foursquare?

• Heather Blume: Rep monitoring, Gen Y engagement and Outreach marketing partnership generation – also, b/c its fun.
• David Kotowski: LOCATION! LOCATION! LOCATION! You can see where your residents are checking in. Those are great places for marketing.
• Jennifer Kennedy: Because its fun and you get to see tips from other people on local venues to discover what is around.
• Elysa Rice: I disagree that’s it’s Gen Y only. @Lee_Ellipse, our President is very active on 4sq.
• David Kotowski: Personally, I think you should be on #4sq because it’s fun. Professional, it’s good to be there b/c your customers are.
• Kim Cory: With students they love photos, but don’t have a clue what Foursquare is. No use 4 me.
• Tamela Coval: Take contextual cues from the swarms and check-in actions & know your consumer. Use location-based info for specific target markets.

Who is using Foursquare, and what results have you seen?

(Submitted by Eric Brown)

• Megan Orser: We are offering it to prospective residents a $5 gas card to earn the Mayor badge.
• David Kotowski: At one of my props I’m giving $50 off June’s rent to the Mayor. Being Mayor is a big deal.
• David Kotowski: Try encouraging prospects to check-in by offering $5 gas cards just for showing you that they did.
• Eric Brown: Local Business wants to, and will partner with you for Foursquare Events.
• Elysa Rice: I had a friend who organized a local biz badge crawl just for fun. No reason a community couldn’t do that.

How can you encourage residents/prospects/guests to check in at your community?

• Eric Brown: An iPad drawing.
• David Kotowski: I’ve started leaving postcards in apartments w/ completed svc requests. Has res referral info, #4sq logo, & FB info.
• Joe Foster: @stevelefko mentioned premiums for prospect check-ins ie “free cookie for foursquare checkins” as walk-in incentive.
• Elysa Rice: 4sq will send your business “the official foursquare window clings” per http://foursquare.com/businesses
• Elysa Rice: Tami mentioned at #optsum to put window sign that says “check in on 4sq to waive deposit today.”

Is there room enough for two localization networks, or is Gowalla destined for the dumpheap?

(Submitted by Brent Williams)

• David Kotowski: I think there’s room for several. @loopt and @brightkite are still around. @foursquare is king, though.
• Heather Blume: That one is going to depend on your region of the US, but still, i think 4S is king.
• Elysa Rice: I don’t think it’s about “room” it’s abt going where your ppl are. If they are on gowalla, whrrl, loopt, etc then u listen.
• Joe Foster: I think one platform is going to need to establish dominance for this entire culture to mainstream at all.

We want to send out a huge THANK YOU to this week’s guest moderator, David Kotowski of Pegasus Residential. David is a passionate Foursquare user, and he went above and beyond to provide us with some great information about getting your business started on the site. Thanks again for your help, David!

More resources:

• Full chat transcript from WTHashtag
• 21 Unique Location Examples from Foursquare, Gowalla, Whrrl, and MyTown (Shared by Meredith Mobley)
• Tech Innovations at SXSW (Shared by Joe Foster)
• HubSpot’s Foursquare Grader (Shared by Jonathan Saar)

Remember, there’s no #AptChat this week. Enjoy a long Memorial Day weekend, and get ready for a great chat on June 4th, when we’ll be joined by Eric Brown, who will share the social media secrets of Urbane Apartments!

As the Apartment Internet Marketing Conference concluded, we decided to try something a little different for #AptChat. I sat down with the event organizer, Steve Lefkovits, and picked his brain about the topics that generated the most discussion. (Notable subjects: lead attribution, local search, social media and the mobile web.) Here’s the full video of our conversation:

Full video interview with Steve Lefkovits.

More from the AIM Conference:

• Search the event hashtag: #AIMConf
• View slides from the various presentations (back to 2008!).
• Discuss the latest trends with professionals in the AIM group on LinkedIn.

What trends are having the greatest influence on your online marketing?

Last week, Tami Siewruk and her team pulled off a great new event called the Optimization Summit (#OptSum on Twitter). Billed as an opportunity not just to hear about social media and online marketing, but a chance to dig into the tools and do it yourself, the event provided an excellent opportunity for multifamily professionals to meet and network with some of the top minds in social media — including speakers like John Jantsch, Jason Falls, Christopher Penn, Geno Church, Duncan Alney and Mack Collier — and experts in the latest digital marketing trends for apartment companies like Erica Campbell, Mark Juleen, Eric Brown, Charity Hisle and Jennifer Nevitt Casey.

This was a very worthwhile event for the attendees, and we thought it would be valuable to recap the event on the latest edition of the Apartment Chat. Here are the highlights from that conversation:

What was your number one takeaway from #OptSum this week, and why?

• Toni Lawson Palmer: Applying Rockstar Thinking to Marketing. @mackcollier did a great job of showing how it all works together!
• Jamin Harkness: Number 1 takeaway — Be a part of the communities (Social Media Communities) that your prospects and residents are a part of.
• Zachary Kestenbaum: My number one takeaway is I should attend next time!
• Raina Toussaint: I have a list of favs. 1st to implement is Facebook pages and ads.
• Leigh Curry: My #1 takeaway was the number of avenues available — and it is only increasing.
• Jonathan Saar: My #1 takeaway — Create a movement not just a campaign (via @genochurch).
• Jamin Harkness: Find out where our prosp and resid are blogging /visiting online & join — if only to listen and learn and converse.
• Jonathan Saar: Start with realizing there is more to business than just leaseups — do something extraordinary and leases will happen.
• Mack Collier: How focused the attendees from the apartment industry were on wanting 2 know how SM wld work 4 THEIR biz
• Jon Harrington: Take a note from @bestbuy – have employees apply to become Social Media captains.
• Brian Owen: Find the people in your organization who are passionate already about SM and empower them.

We’re in the business of building offline communities. How can we build stronger online communities, too?

• Doug Chasick: Honest, open frequent communication WITH our customers, not AT our customers.
• Mike Whaling: The communication should reach beyond our customers, to other locals.
• Eric Brown: It is also about your “Community of Interest”, your larger “Community” your “Following”which far exceeds your resident base.
• Misty Browning: Become the comm/neighborhood expert. Know what is happening and share it.
• Jonathan Saar: Start by realizing the community exists outside of the sign at the entrance.
• David Kotowski: Be prepared to hear EVERYTHING, even the bad. Then try to continue the conversation instead of trying to stop it.
• Jonathan Saar: Remember how it feels when trying to talk to your credit card company and do the exact opposite.
• Eric Brown: Turn a portion of your Marketing Budget inward, Partnership Marketing.
• Misty Browning: Include follow/fan in all commun, signs, etc. i think res look, but don’t return. the right content will get them back.
• Eric Brown: Social Media Marketing is most successful when you “Let Go” Provide the platform & your Evangelists will supercharge your program.
• Dylan Schleppe: Everyone in an org should have the ability to engage. Who what etc… is context relative.
• Jon Harrington: If u want to build a comm. online, u need to provide residents & potential residents w/ value. Not sell.
• Doug Chasick: If we are building a community, don’t we have to reach out to ALL – even those not online?

How do you plan to determine success for your online communication efforts? Anything specific you’ll measure?

• Mike Whaling: Check out http://quantcast.com and http://www.socialwebsiteanalyzer.com/.
• David Kotowski: We’ve recently partnered with RentMineOnline.com. Not sure how well it works, but helps measure how often our info is shared.
• Dylan Schleppe: Revenue-net/effort cost. Has to measured long term.
• Jamin Harkness: To move Google Needle, make sure you have enough keywrds on frnt pge of website www.webconfs.com FREE analyzer.
• Rosa Green: I’m a PM and the residents who don’t ever call or come by are the ones interacting w/us on FB – can’t put a price on it.

What is one thinking you are doing differently this week because of something you learned at #OptSum?

• Raina Toussaint: I am on twitter, next week I will have my profile and photo done : )
• Jamin Harkness: Paying attention to what my customers are saying about me and my competitors online (at aptratings and other SM sites).
• Mike Whaling: Focus more on the tools that your audience is already using.

More Resources:

• Recaps and Links from #OptSum
• Full transcript from the March 26th #AptChat

Tami and her team are already planning to co-locate the next Optimization Summit with the Multifamily Brainstorming Sessions, which will be held in Dallas from September 15 to 17. Will we see you there?

If you attended the first #OptSum, what were your biggest takeaways? If not, what are your favorite ways to learn more about online marketing and social media trends?