[.opening-paragraph]Developing a distinct brand and effective marketing for real estate products can be uniquely challenging. After focusing seven years in this market—particularly the multifamily housing sector—I’ve learned a lot about its particular challenges and opportunities. Let's review a few best practices.[.opening-paragraph]

Know Your Audiences

One of the things that makes real estate marketing so challenging is that, unlike most small business owners, you likely have several distinct audiences to engage with. In most cases, that includes:

  • Current and Potential Residents
  • Current and Potential Employees (possibly both corporate and property-level)
  • Current and Potential Investors

Each of these groups is critical to your success, and they require quite different approaches. Most likely, you’ll need more than one brand entity and (in turn) more than one marketing and communication channel.[.tip-wrap][.tip-button][.tip-button][.tip-box][.tip-tri][.tip-tri][.tip-text]At very least, most firms have separate brands for the ownership company and for each property. But some larger firms in this space also create distinct entities for construction division, property management, and other services, whether those are distinct legal entities or not. There are as many ways of structuring it as there are property owners.[.tip-text][.tip-box][.tip-wrap]

Developing and managing one brand is a lot of work, but doing it for two or more can be overwhelming. Make sure you have a skilled marketing team on your side.

Note: the rest of this article is about just one of these audiences (potential residents) and one brand (the property itself). We’ll address the other audiences and entities in future posts, or you can contact us to talk about your specific needs.

Know Your Comps

Most property owners, as a matter of course, invest time gathering “market data” to compare their product offering and pricing with comps, but how familiar are you with their marketing?

  • Consider their messaging—what do they say, and how do they say it? (Not just word choice, but also style, tone of voice, etc.)
  • Look at their design choices—what colors, typography, images, and symbols do they use to represent their brand?
  • What social media platforms are they utilizing? And how much engagement are they getting?
  • Does their website include video, virtual tours, interactive site maps, etc?

[.highlight-yellow]The more you know about what your competitors are doing, the easier it is to distinguish your product from theirs. [.highlight-yellow]

The Challenges of Content

Typically, the development of a brand and marketing materials for a real estate product is done while the property is being built or renovated. This creates a challenge: [.highlight-yellow]how do you show off beautiful units, finishes, amenities, architecture, and landscaping that don’t exist yet?[.highlight-yellow] My clients often have questions about this stage:

  • Should we invest in temporary marketing materials that will be replaced after the property is finished and we can have professional photography and video produced?
  • Should we invest in architectural renderings to demonstrate what it will look like?
  • Can we fill the gap with stock photography and video, without looking exactly like every other apartment complex on the market?

To make the most of your marketing dollar, you need a trusted partner who can help you weigh the costs and benefits of various approaches.

Don’t Let Signage be an Afterthought

There are a lot of reasons for signs in a multifamily property—identification, wayfinding, life safety—and each is an opportunity to express the property’s brand, enhance its beauty, and improve its livability.

Getting the best bang for your buck out of building signage can be tricky, though. It requires a deep understanding architecture, structural engineering, lighting design, and web of regulations spanning from local building codes to the Americans with Disabilities Act. Plus, design of even the simplest sign requires a deep understanding of typography, color theory, visual hierarchy, etc.

Few traditional design firms have expertise in this complex medium, and few sign manufacturers have a deep understanding of branding and design. So, make sure the team you pull together has the experience and know-how to make the most of your property's signage.

Leverage your Maps

Site maps, floor plans, neighborhood maps... there are so many functional materials developed for an apartment community that help potential residents understand your product. And though every one of them is a gift-wrapped opportunity to engage your audience and express your brand, most property managers ignore them.

Don’t make that mistake. [.highlight-yellow]A well-drawn map or plan can be a key sales tool, and a beautiful visual element.[.highlight-yellow] It can highlight amenities and features, painting a picture of the living experience in a way that words—and even photos—cannot.

Make an Impact with Large Format Graphics

There are many opportunities to incorporate high-quality environmental graphics[.tip-wrap][.tip-button][.tip-button][.tip-box][.tip-tri][.tip-tri][.tip-text]“Environmental graphics” is the term used for design elements scaled up to the size of entire rooms—or even entire buildings. The category includes everything from sales displays to wall art and window graphics. It is an exciting medium that often blurs the lines between graphic design and interior design.[.tip-text][.tip-box][.tip-wrap] within a multifamily development. Window graphics can serve as street-level billboards and/or help provide privacy in amenity spaces. Large-format images inside a leasing center can help leasing agents make their pitch. And wall graphics can liven up a parking garage or elevator lobby.

But perhaps the most high-impact application for apartment communities is the exterior mural. Does your property have a blank wall facing a major highway? Is the leasing center entry too nondescript? Are the property’s main ID signs too hard to see, because of code restrictions or budget limitations?

In most jurisdictions, as long as the mural does not contain the property name or text that obvious serves as a marketing message, an image painted on a wall or a graphic covering a window is considered decoration, [.highlight-yellow]and is therefore not subject to local permitting or strict code restrictions that typically apply to signage and advertising.[.highlight-yellow] Plus, paint or adhesive vinyl is almost always cheaper than manufacturing and installing a sign.

This common “loophole” could provide a golden opportunity to draw attention to your property and express your brand without the restrictions that most municipalities apply to signage and advertising.

Encourage Collaboration

One of the things I love most about designing for this sector are the frequent opportunities to collaborate with brilliant creative professionals in other disciplines, like architects and interior designers. When a talented team is all working toward the same goal, it can come together like a jazz band—riffing off each other, making each other’s work better.

I’ve frequently been surprised and delighted to see what a good interior designer has done to transform and translate a logo I designed into an entire leasing center’s interior, and hearing an architect talk about their vision for the project almost always provides inspiration for our brand development initiative.

The best part about this kind of creative collaboration is that [.highlight-yellow]it doesn’t cost the client any more[.highlight-yellow] to put their vendors in a room together, and see what they can do!

Engage Your Team

Regardless of your particular role in the organization or its scale, you’re almost certainly NOT the only one responsible for turning your property’s branding and marketing from a plan to a reality.

To maximize your chances of success, invest the time to make sure the whole team—from marketing and asset managers at the corporate office to leasing agents and maintenance staff at the property level—understand the strategies, goals, and messages of your branding and marketing initiatives. [.highlight-yellow]Think of each team member as a key ambassador of your brand,[.highlight-yellow] and give them the tools they need to bring it to life as they engage with your audience.[.end-marker][.end-marker]

‍

‍