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The National Apartment Association (NAA) recently hosted the 2017 Education Conference in Atlanta. Marketing Maneuvers: Data in the Driver’s Seat explores how data can inform marketing decision and maximize revenue.
Panelists included Candace Weaver, Director of Marketing, Bell Partners; Diana Norbury, Vice President, Multifamily Operations, Pillar Properties; and moderator Dharmendra Sawh, Industry Principal, Revenue Management and Business Intelligence Sales at Yardi. The trio reinforces the importance of operations, revenue management, and marketing working together to reach goals.
Below are three takeaways from the session:
- Understand the “Magic Mix”
Before you can gather data, four key components must be in place to generate web-based data sets:
SEO– search engine optimization is how your site is written to interact well with search engines. If you don’t have this solid foundation, you’ll have to work harder and spend more on SEM. Quality SEO contributes to higher organic rankings.
SEM– search engine marketing includes paid search features. It is second best to organic rankings.
“In one of our properties, there were an average 497 organic views but an average 690 views with paid search. Paid search will boost you but you can’t do SEM well without SEO,” explains Weaver.
SEM comes with unique benefits as well. In one Bell case study, only 23 percent of leads came from SEM yet those leads made up 43 percent of total conversions.
ORM -online reputation management entails how your brand is perceived online. This includes but is not limited to reviews and comments on your site and third party sites. Both Norbury and Weaver recommend having designated reputation management teams.
“Of the 2 percent of people that click ‘Reviews’ on our property website, they have a 46 percent chance of converting,” says Weaver.
SMO- social media optimization may overlap with ORM but it serves as a standalone field. SMO across multiple platforms is best fulfilled with a designated team that understands corporate values as well as the target audience for each property.
“Put your money in the first three in the hierarchy, then move funds to SMO,” suggests Weaver.
“Don’t do it unless you can do it right,” adds Norbury. “Be careful with it.”
With the magic mix in place, you may notice a boost in traffic. Aim for quality over quantity. If you’re getting ample site visits but you have a high bounce rate and few conversions, use analytics to adjust your approach.
For points two and three on how to use data to adjust your marketing plan, be sure to check out our follow up piece, Ways to Use Data to Maximize Revenue, Part 2.
