CLASS Leasing: Facebook Phone?

Facebook is constantly evolving to keep up with the times of new developers and websites flooding the web with unique ideas and concepts. This is one such development that Facebook just recently implemented that actually allows you to verbally talk, or leave voice messages, to people via Facebook. Facebook chat was a great concept in itself in that you could see if a friend of yours was online at the same time as you, then simply click on their name to begin chatting. Now with the same concept in mind, if a friend in online at the same time, you simply click on their name and they can hear your message verbally as opposed to the basic typed message. It is advances like these to this powerhouse website that can only make you wonder...what will they think of next??

Enjoy!

CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: Break The Buying Cycle

Often times when prospects begin their apartment search, it becomes a monotonous routine of visiting apartment community after apartment community. On any given Saturday afternoon, a prospect could potentially visit five to ten apartment communities and then finally sit down at the end of the day to review their findings from each potential home. With so much information between all of the different flyers and handouts a prospect will accumulate over a day's time, it can be very tedious for a prospect to remember the unique benefits of each property.

Therefore, it is very advantageous for a leasing specialist to break the buying cycle after a prospect visits their community. A very simple and full proof way for the leasing specialist to accomplish this goal is to convince the prospect to go out to lunch/dinner after they tour the property and through a co-operative marketing plan with a local restaurant, this would be very easy to accomplish. The leasing specialist can guarantee traffic for the restaurant in exchange for some free lunch/dinner vouchers that can only be used up to an hour after the prospect visits the community. In doing so, the leasing specialist will not only be driving traffic to the restaurant, therefore providing the restaurant owner with more business, but will also be breaking the buying cycle of apartment shopping. This will give the prospect time to really discuss and ponder about the most important apartment community they saw, yours, and potentially make their decision right then, since they will be full from a great free meal thanks to visiting their new home, your property.

Enjoy!

CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: What Are QR Codes??

I felt that the title for this blog as "What Are QR Codes" was very fitting considering the circumstances under which I learned the answer to this very question.

I was in the Denver airport about a year ago and as I was walking through the terminal, I noticed a small gathering of people at the bottom of an escalator facing the underneath wall. Each individual had their phones out, which were all mostly Iphones, and had their phones pointed at the wall at three very large square barcode shaped objects. Above each of the three barcodes was the title to three well known novels: Moby Dick, Gulliver's Travels and A Tale Of Two Cities. Finally I asked one of the individuals what exactly they were doing and the response was where my answer to the question "What Are QR Codes??" came into fruition. These individuals were using an application on their smart phones that allowed them to scan the large barcode, or as I now knew was called a QR code, and in doing so, downloaded each of these novels to their phone for free.

QR codes, short for Quick Response codes, have been used for quite some time in Japan, but are just recently starting to make a surge in the US industry as a means for consumers to learn more about a business at the convenience of a touch of a button.

QR codes have started to infiltrate the apartment industry, but are still a new entity in the grand scheme of things. Where these codes could be very beneficial in the apartment industry is that they are yet again a new and unique way for a community to market to future residents. Instead of having a piece of marketing material with the lots of wording about a community, how about something as simple as the property's name, a QR code and a slogan at the bottom? A flyer like this would intrigue an individual, just as the billboard at the Denver airport did me, to take their phone out and scan the QR code, even if they weren't interested in an apartment!

These QR codes are just another example of how marketing is continuing to rapidly develop to more convenient and technologically savvy means. QR codes are an incredible technology, relatively inexpensive and I am excited to see how they revolutionize the marketing field for the apartment industry.

Enjoy!

CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: Google Insights Study

One of the topics I briefly cover in our online portion of training is the usage of Google Insights. Google Insights allows a user to see what the search trends are for a certain topic based upon location and time of the year. This is a very beneficial tool if one is trying to figure out the wording for a blog, link words, or just a headline for a website. By knowing how individuals search for any given topic, a user is able to gear their information towards the masses in hopes of accruing views from those searching for relevant information.

Here is an article about a study done by Michael Leander Company that shows just how Google Insights can inevitably increase the hits on your specified topic.

Enjoy!

CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: Foursquare And Your Community

Foursquare is one of the newest social media outlets for apartment communities to benefit from. It is still only about two years old, but Foursquare is continuing to spread at a rapid pace as more and more people are starting to utilize the discounts offered by this site. I had been searching for an article that described the direct benefits of Foursquare to an actual apartment community and stumbled upon this one in Multifamily Insiders this morning. This article is a great read and I strongly encourage everyone to implement Foursquare to your property in coordination with Facebook.

Enjoy!

CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: Your Craigslist Ads!

We always push everyone to post Craigslist ads on a regular basis, because it is such an effective marketing tool that can be done throughout the day and most of all, it is completely free!

It is very beneficial to utilize numerous templates and formats when designing ads in order to see what exactly prospects are responding to. By making different ads, one is able to gear more marketing time towards designing the ads that are grabbing individuals' attention and therefore, drive in more traffic.

With that being said he are some great examples of ads that leasing specialists have used that have shown success by either driving traffic in the door and in some cases, leading to leases!

Ken
Tina
Kimberly
Mike
Chris
Heather
Natalie
Caroline
Alicia
Seth
Crystal
Jessica
Bryan

Great job everyone and sorry if any of the links stop working, or if I missed anyone. There were some technical difficulties loading a few ads.

Enjoy!

CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: Building A Facebook Page

Building a Facebook page for a property from the ground up takes a great deal of time, patience and persistence in order for the page to become successful.

Sean has done a great job getting future prospects involved at his current assignment at 560 On Main and it is only a matter of time before the leases start rolling in. Facebook pages are a game of numbers, so the more individuals that "like" the page, the more people that will be able to see how great the property is.

560 On Main

Keep up the great work Sean!

Enjoy!

CLASS Leasing