5 Powerful Content Marketing Ideas for Apartments

As a marketer, you’ve definitely heard the words “content marketing strategy” and “content management” thrown around at least once or twice. The thing is, many marketers don’t believe in content marketing and many brands who try it often fail.

Content marketing for apartments can be rewarding, however, but it doesn’t come easy.

Because you probably have a pretty good idea of what content marketing is, you probably know this involves everything from a blog to a marketing video of your current residents.

For apartment communities, getting on board with content marketing can really pay off if you spend the time and resources. When it comes to getting more apartment rental leads through content marketing, you have to consider what is useful and unique to your audience.

Content Marketing Ideas for Apartments That Drive Occupancy

Below, we’ll dive into what exactly constitutes a powerful content marketing strategy for apartments, and how these ideas can drive occupancy.

1. Create a Community Blog
2. Focus on Resident Testimonials
3. Go Beyond Video
4. Monitor Your Google Listing
5. Share Your Content via Social

Create a Community Blog

Blogging still remains a pretty scarce strategy among apartment property managers. Whether it’s due to manpower or simply seeing the value behind it, many communities stray away.

But with the time, effort and right skill set (yes, that means hiring a digital marketing company or a skilled writer in-house), you can create powerful blog posts that drive inbound apartment leads to your website.

Blogging doesn’t have to be an everyday thing either. Create a content schedule where your in-office staff update a post once a week, or even once a month. Blog post ideas may include local events happening around the area, new businesses popping up in the neighborhood, recipes for upcoming holidays, and highlights from the recent resident event. The possibilities really are endless for a community blog and you can easily attract more prospective residents to your website with the right keywords and blog strategy.

Ultimately, the goal is to highlight your community and generate enough buzz for prospective residents to reach out and inquire more about living at your awesome community.

Focus on Resident Testimonials

While blogs may not be the most highly regarded for apartment websites, resident testimonials tend to be more of a staple. However, many marketers aren’t leveraging testimonials through the right channels.

Reviews on your website are one place to start, but testimonials coming straight from the source can be even more powerful.

Why not turn your testimonials into videos you can display in your lobby or website? Turns out, 54% of consumers want to see more video content.

In many cases on apartment websites, reviews are hidden deep within the site. Using video that shows off your current residents and what they think about their home can have a much stronger impact.

Consider OneDay for example. They help multifamily providers tell stories through video, including powerful testimonials.

What’s more, you can leverage reviews you get from various sources in marketing material, like print flyers and on social media.

What you don’t want to do is let your great resident feedback sit dormant. You can create some pretty powerful content just from the words of your amazing residents.

Go Beyond Video

Not having a video strategy in your content marketing can really hurt you - but what if you could go beyond video? Many apartments opt for video-walkthroughs or 360 video, but these are not to be confused with traditional virtual tours.

Apartment virtual tours have recently saturated the multifamily market as go-to content tools to bring in more leads. And it really does work - after all, virtual tours can lead to a 20% increase in lead volume.

Keep in mind that we’re seeing a shift in apartment renters. While millennials still make up a large portion of today’s renters, Gen Zers are well into the renting phase. While they love video and pretty much crave it, they’re also extremely independent and love to explore things on their own. That’s where virtual tours can make a pretty heavy impact on your content marketing efforts.

A virtual tour is a piece of content that lets prospects interact with your community, helping them along their apartment search and easing the stresses of scheduling a tour.

Not only can you leverage a virtual tour in your Google My Business listing, you can also embed a virtual tour that is branded to your community right on your homepage.

Monitor Your Google Listing

There is much you can do with your Google My Business listing from a content perspective.

First and foremost, you’ll want to make sure your community’s listing is optimized, accurate and complete with all the necessary information for users. Google listings are often the first thing apartment renters come across when they’re looking at a specific apartment, and it can be a huge turnoff if you have a dormant listing with no photos, unanswered reviews or inaccurate information.

Make sure your photos are up-to-date and high-quality. Not only does this increase the chances of your community ranking higher locally, it’s a much better look than poor quality, user-generated content.

Also, if your Street View is out-of-date (perhaps it was captured with a moving truck out front or there was construction), you can update that, too (yes - without having to wait for the Google car to make its rounds again). Ask our team more about how this is done.

Additionally, we recommend going beyond just optimizing your Google listing. Take advantage of the unique features, such as Google posts and Google My Business Insights.

Google posts are a recently added feature that allow you to share updates with your community and prospective residents, including upcoming events, recent blog posts and even, yes - video!

Google has really stepped up their game in recent years when it comes to business listings, and keeping yours alive and active is a valuable strategy for your content marketing efforts.

Share Your Content via Social

You can’t have content without a channel to share it. That’s where social comes in.

Everything we discussed above is relevant to social media. Whether it’s sharing a video testimonial, a virtual tour walk-through, some photos from an event, or a recently published article, an active social presence will reel in more interested renters.

Social media is also a powerful method to reach prospective renters. Forty-four percent of Gen Z check social media on an hourly basis, so it’s important to keep social top of mind when thinking about your content strategy.

Just as you would with a content calendar, keep a social calendar about ongoing events and things happening around your community. It may seem like a daunting task to keep up with social media (especially with such a busy staff and potential for turnover), but a social calendar will be your savior.

Build a Strategy That Works for You

Ultimately, every community is different. You may not have the manpower to maintain a blog or social media, but remember that some content can be a sort of a ‘set-it-and-forget-it’ method, like video or virtual tours.

Find content marketing tactics that not only attract more renters but save you time and resources. After all, content marketing is meant to make your life easier for lead generation, while also helping your audience with useful and powerful content.