It’s hard to believe just one year ago Apartments.com launched its Training Series Live! webinar series! Throughout the year, we trained over 2,000 multifamily professionals and were accompanied by 11 incredible guest speakers. With new attendees registering for each session, we often get asked for tips on our previous webinars. That’s why for this special anniversary edition, MaryAnn Maksinski, Director of Trade Marketing at Apartments.com, and I co-presented highlights from this year’s webinars!

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Social media and content marketing can boost your endeavors, but far too many people are not willing to play the long game and put in the time and effort to have social media success. How do you reap the rewards and allow social media to do the work?

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As today’s shopping process shifts toward online research and purchasing, it’s no surprise that ratings and reviews are becoming critical to your success. In fact, according to an Apartments.com survey, 80% of respondents indicated they used reviews as part of their search and 73% say reviews are extremely/very helpful!

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After a few roundtable discussions with our advertisers, we all became curious about the motivators and behaviors of today’s renter. We reached out to our advertising agency, Slack & Company, and research partners at Erickson Research to conduct a study that would help us get the answers! Participants in the study included adults who sent a lead through Apartments.com in the prior 30 to 90 days and who currently rent or have recently investigated renting an apartment. We received 859 responses between December 10, 2012 and January 13, 2013.

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In the leasing office, we’re often taught that getting leases signed is our #1 priority. But what happens after the lease is signed? Do we focus on customer service with our renters throughout the year as much as we did initially? If not, we could be sabotaging our chances of resident renewal! Apartments.com was joined by Jen Piccotti, Senior VP of Education and Consulting, and Lia Smith, VP of Education and Consulting, of SatisFacts to help us learn how we can better retain residents by shifting our priorities to focus on retention first and leasing second – 275 days a year!

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More and more we’re seeing consumers becoming accustomed to using ratings and reviews to aid in their decision-making process. According to Apartments.com research results, 80% of respondents stated they use property reviews as part of their apartment search process.

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In today’s segmented media world, it is sometimes difficult to know where the role of public relations fits in for your community, especially as it becomes more difficult to secure interest from traditional news outlets. As competition for publicity increases, there are still ways to cut through the noise with a meaningful and newsworthy story to promote your property!

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We’re all familiar with the typical shopping process: Go to the store to shop for a product, evaluate your options, make a purchase and experience your new item at home. In 2005, Procter & Gamble defined the in-store evaluation as the consumer’s First Moment of Truth (FMOT), with the Second Moment of Truth (SMOT) happening once the item purchased is brought home. But, what about the research that takes place before a consumer goes to the store?

We learned during the Importance of Online Video Training Series Live! webinar, hosted by Patrick Grandinetti,  Head of Real Estate at Google, that online research and reviews are changing the game and are becoming what Google calls the Zero Moment of Truth, or ZMOT. The ZMOT, which first came to our attention last summer, takes place before the First Moment of Truth. In his presentation, Patrick described how the ZMOT impacts the housing industry and what we as multifamily housing professionals can do to maintain and increase success through online video. Read More

By now, most of us have heard the term SEO. You might even know it stands for Search Engine Optimization. But, what exactly does that mean? If your response is along the lines of something about showing up in Google, you’re on the right track, but there is so much more! SEO helps your website be found, read and favored by search engines like Google, Yahoo! and Bing. Many of us shy away from SEO because it sounds confusing and hard to manage, but it’s not. With a few tips, you can take control of your SEO!

To prove our point, we asked Amado Candelario, SEO Manager of Apartments.com, to host the Apartments.com Training Series Live! webinar on search engine optimization. In this 30 minute session, Amado covered a lot of ground, explaining why SEO is crucial for small business web design, how to implement an SEO strategy and what to avoid. The recorded webinar is available for you to view here. A few of the highlights from the Q&A session are: Read More

Raising the rent is a necessary reality in the life of a property manager.  If you never raised rents, you’d be out of business before too long.  With retention as a primary goal for many property managers, tackling this topic with residents is a difficult and uncomfortable conversation for many to have.  However, we learned last week, during the Training Series Live! webinar, hosted by Sarah Greenough (@SGreenough), SVP and CMO of Princeton Properties, there are ways of having these conversations.  The key to communicating a rent increase is to deliver the news in a confident, positive manner while keeping the resident’s perspective in mind.

Here are five tips Sarah covered to prepare you when having the talk with your residents: Read More