How a new multifamily brand approach can elevate awareness
Give your marketing efforts fresh life in 2024 with a new multifamily brand approach.
A new year offers a great opportunity to shake off the cobwebs, blow off the dust and to shine a different light on your multifamily brand. (Can you tell we’re feeling a bit of cabin fever? The cold weather in Denver makes us want to run for the beach, but the next best thing is giving our clients’ brands some new life.)
Where to begin
If you have a gut feeling that your brand has gone a little stale, you’re likely right. So, how can you take it from day-old bread to mouth-watering sumptuousness?
Before you dive into a brand refresh, consider these questions:
- Are we reaching the right target audience(s)?
- Do we know what our ideal resident wants in a community and in a home?
- Have we surveyed our existing residents to gain valuable insight?
- Where do we have the most opportunity to improve and elevate the resident experience?
- Do we receive quality leads from our website, social media and resident referrals?
- How can we gather feedback from team members to improve our brand or resident experience?
If you haven’t surveyed residents recently, start there. Your existing, and exiting, residents provide one of the richest sources of information that can help you improve.
Once you have those answers, you can address the specifics of how to give your brand some oomph with:
Refreshed color
Remember a few years ago when gray-on-gray was the hot trend? If you jumped on that cold steel bandwagon, how’s it working out for you now? While gray tones can read sleek and modern, they can easily bring down the mood when overdone.
Let the 2024 color trends from this post offer some inspiration. Take this rainbow of options as a sure sign that gray has seen its day and people want more personality in the color schemes they experience every day. Even the names of these colors – Galactic, Fondant, Radiant, Cyber – hint that people want something with some flavor or action happening.
A quick glance at our own portfolio shows the range of interesting colors multifamily communities can use to tell a story and to evoke a range of emotions in renters. Note how many of these client cards use light to create a sense of vibrancy as well.
New graphics and images
Next up, take a look at the images that make up your current brand story. Do they simply fill space, or do they meet an inherent need for the viewer?
What inherent needs, you ask? Well, a good graphic or image should tell a potential renter, at a glance, that your community offers one or more of the following:
- Safety and security
- Comfort and ease of living
- Access to the resources they need (transportation, location, on-site services, wifi, work space)
- Friendly and fun neighbors
- Lifestyle enhancements (green spaces, recreation, fitness, events, pet-friendly features)
- Frustration-free living
- A sense of luxury and pampering
As this article from a business development site notes, images carry a lot of weight with your customers:
“One of the key advantages of visual content in marketing is its ability to evoke emotions and create a strong connection with the target audience. For instance, a simple image or video can evoke happiness, nostalgia, or even empathy, enabling brands to forge a deeper bond with their customers.”
If your images read as gray as your old color scheme, it’s time to add some emotion and storytelling.
Inviting design
From your website to your lobby, you have multiple touch points where you can wow residents and potential renters with design. Effective interior design can make your lobby flow well and invite residents to stay awhile, and great graphic design can draw in and hold a potential renter’s attention.
This blogger discusses 10 elements of effective design, according to industrial designer Dieter Rams. Designers have been following these principles for more than 50 years. They state that good design is:
- Innovative
- Easy to use
- Aesthetic
- Understandable
- Unobtrusive
- Honest
- Long-lasting
- Thorough
- Environmentally friendly
- Simple
Bottom line, great design requires that a lot of seemingly disparate elements work together seamlessly toward a common goal. In this case, that means great design connects with people who want to live in your multifamily community and not the one down the block.
Great design also requires the simplest, yet most elegant, approach. Easy enough, right?
Unique approaches
Beyond the elements of color and design, you need strong messaging that resonates with people in a few simple words.
Here’s an example of one image and message we created for our client, Bernstein Management:
Four words, a cute (and incredibly comfortable) cat, strong color and texture all work together to create a visual story with a simple message: Life is good here.
A lot of thought goes into something that seems so simple.
You also need marketing strategies that help your ideal audience find you, interact with you and – ultimately – sign the lease. Oh, and your job doesn’t end when you fill that apartment. You want residents to renew their leases next year, so your branding, marketing and communication efforts should continue long after move-in.
Reaching people and then keeping people engaged requires targeted efforts, and creativity can go a long way. Maybe you find new leads by cross-marketing with other businesses in your community’s neighborhood, or maybe you retain residents by creating unique and memorable on-site experiences.
Standing out from the crowd from beginning to end will help take your brand to the next level.
A lot goes into creating a memorable and relatable brand, and that’s the work we absolutely love to do. If you are ready to refresh your multifamily brand, reach out for a complimentary discovery call today.
