Good content communicates your message effectively, educates readers, and ultimately persuades consumers into doing business with you.
While the goals of storytelling through content marketing have remained the same over the years, the methods are ever-evolving. And it’s also getting better, because marketers are becoming smarter about how we strategize, create and publish content.
The multifamily landscape is changing, too. Home ownership is no longer a universal goal, so renters are looking for much more when it comes to apartments — they’re looking for an emotional connection.
As 2019 comes to an end, let’s take a look at what we can expect to see in 2020 when it comes to content marketing in multifamily.
Authenticity.
Prospective renters want a brand to be transparent and living its values. They want to see their apartment community as something more than a business that provides them with a place to live, they want to align with a brand that they can feel good about supporting. This drives trust and loyalty, which are necessary components of any consumer decision. And one of the most effective ways to communicate authenticity is through content.
Develop apartment blog and social media posts that shine a light on your community’s corporate social responsibility practices. Do you take ethical or environmental considerations into account when selecting vendors? Do you offer plug-in stations for electric cars? If you’re working on making your city a better place by doing things like organizing winter coat drives or collecting donations for local nonprofits, share it widely, and capture the power of user-generated content by encouraging your residents to help and share that content as well.
Voice search.
Saying your search terms directly into a smartphone rather than entering them into a search bar is projected to increase in a major way in 2020. In 2016, 20 percent of all mobile searches were done by voice, and within the next year, it’s expected to account for more than 50 percent of all searches. So, apartment communities need to bring their apartment marketing content to a place where voice search is effective.
Voice search depends on natural language, so long-tail keywords and full sentences are key. For example, “apartment Philadelphia two bedrooms pet friendly” will be replaced with “Where can I find a two-bedroom apartment that allows pets in Philadelphia?” Also, ensure that your apartment website content is optimized for local searches, given that the growth in voice search is projected to center around local search. Another idea is to drill down on having answers to conversational questions about your apartment community in the form of an FAQ.
Video content and visuals.
Teens and young adults prefer Instagram, YouTube and Snapchat, while the rest of the population tends to use YouTube the most, followed by Facebook, according to Pew Research. This means visuals are going to be more important and more interesting in 2020.
Luckily, apartment communities are visual in nature, so there’s plenty to work with when it comes to apartment content marketing. Even before visiting your community, prospects want to experience what it’s like to live there through 360-degree tours. In the coming year, though, more of a focus will be placed on visual storytelling as well as virtual reality and augmented reality. Prospects will be able to see for themselves how high the ceilings are, for example, or how the layout of the living space feels.
Classic storytelling.
Telling compelling stories will never be out of style, and that remains true for content, too. Brand storytelling can be valuable and important if there’s a narrative to share that would resonate with people, but a more interesting angle could revolve around the resident as the protagonist and how the apartment community helped them.
This could play out in the form of resident profiles told via social media — picture someone fresh out of college who just landed their first job in a new city, or a couple with kids who needed to move to be closer to family and needs a place to live in a good school district. Your apartment community is the hero of the story. This idea could also tie into website video content or blog posts profiling residents with interesting stories to tell about how they came to live in your community.
While we can only speculate on what will truly rule apartment content marketing in 2020, these areas are a good place to start. Are you ready?
Respage is ready. Contact Respage today to learn about our new content package!
