4 Tech Features to Level Up Your Multifamily Marketing

Live Streaming, Chatbots, and Drones … Oh My!

The multifamily market has been a mixed bag, especially given the COVID-19 pandemic and its economic impact. These fluctuations mean that multifamily marketing is imperative for companies to edge out competitors.

Consider the following multifamily marketing trends as they should show positive returns for your company.

1. Let live streaming take center stage.

It’s a game-changing year for multifamily marketing, especially regarding how to reach prospective buyers in your area. Until now, the marketing landscape has remained more or less the same, with social media claiming the throne in every corner of influence. However, we are now seeing increasingly fast-paced developments in the form of new and updated features such as live streaming and instant messaging.

The way it functions within Facebook has made live streaming a growing trend, besides the capability to engage in real-time with clients. Facebook allows you to prioritize updates from friends and family rather than pages you like or follow.

What does this mean for multifamily marketing? Put simply, it means that content will have to be creative and engaging to gain more activity online. The update ranks content that receives the most activity and shares it closer to the top of the feed. A multifamily marketing team with experience in social media content will optimize results. And since live video is currently the most preferred type of content among Facebook users, it is an area in which marketers will naturally place additional creative efforts.

Social media features contain many great multifamily marketing opportunities, including the capability to broadcast a live house tour or announce real-time property events for clients or prospects. And the live features allow for specific market targeting across multiple platforms, such as Instagram and Snapchat.

2. Understanding the continued rise of IM and chatbots.

Connectivity is another great advantage of social media. The simple ease of using direct messaging functions makes it easier to engage with your audience. However, property managers now face the conundrum of responding quickly and accurately to prospective buyers.

Cue marketing automation bots, also known as chatbots.

Today’s consumers want to engage with a company when and where it’s most convenient. This could mean losing possible leads for real estate if we cannot respond to needs instantly. Chatbots seem to have cracked the code, quite literally, on instant communication. According to Botpress, a chatbot is “any software that performs an automated task … the most intuitive definition is that a bot is a software that can have a conversation with a human.”

In addition to being programmed to have realistic, human-like conversations with prospective clients, chatbots can also gather specific information relevant to the seller or the marketer.

In the context of multifamily, a chatbot can mean providing 24/7, instant responses that do not require an individual behind a screen scrambling to answer a question. Chatbots also provide a smoother user experience for the buyer, and user experience is always critical.

Social media features such as live streaming and instant messaging are powerful tools that benefit both sellers and buyers. Multifamily marketing trends are growing rapidly, and their influences within the industry are rising.

3. Let drones offer a bird’s eye view.

Drones are a defining piece of technology for multifamily and commercial real estate. Several years ago, hiring a professional photographer for aerial shots of a property was conventional. With drones, on the other hand, you can capture stunning images and breathtaking videos of your property with camera-equipped drones, all while cutting back on costs.

Drones can depict a great layout of the entire property, especially when recording video. For larger areas, drones’ unique benefit is navigation beyond the property and into the surrounding area. They can capture incredible bodies of water, beautiful landscapes, and nearby neighborhoods. This particular feature can be optimized if paired creatively with live streaming.

Drones also allow high-rise apartment complexes to capture images of the entire building and attractive neighboring hotspots. Drones are one trend guaranteed to set your multifamily marketing apart from competitors and will surely spread within the industry.

4. Take advantage of virtual and augmented reality.

Though we have seen impressive and usable trends for multifamily marketing, virtual and augmented reality takes the prize.

Virtual reality opens new doors for prospective clients by providing a behind-the-scenes look or digital tour of a property. As the real estate industry rapidly moves forward, embracing new technologies, virtual has already made it into many multifamily marketing plans. Companies now design 3D models through the power of virtual reality. Prospects can walk a unit and experience property amenities firsthand without being onsite. This trend took a significant leap at the pandemic’s start, when many properties had to shift to a virtual-only touring model. Today, virtual tours are offered at many properties in addition to in-person tours, offering prospects even more opportunities to sign a lease from the comfort of their couch.

Marketers and realtors are also using augmented reality to bring blueprints to life. With the aid of smartphone and tablet cameras, AR technology can render a 3D image of a building from a blueprint or a completely interactive layout. This tool will prove useful in all stages of development by allowing clients to visualize the entire project.

Augmented and VR technologies, drones, and social media make the customer experience more convenient and engaging. With these trends in mind, your renters will be brought smoothly through the sales funnel and to that final decision.