Communities Mentioned in Podcast:

• District at Riverside Apartments in Chattanooga, TN

• 1322 District Lane Suite 102 Chattanooga, TN

• 423-556-4680

• Olmsted Savannah Apartments in Savannah, GA

• 601 Indian Street Savannah, GA 31401

• 912-331-4937

Hosts: Ronn Ruiz & Martin Canchola

Guest: Brooke Atsalis at The Management Group & Kyle Shipp at RPM Living

Martin:  All right, welcome to The Multifamily Podcast with Ronn and Martin. I am super excited about today’s episode because we have two heavy hitters in the apartment marketing space, joining us for this jam packed episode. We will be diving into how to market your new construction when building your community from the ground up with zero domain authority, and also converting covering best practices for SEO on your established communities as well. Then wrapping up, we’ll also be sharing our upcoming session that we will be doing together at AIM, the Apartment Innovation Marketing Conference in Huntington Beach, coming up in early May. Our presentation will be titled, From Zero to Apartment Marketing Hero, How to Supercharge Your Lease Up with SEO Brilliance. So joining us today is Brooke Atsalis, Director of Marketing and Leadership at the Management Group. And Kyle Shipp, Director of Digital Marketing at RPM Living. Welcome to The Multifamily Podcast, Brooke and Kyle. 

Brooke: Thank you. Thank you for having us. 

Kyle: Yeah, excited to be here.

Ronn: Yeah, I’m so happy you guys could both join us as well. I’m excited to go down the rabbit hole for what marketing, new construction, and as well as established communities can be.  Before we dive into the main topic, I would love for each of you guys, if you don’t mind sharing on the platform, first, how you got into the world of multifamily. Everybody has a crazy story, right? So I can’t wait to hear yours. Why don’t we start with Brooke first?  

Brooke: So I got into the multifamily industry right outta college. I had moved to Atlanta, Georgia, from Memphis, Tennessee. I have family in Ohio and Florida. And I kind of wanna be right in the middle. And obviously Atlanta has a lot of opportunities. Little did I know it was literally the hub for multifamily. So I met my sister’s sister in law and she was a CFO for Gables. So she kind of connected me with a job. I was very focused on marketing and she told me the best advice I ever heard was to start as a leasing agent and work my way up to really understand the multifamily world. So I did that in a few short years,  moved up to a marketing role at the corporate level with the management group and then so on and so forth. So that is kind of how I got here.

Martin: How about you, Kyle?  

Kyle: I feel like I took a very different path from Brooke. I fell into the multifamily industry. Really went through college and my early career and had no idea that multifamily was really an industry or how big of an industry it was. So I kind of fell into this where I was at a previous role and I was doing great at that job. I’ve gotten many promotions at that job and then I kind of hit my ceiling. I ironically came out of a performance review, an annual review, and they’re like, you hit your ceiling. Sat back at my desk, got a LinkedIn DM from a RPM living recruiter and three and a half years later, here I am. So, that is how I fell into the multi family industry.  

Ronn: That’s awesome. 

Martin: Yeah, that’s a good one. So, you know, we know marketing a community that’s under construction can have its own sets of challenges, as well as trying to, like, boost your domain authority for a brand new website. What would you say are some key hurdles you find yourselves having to overcome early on, to ensure a successful website launch and maintain a strong position in Google Maps? 

Brooke: Yeah, I think the biggest hurdle I always run into is just getting that authorization on Google My Business. You know, with new construction, a lot of times it’s a new address. So getting your Google My Business approved and live has just been the biggest hurdle for me. You know, I used to think it was super hard when it was the postcard and now they’ve made it even more complicated with how they go about doing it. So I think Google My Business getting established there, has been the biggest hurdle. I’ve seen in new construction and then obviously, just building that SEO, we know that it takes time and, you know, when you’re, when you have a lease up, you don’t have much time. So, you know, going through and learning some new key SEO stuff is really important, I think. 

Kyle: Yeah, I’m 100 percent of line with Brooke. The new verification for the Google My Business profile is, I don’t know who at Google decided that was a good idea, but it is not. Bring back the postcard.  

Brooke: Yes, please.

Kyle: That is the by far the biggest pain point for sure. By far and away, having to show you unlock a door, to be able to get verified on Google My Business for a new development is extremely hard and creates a bunch of hurdles. I think once you’re able to get that verification though, I think, the next hurdle is the best reviews coming in first. And, you know, a lot of times you, a lot of things can go wrong in new development and new construction and people cannot like the construction noise. So really those first couple reviews and having them be positive will be such a big impact to the property’s page.

Martin: It might not even be residents, right? They’re just… 

Kyle: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it might just be some neighbor that says, I don’t like that tree there.  Very common. 

Ronn: That’s funny. So bring back the postcard, said no one ever like years ago, right? But yeah,  

Kyle: I can’t tell you how many times I like we will send over the verification steps to a community manager or to another person. They’ll do it And then Google says no. And I can’t tell you how many times me or my team have just gone out to a property and just called our Google rep and be like, verify this right now. Like, I’m here. Here’s a video of me unlocking the door.

Ronn: Today. Right.  Yeah. There’s a monument sign behind me, see. It’s AI generated nowadays. Yeah.  Hey, that’s a good idea. Just throw it AI generated like picture, you know, green screen.  

Kyle: I’m envisioning a new product for apartment SEO.

Ronn: It’s good. I got it. So obviously we’re speaking a lot about new construction, really excited about the difference between new construction, obviously, existing properties, but how important for you guys is brand identity in the pre leasing phase for new construction, obviously, right? We’re shaking our heads. And also the second question would be like, what steps do you take to build and promote that identity when you have dirt?

Brooke: Yes, it’s super important. I’m a huge brand person. I love building our brands and definitely in the new construction, it is a little tough, but just from the very beginning, when you look at your branding, ensuring that everything is in a line, you know, making sure that your brand reads clearly from your Instagram page to your website to when they walk in your leasing trailer or visit you at a festival. So just building that brand identity to get people familiar with your brand. When they see it, they know it’s you. I know I’m a big fan of having like a lot of graphics and not really saying this. You can tell this is an apartment community. I want it to be really authentic, unique, and really to be recognizable just from a small graphic. So really, really lean into the brand identity and just sure across the entire pre leasing phase that even if they see us at a festival a year before they’re even looking to move, when they start the process of looking for a new apartment community, they recognize us immediately. And we already kind of have that authority with them.  

Kyle: Yeah, that’s so crucial keeping that brand consistency all throughout every single touch point in marketing art. But it’s so important because I think a lot of times people hear the word brand awareness and they go, hey, that’s too high of a funnel for me. And it’s like, no, like that is the start of everyone’s journey. And that’s how you build your audience and your community and how you build loyalty. Is through brand awareness and it all starts there. So it’s so important to do it. I really think like starting with who you are wanting to live with this community, the persona, the lifestyle that the community sells and kind of working back from there is really important because how you run your brand awareness and how you do brand identity and brand pull through. Is all rooted in the lifestyle that’s available in this community and moving is a big life decision, right? Like we’re talking the next 12 months, the next year, you’re going to live at this property. So you want to make sure that it’s the lifestyle. It’s got everything you want and see amenities. You want to be able to host at it and you want to be proud of it and building that audience and that loyalty starts at the top of the funnel, unfortunately, and people don’t like hearing that all the time. 

Martin: So speaking about community, what methods do you use to engage the local community and create buzz around a new construction site before it officially opens?  

Ronn: Good question. 

Brooke: Yes, absolutely. It is so important to make sure that you let the local community know that you are coming. We are really, really big on connecting with the city from the very beginning when we enter a new market, looking at what kind of sponsorship opportunities we really love supporting, showing that we’re here not as just a brand new shiny community, but we’re here to support all the local businesses and the impact that we can bring by bringing tons of residents there. So definitely attending events, also getting in to those local markets and working with local businesses, partnering with them, setting up, you know, some discounts for our future residents and then looking at, you know, our ideal demographic and looking at where they’re working, connecting with some of those HR departments, getting them marketing baskets and goodies and letting them know that we’re coming. So definitely a lot of that and then you know we know the digital presence is super important now, to making sure that you know we’re doing all the SEO to ensure that we are reaching the local area, and then some geo fencing. I’m a huge on social media so we are starting. The social media pages way before we even have a website, to just kind of get our local brand out there and get, you know, kind of promote who we are and what we’re going to be like.

Martin: Is it safe to say one of your favorite platforms are Instagram? 

Brooke: Yes. Yes.

Martin: Kyle, how about you?  

Kyle: Yeah. I forget that this is audio, cause I’m just nodding along as Brooke is dropping.

Martin: They can feel the energy.

Ronn: I love it. 

Kyle: But yeah, I think everything that Brooke said, I think  when you’re talking about engaging the local community, it’s really rooted in that persona of, you know, who wants to live in your community and what lifestyle are you trying to do? I know one of our personas that we use is laptops and lattes. So it’s really engaging with the local communities and the coffee shops nearby. And Everything that goes from a coffee shop to a farmer’s market is within that persona. So really outreaching there and creating the buzz at those type of events. 

Ronn: That’s so awesome. Well, speaking of creating the buzz, what kind of, like do you guys bribe your people? Just kidding. So like, when it comes to like pre leasing, right? What kind of incentives or unique selling propositions do you guys have to offer? And I obviously know that it’s market by market and economic factors are involved, right? So what incentives are going on right now, or what do you guys like to do?  

Brooke: We don’t have a lot of incentives. We’re very, I guess, lucky and unlucky in a sense when it comes to pre leasing. We, our developer that we work alongside with, they like to deliver building by building. We’re not delivering the entire package up front. You know, we don’t always have a fitness center ready, a dog park, which is super crucial to us, a pool. So we kind of have a lot of challenges when we’re trying to prelease a construction site. You know, we sometimes have people move into a building that literally is finished, but the rest of the site is under construction. So what we do, is we kind of come in a little bit under the market to capture those people that are going through those lease renewals, you know, getting those really higher rates because they might be coming to stabilization and they’re able to,  you know, get those higher rates. So just coming in a little bit under the market, because you don’t have the full community available, it’s really attractive to people. Especially right now, a lot of people just want the lowest rate they can get. They’re not really, you know, concerned about all of the amenities because they know they’re eventually going to come, but ultimately they just want to lock in that lower rate.  

Kyle: Yeah, it’s all price product and promotion, right? So I think it’s a good strategy. I think from our side, from not only the pricing is super important, right? That’s a third of the picture, but promotions, we’ve done a couple of fun ones. I think the most fun that we’ve had on a promotion is, we have a couple of communities that have restaurants on site and they offer like a VIP, free delivery to your room, like room service type of thing, or free drinks at the pool bar or any of those types of stuff, through that pre leasing early signup phase. Those have been the most fun, kind of unique selling points for those properties that we’ve had over the last couple of years.

Ronn: The price is huge. 

Kyle: So yeah, price, right. It’s going to be hard to get people in. 

Ronn: Yeah, for sure. 

Brooke: I can tell we’re definitely in two completely different markets. Restaurants, we’re out in the burbs. You don’t have those kinds of amenities. 

Kyle: Hey, the suburbs is where it’s at, right?

Brooke: I know.

Kyle: You do have like a few fun ones sprinkled through. I will say that.  

Martin: That’s awesome. So moving on to apartment marketing for established communities, how important is maintaining an active digital presence for an established community, which platforms do you prioritize and why? 

Brooke: I would definitely say it’s very important, probably the most important, you know, being in that digital presence, especially staying competitive with all the new lease ups that have probably a lot bigger budget than you. But I would say, Google is the number one thing for us to stay competitive with our PPC campaigns and then just working that SEO, obviously we might have a little bit of an advantage because we’ve been around longer. That SEO has worked for a little bit longer of a time, but definitely Google is one that we definitely prioritize because we know it’s King.  

Kyle: Google is King. Absolutely. But again, Brooke, you took all the good nuggets. I hope everyone’s…

Brooke: I’m so sorry.

Ronn: It’s great, let’s switch the order. 

Kyle: I know, I’m trying to think of like how I can like this keep adding on like the sprinkles to the already built Sunday that Brooke is putting down here. I would say it’s super important for when I’m looking at marketing for established communities is like, what’s the client’s goal? Is this a hold? Is this a, we want to get out quick and that kind of helps determine how we want to market the property. SEO is super important. I can’t emphasize that enough, right? But if the client is going to sell, but hold on to the name in three months.  It doesn’t really benefit them because, you know, they’re going to flip the name to somebody else and they’re going to rebrand it. It’s going to be a whole different thing. So it’s kind of just wasted effort at that point, right? So I always like to start with what are the client’s goals? What are they trying to achieve? What, you know, everyone has different exit plans at every property, but I think it’s important to kind of understand what they would like an ideal situation. Obviously, economics and different things play in and exit strategies change on a on a quick win. But I think kind of starting from there and PPC, SCM is always a great  place to get the quick traffic. But I think when people are really looking to make a decision, and they know the neighborhood that they want to live in, that local SEO presence is so strong because people are searching in very small neighborhoods. They know exactly where they want to live. And then also reviews are so important because word of mouth is so important. I can’t tell you how many times my wife will be looking on something on Amazon and she’ll say, no, not that one. I just read a review from four months ago where someone said a bad thing about it. We’re going to get this one instead, and you know that that same interaction is happening on the apartment side. When people are looking at a bigger life decision, people are looking at the reviews and seeing, oh, you know, this one has a trash problem. This one has a great pool. This one has pet friendly. This one doesn’t, like all that kind of stuff is in the reviews and it’s all from human to human. And so that local presence and then also the reviews are so, so important. So if you don’t have a reputation management strategy, you should absolutely be getting on that.  

Ronn: Dude, we need to hire you. 

Kyle: I take the whole sales pitch. 

Ronn: This is like your permanent CEO sales pitch, but it  wasn’t planned. Thank you, Kyle. I’ll pay you. 

Kyle: You’re welcome. What happens when strategic minds come together? 

Ronn: We’re in the world together, right? And yeah, I mean, I came from your side of the world, so I totally get it as well. And I am an investor in properties, so I thank you for making sure that, you know, we get those properties marketed and to market rate. But with that said, how do you, speaking of established communities, how do you stay competitive in the market? I mean, even maybe, I think some of yours may be, you maybe your own competitor, right? So how do you, what unique selling points do you emphasize or what kind of things, what kind of tricks do you have in your hat? 

Brooke: I mean, I think our biggest thing is our customer service. You know, when we’re doing call arounds and shopping our comps, the number one thing that we see is, you know, a lot of automated services, you know, no one picking up that phone, not that human touch.

So I really like to focus my leasing agents on bringing that human touch back. Because over the past four years, we’ve gotten very, very away from that and looking to, you know, a lot of the call, the call centers and things like that. So really, really leaning in, when we’re doing leasing rallies, training them up on the customer service. Also with us, we have done a unique thing at our markets where we are super, super pet friendly. We have no breed restrictions, no weight limits, no pet rent. So that’s something that’s really, really helped us. And then also, just having those established communities that have been around. We are in really desired school districts, desired areas, some of them are older communities. So a lot of the newer developments, they have, you know, smaller floor plans, our floor plans are massive. So there’s just some things that you can’t get in a lease up. So one of our properties here in Georgia, in Lawrenceville, there’s a brand new lease up right across the street. I was sweating when it came there, because this is an older, older community, you know, was built. Like 90s, and we are getting higher rents than them. We are more, our occupancy is higher, at least percentage, all of that. So, and we do a lot, a lot of resident events. So we really lean into our residents, our experience, our services, we deliver packages, we water plants, we’ll walk your dog. So just really, really going above and beyond, that customer service. When, you know, we’re in a digital world where there’s a lot of, not a lot of human touch anymore, and people seem to really, really enjoy that. 

Kyle: Yeah, people like doing business with people, right? 

Brooke: Yeah.

Kyle: So I love that that’s kind of your strategy. And I think it’s probably from a renewal stance too. 

Brooke: Yes.

Kyle: If customer service continues all the way through, the lease term, not just, you know, you know, wow. Wow and I went dazzled them at the front and then kind of forget it, oh, your dishwasher is broke. Sorry to hear that. We’ll get to you in five months. Right. Bye. If you have that customer service mindset all the way through the lease term, your renewal rates have to be just sky high. So that is incredible outlook that you have there. 

Ronn: That’d be a good case study. Yeah, for retention. 

Brooke: Especially since we’ve done the pet, I mean, our retention has gone up. Yeah, I think standard about 50 in our market and we’ve got it up to 80 almost now with our renewables. So it’s really brought that renewal percentage up because there’s just not a place that accepts a lot of animals around here.

Kyle: RPM  has a really cool policy as well. Before we rebranded RPM Living, we are Roscoe Property Management and Roscoe is the name of our CEO’s dog. And there’s a big photo of Roscoe in Jason Berkowitz’s office. So if you ever have the pleasure to be in Austin and go to the RPM living office, there’s a nice big photo of Roscoe.

Ronn: Literally the mascot, right? 

Kyle: No It’s our spirit animal. 

Brooke: I love that.

Kyle: Yeah. I think the pet friendliness is such a huge selling point. I think when it comes to, competitive digital marketing in small regions. I’m in Phoenix, Arizona. I can think of two properties that are in Scottsdale that I could pick up a rock and throw and hit from one. So when it comes to that, it’s just all about understanding your audience. I talked about personas at the beginning. A lot of times you’re building a new development with a persona in mind. Those personas will shift on that property over time. So don’t get stuck on thinking that, oh, it’s the laptops and lattes only live here. Look at your analytics data, look at who’s coming, what are they like, what are the affinity audiences, and then tweak and adjust your ad copy to resonate with those people in the affinity audiences. If your affinity audience is all about the gym, it’s all about fine dining, it’s all about luxury shopping, my ad copy is going to speak to those people. How this is the top of the line luxury close to the restaurant, best fitness center possible in the area. All my copies focus to that, right? Because that’s who’s shopping here. And that’s my differentiator at that property and then the one across the street might be a little different, right? It might be more pet friendly, people with dogs, people who enjoyed biking and outdoor activities, right? And that messaging is different. It’s, oh, we’re close to hiking. We’re close to trails. We’re close to outdoor activities. Two different audiences, two different ad copies, two different messages, and that really just helps those brands kind of  differentiate themselves, even though I could throw a rock and hit it from one from one doorstep.

Martin: I definitely think you hit the nail on the head there. It’s about listening to your users when it comes to like the website experience, listening to your residents, and about making the community better for them, and it’s really important, constantly evolving, right? It’s never going to be the same year over year.

Kyle: Yeah, it’s not like a one-time thing like, oh, we surveyed them three years ago. It’s like, no, you got to keep at it.  

Martin: Wow, so much good stuff. Thank you so much for sharing your insights, overall about best practices for new construction, established communities. I’m sure our audience got tons of nuggets by just joining our conversation. But now on to the last segment of our podcast and it’s a great segment. It’s talking about our upcoming session at AIM in Huntington Beach. If you haven’t heard about it, you have to check out the, what is the official name? Apartment Innovation Marketing Conference. Am I saying that right? It’s coming up in early May, first week, what is it? First or second week?

Ronn: It starts May 5th technically. 

Martin: So if you haven’t checked it out or if you’re not registered, hopefully we can definitely see you next year. But, you know, I wanted, my team members today that I’m sharing the stage with, to kind of talk about the two case studies for the two communities that will be speaking about, while at the same time sharing key SEO principles that you need to know about post SGE world and that stands for search generative experience. With the rise of being in Google and Google itself, trying to come out with our own product and it’s already being released into the wild as we speak. So I’d love for you to speak to our audience about the communities you will be showcasing in our case studies, one being the new construction and one being an established community. Brooke, you want to go first? 

Brooke: Yeah, so mine is the shiny brand new under construction apartment community. It is called District at Riverside. It’s located in Chattanooga, Tennessee. And this one’s very interesting because normally I’m very on top of it with my construction timeline and normally being earlier than later because we all know construction is never ahead of schedule. This one happened to do, surprise me a little bit. We were supposed to be delivering units in November, and now we will be delivering in July. So I’ve had to do this fairly fast. So by doing this case study, we have come up with a lot of good stuff to fast track the SEO for this community and getting that authority on the page and ensuring That everything is set up so we can lease up in a very short period of time. So, really excited to share everything that we did for this case study. You’re definitely going to want to learn some of these SEO tools that we will be talking about.  

Kyle: Yeah, I’m so excited for our session. It’s going to be so good. I think the juxtaposition that we have between Brooke’s new lease up, new dev and the one that we just hit stabilization. So it’s kind of like what to expect coming into it. And then it’s more of a historical look back of all the lessons that we learned the hard way, what we tried that worked, what we tried that didn’t work. And I’m really, really looking forward to that conversation at AIM. My property is Olmstead Savannah and it’s a, it was a lease up in 2023. They are now fully leased up and stabilized. And you know, it’s a really unique brand. We have a couple of Olmstead properties that we’ve developed and really just establishing that brand in that market in a really fun neighborhood, was such a fun learning experience and I’m really excited to share all the little nuggets with y’all. So there’s a little teaser come to our session. 

Ronn: I love it. Yeah. I was like, don’t give away too much, but I’ll ask you one more question. If you guys don’t have a problem sharing one little key insight or learning experience, that you took away from each of your case studies. I’m sure our audience would appreciate a sneak peek and I definitely want to encourage everybody to go see the full experience at AIM, but let’s give them a little nugget. How about that? 

Brooke: Yes, I definitely learned a lot from this experience. One, two, it’s never early enough to start. And then, you know, I’ve always leaned to another company to handle all my SEO, all of my startup, and I’ve really learned that I definitely need to be a lot more hands on, and especially how it’s evolving, you know, just really make sure you’re keeping up to date with everything that’s new with Google. Every little thing that you can do. I just didn’t know there were that many things out there that really can enhance your SEO and enhance all that authority, to ensure that when your property comes online, you are prepared. 

Ronn: Absolutely.

Kyle: I love that. I think my one little insight or nugget is kind of the same as you broke. It’s like, trust, but verify, do your own due diligence. Yes, I think, you know, I love getting new photos added to the website. So if you’re an operator or if you’re a marketing associate or whatever, and you’re adding photos to the website, alt text, it’s important  to get that. Don’t keep it as the file name. So if you’re adding new photos to the website, add in the alt text. Tell me what’s in the image. You know, I think we’ve done a bunch of alt text edits and then all of a sudden we get a new photo, up on Olmstead Savannah and it’s a lovely, lovely photo, but it’s named like screenshot 74215. That’s not really descriptive of it, right? It’s a beautiful photo. Tell me what’s in it. Don’t skip over alt text.  

Martin: Boom.

Ronn: Yeah, that’s a great one. That’s a great nugget.  

Martin: So, Ronn, we’re pretty much wrapping it up now. Do you have any final thoughts? Same with Brooke and Kyle. Anything before we wrap it up? 

Ronn: Well, these are always fun, guys. Martin and I have had the podcast for a while. But I always love getting to chat with people that are in the trenches right now, like you guys, obviously, and in today’s market, I really look forward to seeing your session as well. Cause I know you stayed clear of too much info. So I’m really excited about that, but there’s no doubt that you guys are subject matter experts in your respective markets. And both companies are crazy growing, growing like crazy. So, really excited for you guys. And thanks again for jumping in. 

Martin: Good to go, Kyle.  

Brooke: Can’t wait to see everyone on AIM. Come to our session. 

Martin: We’re definitely going to be spending some time together, right? So we’ll make some time. We hope to see everyone who’s listening too. Hopefully some of you will be attending AIM and feel free to reach out to us and we’d love to connect. So thank you again to our guests, Brooke and Kyle. Please check out their company’s websites. That’s tmg-atl.com and also RPM living.com.  And also check out their new podcast, mic’d up RPM living. So that podcast is on Spotify. It’s on YouTube, So check it out and subscribe, you know, and I look forward to our session ,connecting with everyone in person. Make sure to subscribe to MultifamilyPodcast.com and also get your Free Marketing Analysis from ApartmentSEO.com. Until next time, bye everyone. Bye y’all. 

Kyle: Bye. 

Brooke: Bye.