Archive for the 'Uncategorized' Category

If Maintenance Affects Retention, How do You Package It?

On my way to lunch today, my eyes gravitated towards a magnificent figure. This man was tanned, with glowing skin, sculpted biceps, rippling abs…. but, much to my dismay, also two dimensional and stuck to the side of a car.

Man Car

Oh, hey there, Handsome!

While Handsome and I won’t have a future together anytime soon, he did highlight a unique (and shirtless) ploy to promote Basic Home Maintenance. But honestly, who looks like that?

From personal experience I can confirm that average maintenance technicians almost never resemble tool belt models that just strolled off the runway and into my apartment. If they did, I would “accidentally” drop things down the drain at least three times a week. But that’s all beside the point. Let’s save misguided residents from potential heartache and devastation when Mr. Fixit looks a less like runway material and more like this:

Mr. Fixit

Hey, Goodlookin'. What’s crackin'?

Apartment maintenance teams deserve a round of applause for technical skills, customer service and responsiveness to work orders. So, if we know professional services can attract, retain, and renew apartment residents when presented to customers through a strategic marketing angle how are you promoting maintenance-free living? Beyond Wine & Cheese Marketing develops innovative, fun, and fully-clothed themes to help multifamily apartment communities highlight the best assets of their maintenance teams.

Typos Make Life More Creative, In Joy.

I admit it. I’m a girl that can’t read a restaurant menu without stumbling over typos.  My problem dates back to college when Journalism 101 instilled radar in my brain for misplaced letters. It’s not always a gift. More often than not I can be totally immersed in a new book when a typo jumps out at me and breaks the spell of a good storyline. Who was the copy editor and can he refund the $24.00 I just shelled out for the hardback copy?

Imagine what it must be like for people searching for a soul mate on Internet dating websites. I shudder to think of the thousands of typos, misspelled words and grammatical errors sprinkled throughout online personal profiles. There are certain times, like when looking for a spouse, that Spell Check is essential or the results can be a deal breaker.

Just Marryed

We can only hope it was the best man who decorated the car, and not the groom.

Internet profiles, Craigslist ads … there is a perception that words written online are less important because we move along quickly to the next thing. It’s okay to spell things incorrectly because it’s not permanent, right? “It’s only temporary,” you may say to yourself, forgetting that written words on the internet can live forever.

Then or Than, who cares?

One of my favorite forms of entertainment is to watch for typos in Facebook status posts. Within mere seconds your clever wit can be reduced to an embarrassing faux pas. It’s almost as if friends are poised, keyboards at the ready, to catch you in a moment of grammatical weakness so they can unleash their wrath.

There, Their and They're

There, Their and They're -- why do we need three ways to say the same thing?

Beyond Wine & Cheese Marketing can’t help you spell everything correctly in Facebook status updates, but our software features Spell Check to make sure multifamily brochures, newsletters, Craigslist ads and apartment marketing collateral are always typo free. Be careful out there.

Witness The World’s Most Bedazzled Toilet

This summer I’m embarking on a project to remodel my bathroom. Although functional, there is a 1970′s vibe that leaves me feeling less than proud to show off this space. I’m fairly certain the drab aesthetics contribute to my dread of climbing out of bed every morning to start the daily shower routine.

The bath project starts with one goal: Fit an antique claw-foot tub within the 8′ x 8′ square room. I want the unexpected “Wow!” when someone slides open the pocket door and finds a stunning white porcelain beauty. Let’s face it, there are only so many things you can do with a sink, toilet and tub. And, unless it’s gilded in gold, the proverbial throne is not a stunning architectural structure. Sure, I want to feel like a princess while soaking in my new tub but eventual resale value is the real motivation for bedazzling the bathroom. After all, what else is there in this room that can produce an enticing real-estate photo that sets your bathroom above the standard, luring prospects to make a purchase or sign a lease?

Swarovski Toilet

You put crystals where?

Have you noticed how many apartment bathrooms show up in brochures and get a featured spot in Craigslist online ads? At Beyond Wine & Cheese Marketing, we’ve never seen a photo of a bathroom that elicits a “Wow!” while flipping through housing for rent ads.  Actually, most apartment bathroom photos make us wonder why the standard oak cabinet and a colorful shower curtain are the best features you want to show a prospect. Yep, that’s a toilet. If it’s not bedazzled or gilded in gold is it your best foot forward in a photo gallery?

Show us your gilded toilet at No More Homemade Flyers.

Part 1: Apartment Marketing Girl vs. the Smartphone Unfriendly Apartment Community Website

You know those people who drive slowly through neighborhoods trying to peek in windows to see what the inside of a house looks like (no, not Peeping Toms).

Or the ones who tramp through new neighborhood construction to get a feel for the layout of a house that’s being built?

For some reason a piggyback ride through construction just doesn’t seem safe.  Hopefully they are not on the second floor…

Yeah, that was totally my family.  Maybe that’s what has influenced my strange need to look up websites for apartment buildings every time I see one that looks nice from the outside, despite the fact that I have no plans to move anytime soon.  Or maybe it’s just because I write this blog…

Either way, I recently came across a really nice looking apartment building in Seattle near some great retailers, and I immediately had to look it up.  Because I have a terrible memory, I usually forget the name of apartment buildings I want to look up by the time I get home, or just forget in general  that there was even a building I wanted to research, so this time I decided to just search for it on the spot (yay smartphones!).

Low and behold, the website for this particular apartment community wouldn’t load on my BlackBerry.  Strike one.

In today’s tech-savvy world, I can’t stress how important it is to make your website smartphone-friendly!   These days it really shocks me when a popular website, or website of a popular business, isn’t altered for smartphones.  Now, I realize that it isn’t as easy, or maybe isn’t financially feasible, for less-visited websites to make a special website for smartphones, but even if you can’t make a separate smartphone version of your website, at least take off some of the flash so it can load on a person’s phone!

For all you know, a loaded website could have resulted in a lease (hey – they didn’t know my current lease isn’t up yet).

Luckily (or maybe not), I was still interested in getting some information on this apartment community, so I went back to the search results and the next related link was for the building’s reviews on ApartmentRatings.com.  Dun dun dun!

Tune in next week to find out what happens in the adventures of Apartment Marketing Girl!

Is your website a villain to smartphones?  Shine the AMG signal and share with us at blog@beyondwineandcheese.com!

Round Peg, Square Hole

A few weeks ago I experienced a whole new level of “closeness” to my mother.

During a visit to celebrate my graduation, my mom and dad took me to IKEA to help pick up a shelf I wanted for my graduation present.  (Yeah, I wanted a shelf – deal with it.)

Going against my gut feeling, I agreed that we only take my parent’s rental car, instead of both that car and my own.  The back seat of the car folded down in separate sections so we could easily slide the boxes in and still leave a seat available for me in the back.

Well, here’s a lesson we should have learned from the HGTV star designers: measure twice…drive to IKEA once.  After purchasing the two boxes of parts needed to assemble my fab new shelf, we quickly realized that when stacking the boxes, they were too thick to slide through the space connecting the trunk and the back seat.  Soooo typical.

The solution?  Folding down the entire back seat, shoving the two boxes in side by side, and then shoving my mother and I in the front seat side by side.  Actually, it wasn’t so much side by side as partially stacked.  Within the first few minutes of our 40 minute ride back to my apartment my left butt cheek and upper thigh were already numb.  Needless to say, this is an experience I would like to avoid in the future.

Now, I know I’m not the only one who has had issues fitting a round peg into a square hole (though hopefully for others it doesn’t result in body parts going numb); and we all have to admit this is a very frustrating experience…ESPECIALLY when it involves moving furniture.

Wouldn’t it be great if houses and apartments all had extra-wide doors and hallways so your favorite oversized couch could be easily maneuvered through your new place, and you could avoid putting holes in the walls on day one.  Or…

…your beloved couch finds a new home in the parking lot.  Maybe this is why we see so many lonely couches sitting on the side of the road waiting for a new home.

So what’s the lesson we’ve learned today, kids?  Always have an interior designer from HGTV buy new furniture for every new home/apartment you have and let them worry about measuring and moving the furniture in.

Hey, it’s the American dream: hiring someone else to do your dirty work!

Is your furniture failing to fit in in your new apartment community?  Share with us at blog@beyondwineandcheese.com! 

Painfully Polite Notes on Apartment Marketing

I didn’t even notice the bright yellow post-it-note on my windshield until I had already climbed behind the wheel and settled into the driver’s seat. Maybe one of my friend’s recognized my car in the Target parking lot and left me a note, or better yet, an invitation to join them next door for happy hour. Upon further investigation though, I found myself victim to a Passive Aggressive Note Attack. “Who taught you to park?”, the note said. A quick glance down revealed my tires slightly crossed the solid white line that neatly divides each space. The euphoric high I was feeling from a shopping spree at my favorite store quickly sobered and my good mood deflated.

Get your act together. Exercise some consideration when you leave your large hunk of metal in a public place.

If you didn’t already know, there is a popular website devoted to  passive aggressive notes. Cruise around the site and you’ll find a great collection of funny stories and a small disclaimer that says notes posted here “share a common sense of frustration that’s been channeled into written form rather than a direct confrontation. It’s barbed criticism disguised as something else — helpful advice, a funny joke, simple forgetfulness.” Now, imagine what would happen if our current residents and potential prospects began to leave us notes about our apartment marketing. What would they say?

MARKETING CITATION

  • Now Leasing. “Seriously. Did you ever stop leasing?”
  • Materials that are copies of copies of copies. “Cough up a couple quarters and pay for a color print.”
  • Pictures of the community sign in advertising. “Is this sign really the best thing you’ve got going for your community?”
  • Photos of empty swimming pools. “Is there something floating in the water?”
  • Thanks for Popping In tag on a bag of microwave popcorn. “We can see that big, bulk-size box of popcorn every time we shop at Costco.”
  • Hop on Over. “Did you mean to send this cartoon drawing of a frog to me or my five-year-old kid?”
  • We Love Our Residents. “No you don’t.”
  • Multiple signs with flags. “C’mon kids, everybody out of the car. It’s a theme park!
  • Balloons. “What time does the clown arrive?”
  • Ignoring rants on ApartmentRatings.com. “If you close your eyes, they will go away.”
  • Fliers on pizza boxes. “The 90′s called and they want their idea back.”
  • If You Lived Here, You’d be Home by Now. “If I lived here, I would be dodging traffic in the median.”
  • Microsoft Publisher. “I’ve seen that flier somewhere … the church bulletin board. No, it was a PTA meeting. And, the corner deli. Wait a minute, I have seen that flier everywhere!
  • Otis Spunkmeyer cookies. “Otis is better than 6-degrees from Kevin Bacon. Everybody knows him.”

After a list like that it’s time to give a shout out to The Apartment Expert – Lisa Trosien for opening a similar conversation on her Facebook Fan Page. Have you received a passive aggressive note about your apartment community? If so, share it with us.

These Boots Were Made For Walkin’ (In A Different Neighborhood)

I have spent the last four years of my life walking.  Well, walking and riding the bus (public transportation baby!).  That’s what happens when you spend all your money (and your parent’s money) on tuition instead of buying a car.  So it was like a small miracle when I finally graduated, got a job, and was able to buy a car.  Now I drive everywhere: to the gym, to visit friends, to Safeway a block away from my apartment.  Maybe my carbon footprint has grown a size or two, but hey, I’m living the American dream.

But regardless of whether I have a car or not, walkability is still important – especially when you live in a big city.  When looking at apartments, renters want to know how easily they can get their errands done on foot.  Hence, the Walk Score was created.  Not sure what Walk Score is?  The website describes it as “the walkability of an address based on the distance from your house to nearby amenities…not how pretty the area is for walking.”  Well, I’m glad they cleared that one up for me…

So to increase the attractiveness of an apartment community to would-be renters, managers are starting to post the Walk Scores for their communities in Craigslist ads.  But do they really tell you the whole story?  Let’s find out…

First we have this beautiful studio apartment:

Nice!  I don’t even have anything sarcastic to say about this!  And the walk score?

Well, well, look who’s bragging.  I feel like we’re talking about a dog now instead of an apartment.  “Oh yes, my little Fifi here is VERY walkable.  I doubt your mutt Fido has her walking abilities.”  Snobs.  I bet Fifi is a poodle.  But I digress.  There must be a catch here somewhere…

The price?  No.  The size?  No, keep reading to the right.  The Central District?  Yeeeeeah.  That would be the one.  If you live in Seattle, you understand this might not be the area you WANT to be walking around in.  So when you leave your “Very Walkable” apartment to go to the grocery store or park, you might want to pack your brass knuckles, some mace, and a blow horn.  This just reinforces the point that the Walk Score doesn’t take into account how pretty the area is for walking…or how safe.  Before you sign a lease based on an apartment community’s Walk Score, walk the area for yourself!

This message had been brought to you by the voice of my mother that lives in my head.  I never feel safe walking anywhere alone; therefore, neither should you.

Is your apartment’s Walk Score leaving out a few important factors?  Let us know at blog@beyondwineandcheese.com!

IIIII CAAAAAN SPEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAK WHHHAAAAAAAAAALE!

Sometimes I find it hard to communicate with words on paper – or in today’s world, via text, email, Tweet, Facebook message, etc.  I tend to be very animated when I speak to people, so I feel constrained when I can’t control how my readers interpret the message I am trying to get across.  Usually my tone and facial expressions convey about 50% of what I’m trying to say (particularly when being sarcastic).  Luckily, there are certain things we can do to text, including CAPITALIZE, italicize, bold, and underline – all in addition to awesome punctuation!!!

But I have to say, my favorite word alterations come when I am whining.  For example, “I don’t wanna gooooooooooooooooooooooooo!”  Or, “Eeeeeeeeew!  That’s grooooossssssssssss!”  There’s also “Grrrrrrrrrrrrr this is stupid.”  The common factor?  Adding multiples of certain letters.  So simple, yet so effective.  (Also great for communicating with whales, as we all learned in Finding Nemo.)  The only downside?  Spell Check HATES it.

However, this particular rental company does not agree with Spell Check:

Appar they think abbrevs are pretty fab too.  What are the chances it was some whiny hipster who posted this?  Let’s explore.

Well, this doesn’t exactly scream hipster, but it does scream.  Don’t all caps and 5 exclamation marks make it feel like they’re yelling at you?  And of course that makes me believe the place actually is SUPER CUTE!!!!

Er… This is not exactly my description of cute.  But to each his own?  And the fresh paint, really?  That color?  Fingers crossed it looks better in person.  You know, to make up for the house’s “cuteness.”  Although I can pretty much guarantee a hipster would have no problem living here.  It definitely looks like the kind of place you would find cases of PBR and bags of clothes from Value Village.

How does your apartment community get its message across on Craigslist?  Let us know at blog@beyondwineandcheese.com!

Can We Trust Her? She Doesn’t Actually Listen to Jay-Z

When I think of partying, patriotism, and feeling awkward in LA, who comes to mind?  Why, Miley Cyrus of course!  She’s one of the most popular actresses and singers among pre-teens, and until her little performance on the Teen Choice Awards, mothers loved her as a role model for their daughters.  So as an apartment manager, who wouldn’t want to use Miley to rent out some units??

I mean, when you think about it, you’re really appealing to multiple demographics at once with this ad, including, but not limited, to 13 year olds, people who really love partying in the USA, and the graphic-design challenged (Miley’s lookin a little stretched out there, eh?). 

And clearly parents will be making their young daughters search for apartments, so I really think they hit the nail on the head with this ad.  Anywhere that’s good enough for Miley to party is good enough for me to live.

Is your apartment community getting the wrong celebrity endorsements?  Share with us at blog@beyondwineandcheese.com!

It’s Not All Rainbows and Butterflies

Plain Craigslist ads are boring. With a number of different companies providing colorful templates with which apartment companies can post their information, you’re behind in the game if you’re just using text and adding a few pictures. But just as I warned in a previous blog post, some of these “professional” companies might be leading you astray.

Now, I understand that there is a big push to market to Gen Y, which means finding youthful designs and figuring out what amenities will appeal to this demographic:

But wait…  Last time I checked, Gen Y didn’t include girls between the ages of 5 and 10.  And didn’t I see something somewhere about when it’s ok to use Comic Sans?

At least one company is getting Craigslist ads right…

Is your apartment marketing to the wrong demographic?  Share with us at blog@beyondwineandcheese.com!

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