Does Influencer Marketing Work for Multifamily?
But, are you surprised? Stay-at-home orders shifted our entire social life from meeting for happy hour to Instagram live and Zoom baby showers.
We all know it impacted customer behavior. Just think about how your own habits changed. Importantly, this shift also impacted how companies create content.
All of a sudden big-budget companies and ad agencies were unable to create highly-produced advertising content, forcing them to leverage multi-talented at-home content creators to create super bowl ads and product campaigns.
What was the result?
Consumers really liked it. We’ve been hearing for years that Millennials and Get Z look for a more authentic relationship with brands, and to peers for guidance when making buying decisions.
How influencer marketing works in multifamily
I can tell you first hand, influencer marketing works for multifamily. I know because I tried it, and it’s still paying dividends for the community.
A couple of years ago I was marketing a lease-up in Portland, Ore. I had this super cute lifestyle video about how great it was to live in SE Portland. While trying to get my video to rank on YouTube for the term SE Portland Apartments, this video titled Minimalist Studio Apartment Tour in Portland, OR was crushing me.
Out of curiosity, I started to look into this creator. She had 16k YouTube followers and hundreds of thousands of views on this simple tour of her little Portland studio apartment.
Nothing overly produced, anyone of us could have done it on our iPhone. She was engaging, so I explored more and found that she had 100k Instagram followers.
I reached out and we met for coffee.
Alivia Fields and I met and discussed how we could collaborate. She had worked with notable brands like Adobe and Kroger but had never been approached by anyone in real estate.
Because of her apartment tour video and other popular home decor content, she had countless DM’s asking her the name of her apartment building. I know what you are thinking - not in a creepy way, just people looking for an apartment in Portland and loving the space she was authentically showcasing.
We settled on a 9-month trade contract. She moved into an apartment at Meetinghouse - rent-free.
In turn, she delivered photos and videos each month and posted on her own channels.
In the first 90 days, we saw website views skyrocket from the UTM links we provided Alivia. While our average bounce rate was around 55%, visitors coming from our influencer links only bounced 24% of the time.
Sydney Webber has a passion for storytelling and human-first marketing strategies. She has been working in multifamily marketing for the past 5 years and has recently transitioned to a new role as Customer Marketing Manager at Knock CRM. If you are interested in learning more about Sydney's experience utilizing influencer marketing in multifamily, she will be speaking on the subject at AIM Reimagine this October.