The Apartment Marketing Funnel, Simplified

You've probably heard multiple definitions of a marketing funnel by now.

Awareness, consideration, conversion, AIDA, TOFU—BOFU—MOFU. (No, we're not talking about food here!)

Each industry has a different buying process, leading to many interpretations.

That doesn’t need to confuse you though!

Let’s break it down into three simple stages (top of the funnel, middle of the funnel, bottom of the funnel) and see how this applies to the resident journey.

Are you ready? Let's dive in!

The Multifamily Marketing Funnel Explained

The funnel helps you understand how residents move through the various stages of leasing. It starts before they begin their search (top of the funnel) and ends with a signed lease (woohoo 🥳)

It serves two main purposes:

- It helps you understand your renter (and their buying process).

- It shows you when and how to use the various apartment marketing tools available to you for maximum results.

Top of the Funnel: The Search Begins

Let’s break down the top of the funnel into two phases:

1) Hasn’t started searching

2) Recently started searching

Prospects who haven’t started searching could be happily renting, but later in the year switch jobs and find themselves wanting to be closer to work.

Additionally, prospects who just started searching could have recently expanded their family and realized they need more space than they thought (strollers can take up a lot of room).

These are two examples of how prospects enter the funnel, keep these in mind as we go through the various stages.

The top of the funnel is crucial and often overlooked in apartment marketing.

The US national average for search to move in date is 55 days. Source: Apartment List

Prospects want to rent from a community they know, like, and trust. Building awareness at the top of the funnel helps you move prospects through the stages more easily, and gives you an advantage over comps that haven’t done the groundwork.

“When done right, top of funnel marketing makes lead generation easy.”

Some marketing strategies to take advantage of at the top of the funnel are:

Tip💡: Think about where your ideal renter's attention is, online and offline. Do they shop at a specific supermarket? Do they visit certain websites? These should give you great ideas on how to get eyes on your community from a relevant audience in this phase.

Metrics that shouldn’t be overlooked in this phase are impressions, engagement, and shares. When you want to gain attention, these are important!

Truth 💣: Your goal in this stage isn’t to get leads, but rather to build awareness and become well-known for what you offer.

Middle of the Funnel: What Are My Options?

In the middle of the funnel, your prospect becomes more familiar with what the market has to offer, and which communities are realistic options for their budget.

In this phase, your prospect becomes a lead and may schedule a tour at your community.

They are now narrowing down their search based on factors like cost, location, and amenities.

Your job as a marketer is to answer their questions as best possible and provide a seamless renter experience.

Truth 💣: answering questions as quickly as possible includes answering the phone and responding to leads ASAP. Responding to a lead late could mean they’re already touring another community and moving forward in someone else's funnel (yikes 😬)

Social proof is incredibly important at this phase, in addition to a sound leasing process. Your prospect is likely considering multiple options since signing a lease is a BIG purchase that they don’t make often.

They want to know:

- How do other residents feel about living here?

- Will my problems get resolved in a timely manner (“in my last apartment, they didnt fix my AC for a week during peak Florida summer”)

- Will this community care about me as a resident?

- Do they align with my values?

Tip💡: Think about these questions - can you answer these in your marketing before they reach out to you?

The middle of the funnel is where you want to attract as many leads as possible. If you’ve done the groundwork in the previous stage, this will be easy for you since you are already well-known and have built a base layer of trust.

As a marketer, you’re now relying heavily on your on-site team to move leads through the rest of the funnel, but there is still a lot you can do to make this easier for them!

Examples of tactics to include in the middle of the funnel are:

Get those leads. Deliver a good experience. And show them those 5-star reviews weren’t a coincidence.

Bottom of the Funnel: My Dream Home

Your prospect is now very informed.

They’ve likely toured your community in addition to others, and are ready to submit an application to seal the deal.

Responsiveness is key here, they might need help understanding what documentation they need and what programs you offer.

This is your opportunity to show them you are adept at solving their problems - and that you are their best choice.

A big part of this is understanding what tech stack you use. The wrong tools can turn an application process that should be simple into a nightmare. (aren’t you happy we don’t do paper apps anymore? 🎉)

At the bottom of the funnel, it’s important to consider:

The software you use should enhance the human element, and make your application process a breeze.

Tip💡: Pretend you’re applying for an apartment at your own community. When finished, ask yourself, is there anything we can do to make this process better?

The most important things to consider here are how you can put your on-site team in the best position to close.

Bonus Content: Where Most Marketers Mess Up

There are two big mistakes you should avoid:

Don't use top of funnel strategies to fix bottom of funnel problems.

Don’t be this marketer.

An example of this is using social ads or geofencing to generate leads. The main goal of these strategies is to make your lead gen efforts more effective (like PPC).

Tip💡:Keep the funnel in mind when you’re adding new sources or strategies, and you won’t have to worry about this.

Also, keep in mind:

Most CRM's are ill-equipped to track the top of the funnel.

Think about word-of-mouth. Local events. Flyers. A social ad they never clicked on.

Most likely, your CRM can’t track these important touch points (or any impression for that matter).

Tip💡: Our favorite way to get funnel clarity is by adding a required field on every contact form and application that asks the prospect “How did you hear about us?”. Don’t make this a drop-down, and you’ll get great unbiased data on your top marketing sources.

Most CRMs only track from lead to lease, but the apartment marketing funnel is so much more than that. Keep this in mind next time your CRM tries to convince you that 10/12 of your leases were from “direct” website traffic.

What was your biggest takeaway from this article? Let us know in the comments!

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