What's Geofencing, and When Should You Use It?

Let's face it, building brand awareness is HARD.

There's a simple reason for this:

There are very few ways to get in front of an audience that you KNOW are renters, before they start their apartment search.

If used correctly, geofencing can bridge that gap.

Geofencing simply means serving ads to visitors based on their location.

Here’s what to know about the benefits of geofencing and how it can work for your communities.

Your Main Goal Should Be Brand Awareness, Period.

Remember:

Most prospects that see your ad are not actively searching for an apartment.

This makes geofencing more effective for brand awareness, based on the apartment marketing funnel.

For more information about the apartment marketing funnel, take a look at our post The Apartment Marketing Funnel, Simplified.

Investing in your brand can pay dividends when you’re being compared to other properties.

Prospects lease from brands they know, like, and trust. Geofencing can enhance that.

How to Stand-Out from Your Competition

Geofencing can help you tailor your messaging according to how you stack up against local communities.

Remember, your ad is only as good as your offer. Make sure you entice them with a reason to take action.

Imagine a potential renter walks into a neighborhood filled with apartment communities. Give them a reason to act with a CTA that sparks their interest.

What makes you unique? Do you have a competitive advantage that others don’t? Are you rated 5 stars on Google?

Find your unique selling proposition and use it to create an irresistible offer.

Tip💡: Make sure your message is worth taking action on. Offer a rent special or referral fee for a new resident to entice conversions.

Truth 💣: Geofencing needs to be highly targeted to your location and prospect to see results. Make sure you're keeping your virtual geofence in the right areas that make the most of your ads.

You know how your property stacks up to competitors better than anyone, make sure you emphasize your benefits in your creative!

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Personalize the Marketing Experience

Consumers love personalized marketing experiences and reward brands (or communities) that give them what they want.

But beyond grabbing attention over your rent special or grand opening, you want potential residents to land in your marketing funnel and turn into a lead.

99% of marketers agree personalization helps advance customer relationships.

You can personalize your ad based on events in the neighborhood to grab customers' attention. Here are a few ways to personalize ads based on location:

Tie your ad into a neighborhood festival that appeals to your demographic
Run an ad during Small Business Saturday when people are out shopping in the area
Launch an ad campaign when you know your competitor is offering a special or grand opening
Target a nearby employer, and emphasize the commute time to your community in the ad copy

Tip💡: Beyond the geofence, you should also personalize the overall buyer or resident experience. You should stay cohesive and consistent with your marketing from the first message to the signed lease.

Truth 💣: The biggest brands on the planet, including Amazon, are already offering personalized marketing experiences. Without that level of personalization, consumers want, you'll likely fade into the noise of your prospect's smartphone.

You know that your prospect visited a specific location. Ask yourself, how will you use this to create better marketing?

An example would be emphasizing the amenities you know your competitor doesn’t have.

If you’re not using this information, you risk your campaign falling flat.

Collect Better Data

Running great ads is just one part of a sound geofencing strategy. You should also curate your data to gather valuable insights about future campaigns.

Geofencing provides invaluable data, including:

Foot traffic near your community
The impact of your messaging
Which demographic is most likely to convert
Days of the week that drive the most traffic and results
The most popular events in the neighborhood that attract your demographic
Which ad messaging works the best

When you have robust geofencing data, you can also create high-converting follow-up ads for potential residents who previously visited an area.

Tip💡: Data also sheds light on seasonality trends in marketing and advertising. As you collect geofencing data, pull it again the following year to look for clues about which ads and messaging work best.

Truth 💣: When you ignore your geofencing data, you're missing out on an opportunity to refine and hyper-personalize the marketing experience.

Maximize Your Ad and Marketing Spend

One of the largest benefits of geofencing is flexibility.

Instead of spending money on anything that might work, you can use geofencing to only focus on what works.

There is a caveat. The audience size must be large enough in your geofenced location to see higher click-through rates and ROI.

Tip💡: Your geofence shouldn't be too broad, or you could break your budget. Remember, someone across town may not care about your community's ad when they want to live near their workplace. If you accidentally include a major street in your fence, you’re toast!

Truth 💣: Maximizing your ad spend does take some trial and error. You may pay more upfront to get the results and data you need to go lean with your marketing efforts.

Combine Geofencing with Your Other Marketing Efforts

Geofencing is a powerful way to attract potential residents to your community. But it's unlikely geofencing alone will provide the marketing results you want.

Instead, you should diversify your marketing strategy to include a range of options, including:

Keep data on each marketing campaign to see how each performs in different situations. You may find geofencing works best for live events while Google Map advertising works best for lead generation.

The goal is to create a power-packed marketing playbook that leverages each strategy.

Tip💡: Your marketing strategies should work in tandem with one another and stay consistent. It's better for the user journey and helps share data across your marketing channels.

Truth 💣: You'll never know how successful your multifamily marketing campaign could be without diversifying and taking an omnichannel approach.

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

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