7 Multifamily Marketers Share How They’re Driving Renter Conversions

Young woman sits on one side of the desk pointing a pen to a piece of paper she's showing to a young man on the other side of the desk while she works to improve renter conversions

With so many variables affecting marketing results, driving conversions can feel like a tough formula to crack. It’s why peer insights are so valuable — especially from professionals who’ve been down the same road and found better ways to accelerate conversions without adding to their team’s load.

With that in mind, we’ve asked a handful of multifamily marketers to share what’s driving the success of their marketing programs. Incidentally, they also had a thing or two to say about their experiences working with PERQ to automate and personalize digital experiences across channels using artificial intelligence.

Joining us are:

To be clear, much of our conversation comes from past Sofa Seminar discussions, linked at the bottom of this post. We’ve organized excerpts into three themes:

Meeting demand for instant access & answers

Kira: “Either a leasing agent or automated tool needs to get back to prospects really fast because if we don’t we’ll lose them. If someone else answers their questions right away and we respond 24-36 hours later, that prospect may very well have made their decision by then, even if they’re not planning to move in for a while.”

Liz: “Prospective renters want instant gratification. We’re seeing data that they’re interacting with our chatbot longer. They’re scheduling tours. They’re asking a lot of questions and those questions are being answered. In the last three months, our PERQ AI chatbot was able to answer 93% of prospect questions, which is very impressive.”

Stephanie: “I just brought up a lead — this person at 10 p.m. happened to be asking about pets, utilities, and applications, and Ms. iCare (our AI bot) answered all of it.”

Brian: “Woody, our AI chatbot, has answered 1,800 questions in just three months. That’s 1,800 straightforward questions that prospects got real-time answers to. They didn’t have to pick up the phone or send an email.”

Lindsey: “I was shocked to see how much people are willing to talk to a bot and the sheer quantity of data we’re obtaining from people inputting their contact information to get easy questions answered, to take floor plan quizzes, and view 3D tours. We’re halfway into [the month] and already we’ve collected more than 260 pieces of contact information from potential renters. A percentage of those were passed on to our onsite teams as rent-ready leads, and the rest are being nurtured.”

Hands-off lead capture and nurture 

Lisa: “If you want to be impactful in your business, you have to automate. No doubt. Our number-one reason for adopting PERQ was to be available to renters 24/7. Unless we started three shifts of leasing teams, this is how we can make it possible. I know with 100% certainty that any digital lead coming into Boyd Wilson is being addressed. I was never able to say that before.”

Lindsey: “Having to drum up and replace rent-ready leads every month to meet leasing goals is an expensive way to do it. By adding nurture automation to our website, we’re capturing more leads more efficiently, and we’re not having to go out and get more all the time. Naturally, this lowers our cost per lead. We’re also freeing up time for our onsite teams to build better relationships and improve their conversion ratios, which ultimately lowers our cost per lease because we’re converting more people than before.”

Brian: “Automation can make our jobs more interesting and compelling because we’re freeing our teams to focus on what’s hopefully the fun stuff. We’re taking a lot of the boring routine stuff like sending copy-paste emails on basic inquiries.”

Christopher: “We needed a technology solution that was going to be smart and could take some of the busy work off the onsite teams and then elegantly transition the person to a team member when they wanted it. Texting, for instance, has been a big, big hurdle for us. It’s very easy to get in a lot of trouble really quickly with managing opt-ins and opt-outs, but PERQ perfectly solves that problem and enables us to use SMS as a channel, both inbound and outbound.”

Personalizing experiences at scale

Brian: “The bar we’re being held to isn’t just competing properties down the street. It’s the Amazons of the world.”

Christopher: “Personalization is [now a] requirement. Our prospects expect it. If you have anything less than a personalized experience, people become distrustful of your brand.”

Lindsey: “Remember we’re not selling shoes here. We’re providing people a home. Champion did a study where we learned most renters are stressed, overwhelmed, and confused about the process of finding an apartment. Personalization is the key to helping make a connection with those prospects and showing them that you care about helping them find the perfect home and that you’re there to meet their needs.”

Liz: “On the AI side, we have the ability to customize our responses, I’ve seen the transcripts, and the bot is very smart. If the prospect is looking for a two-bedroom, the bot specifically talks about what the renter has alluded to. I feel the personalization both within the AI feature and our onsite teams is what can really help a renter feel that sense of belonging. I think this is where the blend between technology and human interaction works so well together.”

Deepen your know-how

There’s a lot more where that came from as our featured multifamily marketers discussed various strategies for training onsite teams and finding the right balance between automation and human touches.

Catch the full discussions below:

PERQ integrated with your existing website and lead sources to engage, nurture and convert leads, improving the multifamily leasing journey for everyone. Learn how it works or request a demo.