Case Study: Laramar Group Catapults Conversions, Savings with 3-Month PERQ Pilot
In our work with multifamily marketers, we’ve noticed four common traits among high performers.
- For one, they focus on sustainable gains over short-lived stunts or “fixes” that can’t drive marketing performance long-term.
- Second, they keep a watchful eye on changing market dynamics and adapt quickly to match consumer behaviors and staffing needs.
- Third, they magnify onsite teams with technology automation so teams aren’t bogged down by low-impact tasks that drain their time and attention.
- Lastly, they measure everything, letting data reveal opportunities and steer marketing investments.
Three such leaders are Stacy Valentine (Vice President of Innovation and Technology), Stephanie Sellstrom (Director of Innovation and Technology), and Anna Shea (Senior Director of Marketing) at the Laramar Group, which manages a portfolio of nearly 150 properties.
Stacy, Stephanie, and Anna came to PERQ to solve challenges their onsite teams were having with lead management, running a three-month pilot to gauge results before adopting solutions across their full portfolio.
Below is an abbreviated recap. (You can read the full case study here.)
The Challenge
With limited staff and lots of leads, Laramar onsite teams were struggling to keep up, and to translate that lead volume into occupancy.
When onsite teams begin struggling with occupancy, one of the first things Anna reviews is their lead queue. “We look at dismissed leads, and that’s usually full of valid leads, which is a sure sign that we need to give them support to manage leads and help them focus on other things,” Anna explained.
The Process & Solution
Laramar initially turned to a CRM product with a built-in multifamily chatbot to answer repetitive leasing questions on property websites, removing that burden off the onsite team. The attempt wasn’t successful, and Laramar leaders began exploring other options.
While initially focused on website chat capabilities, a PERQ demo got Laramar leaders thinking about what else was possible, intrigued by the combinations of capabilities PERQ provided.
Beyond automating support for FAQs, PERQ automation could also free agents from having to follow up on low-quality leads, Stacy reasoned.
Laramar leaders decided to test their hypothesis, conducting a 90-day pilot of the PERQ platform with four of its properties. The Laramar and PERQ teams scheduled check-ins to study the pilot’s progress at 30, 60, and 90 days. Improvements were immediate.
The Results
At the conclusion of the three-month PERQ pilot, the Laramar team reported the following improvements:
- 2,858 fewer hours spent managing leads, equating to a $57,160 in payroll value
- 90.4% of tours were scheduled via PERQ, requiring zero human interaction
- 182% increase in lead-to-tour conversions
- 113% increase in website traffic to lead conversion
- $43,116 in savings or cost avoidance in lead generation (more leads generated from web traffic, plus more tours from nurtured leads)
“Our conversion rates went up and we saw an immediate impact on the team,” said Anna. “We began getting positive feedback from site teams that they no longer have to spend time to figure out which are the hottest leads because now they’re getting qualified tours from PERQ.”
Stephanie agreed, adding that leads are pre-qualified when they come in the door. As a result of PERQ’s personalized nurture and automation, Laramar has been able to drop underperforming lead sources while enjoying increased conversions. “We’ve been running under budget on marketing by a couple of thousand dollars a month,” Anna shared.
While humans cannot be replaced by automation, the technology does enable multifamily teams to be more thoughtful about where and when to apply their attention and resources.
Read the full case study and request a demo to run your own PERQ pilot!