Why Multifamily Needs Nurture

Managing multifamily leasing activity has never been more painful.  While it’s commonly expressed in different ways, 

• My leasing team is not following up on leads 
• Leads are falling through the cracks 
• We have too many “looky Lous” 

 

Chances are it sounds familiar to you.  

The conundrum is that you’ve generated more leads than the team can handle, but you also need to keep that volume going to ensure that enough leases get signed to maintain your occupancy numbers based on current conversion rates.  But that’s not actually where the problem starts. 

 

The actual root cause stems from the way we have been managing leads in multifamily. It no longer works for today’s rental audience.  

Why Multifamily Lead Management Needs Change 

The COVID-19 pandemic changed a lot for consumers. The need for isolation meant more needed to happen online, and consumers became more digital; embracing technology in new ways to research and purchase everything from groceries to cars.  With so many people spending more time at home, a great many of them decided to relocate to more a suitable place for their new situation, leading to a surge in leasing activity unlike anything we’ve seen before. With more young renters and those that are new digital buyers all in market for apartments at the same time, leasing activity began to shift to be more online. 

 

As the volume of renters in the market rose, supply and demand changes forced those renters to begin exploring their options earlier.  In fact, a recent PERQ study indicated nearly half of renters begin looking online 3 or more months in advance, a change over prior years’ results. 

 

In multifamily today, leads are passed directly into the CRM as soon as contact info is known.  The leasing team is expected to contact them and work that lead into a tour and lease.  But the renters aren’t ready for a tour or lease: their shopping behavior has changed.  

 

Since today’s apartment shopper is looking months in advance and doing considerable research on their own before they are ready to tour, we need to be able to engage with them the way they want.  They want to look into multiple properties, understand neighborhoods, compare floorplans and rental rates to develop a short list. But, multifamily teams are not equipped with the staff to engage with these shoppers in this way. It’s simply more than leasing teams can handle. 

 

The Solution 

PERQ was invented to solve for all of this.  A next-generation technology for multifamily, PERQ engages prospects from your website and lead sources and nurtures those leads with interactive website experiences, cross-channel natural language chatbots, and SMS and email personalized nurture outreach, all powered by an AI decision engine that gives every renter exactly what they need along the renters’ journey until they are ready to tour or request to speak with a person.   

Multifamily leasing funnels that nurture leads enjoy higher conversions and lower marketing costs.

The results: increased leads from your website, increased conversions from lead sources, higher quality tours and increased lead to tour conversion; all helping to drive down the cost of paid leads and optimize your leasing funnel. 

In Conclusion

Today’s multifamily rental prospects are more digitally savvy and accustomed to buying online than ever before. They crave information to learn on their own and explore the options before they decide to tour or speak with a person.  And they are used to the kind of digital engagement they get from other consumer brands.  In short, they want and expect engaging and interesting content that is relevant to them.  And they expect a unified, consistent experience from the brands they choose to buy from — across all their favorite channels. They want to be nurtured. 

 

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