Google Provides Evidence That Our Priorities Are Wrong
Google has a neat tool through its Adwords program that lets you see the search volume for certain keywords or key phrases, which essentially means how popular a certain topic is. For example, is Paris Hilton more searched than Britney Spears or Lindsey Lohan?
As important as I’m sure that debate is, let’s instead analyze something a bit more relevant to property management. There has long been the debate between apartment marketing and resident retention, and how much money, time, and attention is spent between the two. As our industry turnover generally averages about 60%, it appears that we definitely favor apartment marketing, and now Google has given a definite number to that competition. Here are the number of searches for “apartment marketing” and “resident retention” for January and the average:
I would like to say that it is shocking that we spend four times longer working on apartment marketing relative to resident retention, but unfortunately, it doesn’t shock me in the slightest! As our residents continually leave out the back door, we take relatively little time figuring out how to stop the progression, but rather just think of ways to replace the lost souls. Until we can figure this out, apartments will never be seen as more than transitional stops in life’s journey.
This insightful blog was contributed by: Brent Williams of Multifamily Insiders.
Brent Williams is Chief Insider at Multifamily Insiders, which provides tools, tips, and useful information on both resident retention and apartment marketing.
