In-Person Tours vs. Virtual Tours: Where is Apartment Marketing Headed?
When COVID-19 hit, there was an undeniable rush for apartments to offer more virtual tour options on their websites. There seemed to be an initial fear that if you didn’t have comprehensive videos and organized virtual tours, you’d be left behind and lose out on new leads.
This is understandable with lockdowns quickly taking effect and whole cities coming to a screeching halt. However, was this a knee-jerk reaction from our multifamily community? Did we start changing our systems and strategies before taking stock of resident behavior?
While being proactive is essential to staying afloat in our industry, especially when the world completely shifts, my inclination is that we jumped the gun. We dove in before assessing the tide.
For example, I had a surprising number of clients reach out to inform me that the locals in their respective areas were adamant about continuing in-person tours. Based on this, I continued to market in-person tours when quarantine was not in effect.
Personally, I feel like within days of the outbreak I saw on an onslaught of blogs covering the topic of how to lease a site unseen. I think this was helpful for a range of small properties that might not have known where to even begin with virtual tours. However, it wasn’t until about three months into the pandemic that I saw a shift in article topics due to data and information concerning resident behavior.
To recap a significant trend: retention rates rose. In the month of April, the industry saw a……
This is understandable with lockdowns quickly taking effect and whole cities coming to a screeching halt. However, was this a knee-jerk reaction from our multifamily community? Did we start changing our systems and strategies before taking stock of resident behavior?
While being proactive is essential to staying afloat in our industry, especially when the world completely shifts, my inclination is that we jumped the gun. We dove in before assessing the tide.
For example, I had a surprising number of clients reach out to inform me that the locals in their respective areas were adamant about continuing in-person tours. Based on this, I continued to market in-person tours when quarantine was not in effect.
Personally, I feel like within days of the outbreak I saw on an onslaught of blogs covering the topic of how to lease a site unseen. I think this was helpful for a range of small properties that might not have known where to even begin with virtual tours. However, it wasn’t until about three months into the pandemic that I saw a shift in article topics due to data and information concerning resident behavior.
To recap a significant trend: retention rates rose. In the month of April, the industry saw a……