While scanning the Brand Marketing section of the Ad-ology Marketing Forecast app on my iPhone this morning, a May 6 article stood because it didn’t seem to have anything to do with marketing.
Titled, “Top 3 Opportunities/Challenges Ahead for Apartment Buildings,” the article immediately brought to mind Apartments.com, the online and mobile rental property search business that came to us to create an iPhone version of its service.
The topmost item on the list shows that competition among rental properties will escalate in coming years as more properties become available. That would spell good news for a service such as Apartments.com, who provides a valued connection between renter and property that will be even more essential than it is today.
The second item caused pause, as it suggests that saltwater pools are becoming a table stakes feature of attractive rental properties. Aside being another attribute renters may wish to identify while searching, it’s hard to envision how this impacts a service like Apartments.com.
The final item actually seems the most important by far; the emergence of online apartment ratings and the effect of negative reviews on occupancy rates. Apparently many property owners are taking proactive steps to monitor their online reputations and addressing complaints directly. That would seem to represent a significant opportunity for Apartments.com to create another value added aspect of its business.
As we have mentioned previously in our blog, social media is on the Interactive Mediums’ radar screen in a big way. The most recent example is Hovewall, used to engage greater than 50 percent of the addressable audience in real time Twitter commentary at Mobile University 101, a conference held recently in Chicago.
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