3 Profitable Off-Campus Student Housing Digital Marketing Ideas

Attracting student renters is tough, and if your team is responsible to come up with apartment marketing ideas for student housing then you know how hard it can be to generate the number of leads that you need each month.

Not only do you need apartment marketing that engages your audience, but you also need marketing ideas for student housing that get the attention of students and entice them to come into your office for a tour.

We have already provided a huge list of apartment marketing ideas that you can use today, but we also wanted to provide a concise set of student housing marketing ideas that you can use to limit vacancy and drive more engagement. During our time working with leasing agents around the U.S., we have found that the student housing market is different than traditional apartment marketing.

Let’s take a look at some outreach marketing ideas for apartments that you can start to use today!

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1. Reach Student Renters With Mobile-First Marketing

Your ideal renter is a student who attends the local university, and you need to show that your community has everything they need to be comfortable and successful during their college career. Many students are looking for a student housing community that is close to campus, offers spacious units/rooms, and has a range of amenities.

Since you are trying to reach students, you should focus your attention on mobile marketing strategies. Mobile is a great way to reach potential residents seeking student housing options.
You can’t talk about student housing marketing ideas without talking about social media.

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The average college student spends 2-3 hours a day on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Instagram, and your team can use these networks as a way to speak directly to your target audience.
You can use Organic and Paid social media marketing tactics to get in front of college students (and their parents) as they look for a new apartment near campus. Here are some tips to make the most out of social media to support your apartment marketing efforts:

• Create High-Quality Videos. In recent years video has become the preferred media for social media consumers. You can create videos about your community that reinforce the lifestyle offered. Plus, you can run these videos as paid branding commercials on YouTube to help build awareness of your apartment community. You don’t need to invest in expensive equipment either, and you can use video content for different tactics across all the social networks.
• Highlight Resident Events On Facebook. You can use Facebook to create and promote events to college students in your area. Are you hosting a LAN party, volleyball tournament, or some other event in your community? You can support this to potential renters through Facebook Events.
• Instagram Marketing Essentials. Instagram is one of the biggest social media networks, and you can use this platform to help first-year renters discover your property. Market your floor plans, testimonials, and amenities with eye-catching imagery.

Organic social media marketing will help you generate reviews, build a relationship with current renters, and reach potential renters. You can also incorporate paid social advertising into your marketing strategy to reach a targeted audience based on interests, demographics, and location.

A quick word of caution- be sure to check restrictions around social media marketing as it pertains to your community and state laws. Recent changes in housing laws have put limits on what apartments and student housing communities can do when targeting renters.

2. Offer Easy-To-Use Virtual Tours

Students looking to lease a property off-campus are often wary of signing a lease without doing a lot of research. Millennials know the importance of a good deal, and they don’t want to sign a contract without the assurance that a student housing community has what they need to relax after a hard day of class.

You can feature virtual tours on your website to provide all the benefits of an apartment tour without requiring potential renters to visit your community in person.

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Several benefits make virtual tours a great idea to help you stand out in the student housing market, like:

• Interactive & User-Friendly. Virtual tours help prospective renters see how your floor plans feel. This is important for college students because students need to know their future home will offer everything they need to be comfortable and successful throughout college.
• Answers Questions Right Away. Since your property management team is spread thin, you can use virtual tours to improve the quality of leads that call your office. Instead of answering low-quality questions about floor plans and room layouts, you can use a virtual tour to filter our easy questions and let your team focus on prospective buyers who are ready to sign a lease.
• Saves Time & Money. Student housing marketing is tough on property managers because you have to work against the same variables as traditional apartment complexes (leas-up, repairs, etc.), while also dealing with unique challenges that come with student housing (low-seasons, high-turnover, etc.). Virtual tours can reduce the amount of time and money you have to spend on your team, offering property tours.

Along with placing the virtual tours on your site, you can promote this feature on social media. This approach will stack the benefits, and you can expand this online tour into other marketing ideas to reach Millenials.

Along with helping students to feel more at ease before signing a lease, a virtual tour will also help parents feel secure with your student housing options. Since many parents pay the rent, you need to sell your multifamily community to parents just as much as you will with students.

3. Showcase Your Features & Amenities

Students looking for a new apartment community often look for the same amenities based on their needs. Whenever someone chooses an apartment community, they are often choosing a community that offers features and amenities that support their desired lifestyle.

This means that you should include amenities in different marketing ideas aimed at college students. Some of the most popular facilities that Millenials look for in a student housing community include:

• Pet-Friendly Housing. Students often have a dog or cat that they want to bring with them when they move-in to a new apartment community. If you offer pet-friendly options, then you should showcase this since it is one of the most popular features among college students.
• Fitness Center. You can super-charge your marketing efforts by highlighting your on-site fitness center. Nothing is better than coming come after a hard day of classes to let off some steam with a workout right in the community!
• Keyless Room Entry. Do you offer cards or an app to help students access their apartments?

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Before your team spends time and money building out your site and other assets around amenities, you should talk to current residents to understand what matters most to college students. You can also look at Analytics to see what pages on your site and content on social media get the most engagement.

This information can help you focus your marketing strategy around options to strengthen your apartment marketing goals.

Great Apartment Marketing Ideas For College Students

If you are a property manager looking to reach potential residents for your off-campus housing community, then you should consider optimizing your website, building a mobile-first marketing strategy with social media, and showcasing amenities that you offer.

These are just a few ways to bring your apartment marketing ideas to life so you can reach more college students. Have fun thinking about the needs of potential renters and build your multifamily marketing plan around Millenials with profitable student housing marketing ideas!