ONLINE ADVERTISING CAN CUT COST-PER-LEASE
Wednesday, July 1 1998
JED KATZ
When it comes to promoting apartments, Ralph Altman is a compelling case study in how to work the ad mediums to their full advantage.
Altman, a marketer for Vienna, Virginia-based Southern Management Corp., spends more than $3 million annually spreading the word about 65 multifamily communities in the greater Washington D.C. area. Print and online media are used. So is a weekly half-hour infomercial on the local ABC-TV affiliate that costs plenty, yet pays back in a steady flow of prospects.
But Altman says he was in for a surprise one April morning when he started reviewing first-quarter 1998 ad spending results. Online advertising generated the largest number of signed leases and qualified leads - even though the medium accounts for a small fraction of the total media budget. 'The evidence is compelling: Internet advertising gives us the biggest bang for our buck,' Altman says. 'In the years ahead, the largest increases in our ad budget will be for online promotion.'
Strong consumer growth has made the Internet's World Wide Web a mass medium quicker than even some of its staunchest advocates expected. An April 1998 U.S. Department of Commerce study found Internet usage at more than 100 million individuals worldwide, up from 40 million the year before. That growth 'is faster than the phone, TV, and radio when they were adopted,' said Commerce Secretary William Daley in announcing the study.
ONLINE ADS
In the North American multihousing industry, property managers are devoting a greater share of their ad budgets to their own Web sites and the three national online apartment guides, Rent Net, AllApartments and Apartments.com. Onsite managers and senior management company executives say online apartment advertising growth is being spurred by: Low prices relative to print and other electronic media; Extensive distribution of property ads to high-traffic Web sites; Increases in serious, qualified inquiries; Immediate and unfiltered customer interaction; The ability to quickly update ads for special promotions or changing market conditions; and, most importantly, Rising volume in leases directly attributable to online ads.
'Online marketing clearly is the biggest apartment marketing innovation of the 1990s,' says Jack Goodman, vice president of research for the National Apartment Association/National Multi Housing Council Joint Legislative Program. 'It provides prime demographic segments very easy access to current, customized information about rental housing opportunities.'