Lifestyle is such an overused word, although I like the way our friends over at Village Green use the term Lifestyle For Rent. The point of this post is; When is the last time that you questioned yourself about what business you are we really in.
I have always thought that if we could deliver enough value from our Urbane Web Site, Urbane Blog and The Urbane Lobby, That renting an apartment became secondary, our communities would always remain full.
We get a heck of a lot of web traffic, over 10,000 visitors a month, and growing at a rate of 35% month over month, far more than your average (360) unit apartment web site. At the Urbane Underground, our office space is pretty open, and the point at which Heather starts the Leasing Experience is just outside my cube area, only hidden away by bamboo plants and rolling walls. Point is, I get to “listen in” on nearly every tour.
What I hear over and over, or at least get the sense of is that one of the Prospects biggest challenges or Pain Point is “Time” or lack thereof. It takes a lot of time to search for an apartment. We are createing a spot on our web site, and on our Availability Landing Page, Urbane Living Best Picks that will showcase the best other apartment units available. Urbane will “Filter” the comps to match up like product, pricing and web site links, so that the prospect only had to go to one place for comps.
Is there a real benefit to the prospect to have a filtered apartment search, and is that wacky to send a prospect to the competitor, which they are likely going to visit anyway. Could you build enough trust for it to work right? We think so.
We are starting to create alliances with our competitors now, with like or similar product type and we plan to start to help market their communities and units for rent on our Urbane Web Sites. We are close to finishing negotiations with the first try at this.
Our goal is to create a site that is everything for an Urbane Lifestyle, Restaurants, Movie Ratings, Theater Tickets, Hyper Local News, Hip and Cool People and Businesses and including Living Space, from both Urbane Apartments and other local like apartment and condo competitors.
We are giving it a try at the Urbane Lab and will keep you posted of the results.
Eric Brown
Eric’s background is rooted in the rental and real estate industries. He founded metro Detroit’s Urbane Apartments in 2003, after serving as senior vice president for a major Midwest apartment developer. He established a proven track record of effectively repositioning existing rental properties in a way that added value for investors while enhancing the resident experience. He also established Urbane Media, a social media marketing and PR laboratory, where innovative marketing ideas are tested. Eric has been featured in Entrepreneur Magazine and Business Week Magazine. You can connect with Urbane_Media on Twitter. Eric also writes regular articles for the following publications; Multi Housing News Social Media Examiner Search Engine Guide
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