Apartment Marketing; Free Shuttle Service for Residents

January 11, 2010
By

We have been talking about Partnership Marketing and the effects it will have in 2010 here at the Urbane Lab and want to provide our readers and following with examples of how it can work and the benefit it can provide to your apartment marketing program.

We just finalized a deal at Urbane Apartments with The Night Moves. The Night Move is a bus that runs on B20 biodiesel and is partnered withcarbonfund.org to balance out the remainder of their carbon footprint.

The bus runs every Friday and Saturday night from 6pm to 3am, and will make custom stops at (8) Urbane Apartment locations that are outside of the city of Royal Oak, and take Urbane Residents and their guests to Downtown Detroit, Downtown Royal Oak and Downtown Ferndale. As you can imagine, Urbane Residents are thrilled to be able to head to dinner, bars and nightlife entertainment and not have to drive.

Shoulder Your Marketing Costs
Custom pick up like this add a ton of value to the individual properties, however the costs associated are completely out of reach, right, well actually no. Partnership Marketing works because two or more businesses each have something of value for each other. Urbane, like lots of other apartment operators have something that restaurants and bar owners are looking for, customers.

When we made the link and connection between the bus operator, the apartment operator and the restaurant and bar operator, and leveraged our Urbane VIP relationships, we were able to provide a significant service to our residents, at NO Cost to the property.

It Has To Work For Everyone
The dedicated Urbane Bus, which will be completely wrapped with our logo and brand, will also include the logos of our Urbane VIP Sponsors of this program.

What bar owner wouldn’t want a bus load of young professionals going out for the night dropped off in front of their venue? Win/Win
What apartment operator wouldn’t want a fully wrapped bus with their logo all over it pulling up in front of the busiest bars and restaurants in town every weekend? Win/Win
Make Free Work For You
And, when coupled with several venues we were able to achieve an agreement satisfactory to all parties. We expect to have the program fully launched by March, and did we mention at no cost to the properties, or the residents!

Think Outside the Box
This is just one example of how Partnership Marketing can work for you and your apartment community, but you need to shed old ways of thinking. The marketing dollars of yesterday have evaporated from most operating budgets.

We will keep you posted on the results of this Urbane Lab Apartment Marketing initiative. We would love to hear your feedback and any new ideas you are trying.

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 The Urbane Way, 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 Eric_Urbane on Twitter.

Eric also writes regular articles for the following publications;

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  • Mark Juleen

    Well done Eric! Well done!

  • Hubert Sawyers III

    I like that term "partnership marketing." I shall use that in my work. As an artist manager, I am looking to get my acts involved with similar arrangements that will be beneficial for all parties involved.This news is excellent, Eric. You continue to excel as my personal hero!

  • UrbaneWay

    @Mark, Thanks for stopping by@Hubert, Thank you for the comment. The concept isn't really new, and applies to a multitude of different business models, with the driving point being of mutual benefit to all parties,