121 Mastering Multifamily Digital Marketing - Christine O'Toole Jul 13 2022

Greg Bray: [00:00:00] Hello everybody, and welcome to today's episode of The Home Builder Digital Marketing Podcast. I'm Greg Bray with Blue Tangerine.

Kevin Weitzel: And I'm Kevin Weitzel OutHouse.

Greg Bray: And we're excited today to welcome to the show Christine O'Toole who is the Senior Marketing Manager at Independence Realty Trust. Welcome, Christine. Thanks for joining us.

Christine O'Toole: Thank you for having me.

Greg Bray: Well, let's start off Christine, and just let you introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about you.

Christine O'Toole: Sure. I have about 10 years within the marketing industry, specifically in real estate. Once I graduated college, jumped [00:01:00] right into the real estate market and fell in love with it and have been in it ever since.

Kevin Weitzel: All right. Now, that's the business side of you that got you into this world, but now I need to know that one little tidbit of information, that fraction of your world that is personal. We need to know something about you. Are you a juggler? Are you into throwing axes? What makes your personal world go around?

Christine O'Toole: So, actually two things. One, I love to create pottery and actually throw on the wheel and actually create it. You know, you take the clay and then you throw it on the wheel and you create beautiful things, but I also box a few days a week as well. So, I'm big into boxing, which I love, and it's great to get the aggression and anger out some days.

Kevin Weitzel: Now, the physical boxing or like exercise boxing?

Christine O'Toole: It's a little bit of both. So, it's less of like a class and more of, you know, like mitts and self-defense and things like that. So, you're actually kind of getting knocked in the head a little bit, put your hands up, use your reach, things like that.

Greg Bray: On the pottery, are you so into it you've got your own [00:02:00] kiln at home?

Christine O'Toole: I don't and those are very large.

Greg Bray: That's why I was asking cause that's a pretty big commitment, right?

Christine O'Toole: If I asked my husband to make more room in the garage for my stuff, I wouldn't be surprised if he'd be like, it's time to get a divorce. I tread lightly there.

Greg Bray: Well, tell us, Christine, a little bit more about Independence Realty Trust and the kinds of homeowners or home buyers you guys are working with.

Christine O'Toole: Sure. So, Independence Realty Trust here and after I will refer to it as IRT because that's what really we're referred to. IRT is a property management multifamily company. We're publicly traded. We have approximately 36,000 units to date, and we're in about 14 states, and we're rapidly growing, acquiring, and doing a lot of fun, innovative things.

Greg Bray: It's multifamily and it's interesting cause we haven't had a lot of discussions on multifamily and marketing in our podcast so far, which is one reason why I'm excited to see where this conversation goes today.

Christine O'Toole: Great.

Greg Bray: So, how did you decide though that [00:03:00] you wanted to be in multifamily versus, cause I know you had some more traditional home builder experience in your past as well. What made you cross over?

Christine O'Toole: I started my career at Toll Brothers. So, just like you said, I was marketing single-family homes, new construction, new home building, but I eventually left there. Just different opportunities and people that I met along the way introduced me to multifamily and I saw that there was a need for marketers. It's funny because I used to joke that when I was working at Toll Brothers or working in the new home construction, I would say, why would you rent? You should come buy a house, and now I'm like, why would you buy a house? You should come rent with us. So, it's just funny that it's complete opposite and I'm on the other end of the spectrum.

What made me jump? It was just something different. It was more of a challenge. I saw the need for it, and I was really able to jump in head first and just hit the ground running and apply what I've learned over on a new home side over to the multifamily side.

Greg Bray: So, let's dive in then a [00:04:00] little bit about what is the same and what is different in the messaging and kind of the outreach to those two audiences, the single-family home buyer versus the multifamily renter.

Christine O'Toole: Well, I think one of the biggest things is your messaging, right? So, who are your renters? It's a very large pool. You could have college kids that are looking for a place to rent while they're going to school. You have people that have just graduated college and they wanna get out of their house that they've grown up in, and they want to start, you know, that independent living side of it.

Then you also have your young families and you have your people that might not yet be able to afford to buy a home, and they're choosing to rent first. A lot of times you might have people who have just sold their homes. They're empty nesters. They don't need that big house anymore. So, now they might want to rent to test out the location, see if they like it before they make such a big commitment.

You know, and one thing with the multifamily side, it's really important to [00:05:00] showcase that, right? That you are offering homes and housing for people no matter where they are in their journey of renting. So, whether you're just starting out, whether you're just retired, you know, we're here for you.

When we talk about, you know, financials, right? It's of course easier and a little bit cheaper to rent a home. I guess I can kind of say that now, especially since rental prices are kind of rising. So, typically renting an apartment it's essentially a little bit easier than buying a home because then you don't have to worry about mortgage. You don't have to worry about how much money are you gonna put down. So, we try to focus messaging around that.

Greg Bray: So, when you think about putting the team and the programs together for your marketing, how have you gone about structuring your team and where's your role in that, and what do you keep in-house versus outsource and some of those thoughts?

Christine O'Toole: Yeah. So, I think it really makes a difference when we're talking about budgeting, because every property management company [00:06:00] has a different budget, and I think it really depends on how big you are as a company.

So, I've worked for companies that are smaller and it was just me. I've worked for a company that was a little bit bigger and I was able to hire one to two people. Then I also worked for a bigger company, like an IRT, where there's six of us in the department, and our department is rapidly growing to meet the demand of our customers who are our apartment communities, right, and our site teams.

One thing is figure out how big of a department you can sustain with the budget you have. So, let's say, for example, if you're at a smaller company and you can only have maybe one or two people, it might be wise to hire someone or people with skills that are transferable, right? So, maybe you need someone that knows a little bit about social media, they know a little bit about SEO. They might know a little bit about paid search so that then they can overlap.

Same holds true for making flyers. So, you might need a creative [00:07:00] person to kind of get into Canva and to create the graphics on that side, and then also to coordinate some ideas with the site teams, and then they can work interchangeably together that way.

Now, when you have a bigger company, such as IRT you are open to more opportunity to hire more people, right? So, you might be able to have your executive level, like your senior managers and your senior vice presidents. You can have your digital marketing manager, you can have your coordinators, your social media analysts, and specialists.

So, I think it really depends on how big the company is and what the need is because again, going back to your third-party partners. So, a lot of times, if you don't have necessarily the budget to hire people, then you have to rely on your third-party partners, and what I mean by that is you might be able to hire one coordinator. So, then as a result of that, you then have to go out and find someone to help manage your SEO, to help manage the [00:08:00] analytical side and the data side, to provide you with those reports that you might not be able to get or analyze on your own because you might not have time. You might need someone to help you create content for your social media. Especially like if you just have one Instagram page or one Facebook page, you might need that assist.

Greg Bray: So, Christine given the wide geography that IRT covers, how many states did you say it was again?

Christine O'Toole: Fourteen.

Greg Bray: Fourteen states. So, every location is different, right? Every community or complex has its own pros and cons, maybe a slightly different demographic that it's targeting. How do you guys go about managing the local needs versus kind of the overall corporate big picture needs within your marketing team?

Christine O'Toole: So, I think the first thing is to make sure that your communication between your point managers is open. So, there's three of us and we all have a third of the portfolio. So, what's going on in my portfolio might be different than somebody else's. So, I have the Midwest. [00:09:00] So, the trends that I'm seeing in Colorado, I make sure that I voice them early on because that then might trickle down to, let's say Florida. It might go to Dallas. You know, who knows? So, if I'm seeing a trend, I make sure that I voice that.

One of the biggest things that we've seen here at IRT, but I've also actually seen it in the past as well, in my previous position, people applying for apartments site unseen. Which is very interesting when you think about how marketing has evolved and how it's changing. So, when you talk about different trends within the markets and then rolling that up into a corporate company-wide trend that we have to keep an eye on.

The first thing I think of is conversion, right? So, if we have a certain percentage of conversion that we wanna hit per quarter, but what goes into that conversion? A lot of times it's leads coming in and then it's lead to tour conversion, and then it's tour to lease conversion, but if those leads aren't coming in, but [00:10:00] rather they're just going right to the website and applying because they like what they see online. That's going to mess up your lead to tour conversion. So, if I'm seeing that in one of my specific markets, I make sure that I voice that. So, then as a company, we can tackle it moving forward as a whole.

Kevin Weitzel: You were looking at the entire analytics from tip to tail, not just that first touch, but you have a stopping point in your tracking, if you will, of success on your conversion of touring. You know, how many people physically come to see the rental facility?

Christine O'Toole: Yes.

Kevin Weitzel: One observation I had, and just an assumption that I made was, and I'm actually surprised that you guys do it by region. I would've assumed you would've done it by product line. Like, maybe you have a premium and a standard and then maybe a hillbilly. You know, who knows? Cause, and I know I'm half-joking about this, but do you find that you have the same type of site unseen, I'll take that rental unit in the premium product that you would have in maybe your, I'm just using the term [00:11:00] hillbilly product.

Christine O'Toole: Yeah. So, we have properties in class A, class B, and class C, and it doesn't matter what state or market you're in, you're getting all of those classes if you will. No matter where you go. It's really just the world we live in today. If I look back 10 years ago when I first started out as a marketing coordinator and I look at what was popular then? Newspaper articles. People would physically bring in the newspaper because they were so excited and say, hey, I saw your article in the paper. Just wanted to show you. Can I go tour? Have at it. They loved that. They loved the direct mail campaigns, anything that was tangible, that they could get their hands on.

Now, they don't wanna be bothered with any of that. So, it's just really interesting, especially now that photography has really leveled up. You know, now you're seeing an influx of 3D tours and Matterports. So, because our digital curb [00:12:00] appeal has really stepped up, especially in the last two years because of COVID, it really doesn't matter what class of property you're applying for. It's really just, in my opinion, one of the biggest trends that we're going to see in multifamily, and maybe not just in multifamily, maybe also in the new home builder side, too.

Greg Bray: So, Christine, you mentioned more and more people skipping the in-person tour and going straight to the next step in the process. You've mentioned that you've got more digital assets. What do you think is driving which one? Is it the demand for the digital assets so that they don't have to visit that's pulling, the company to provide that, or is it the fact that you're now providing that, allowing them to not need to visit? So, they're going, oh, I don't need to visit. I'm comfortable with what I'm seeing?

Kevin Weitzel: Or scarcity in product? Is scarcity in product becoming part of the factors?

Christine O'Toole: Honestly, I think it's all three. Now, I'm not saying that people are not coming into tour at all, because we are still getting tours. It's just, it's such a big drop off to the point where I have voiced it [00:13:00] multiple times in the last two years. Not just at IRT, but just in general, saying, hey, you know, I think we need to watch this and how this goes.

But I think it's the fact that you do have all of the brand new, shiny digital assets that you're able to show off, and I do think now because of COVID, a lot of companies said, you know what? This is now the time where we have to upgrade our photography. To be honest with you, you know, a year and a half ago, I would look at some of these listings on, whether it was in ILS or even just some of their websites, and I was taken back with how some of the photography was portrayed.

So again, I think it's all of the things. I think it's new shiny digital assets that they have that they really set their game up. I think it's also the fact that people are used to being home. They're used to that quick, I need an answer and I want it right now. I don't wanna have to talk to somebody. I don't wanna have to make an appointment. I don't need to go in and see it. That's annoying to me. It's an [00:14:00] inconvenience. I just don't wanna have to deal with being sold to quote, unquote.

That's why they're going to our website and saying, I like the location. I like the amenities that you're offering. The photos are really nice. Maybe I need to go in person to make sure that what you're telling me online is true in person. I don't need to give you anything cause I'm gonna submit the application anyway.

You know, you were talking about scarcity, right? Yeah. I mean, apartment homes are flying off the handles, and people, it's like, as soon as we get an application, we're moving people in. Especially now, because of the real estate market, a lot of people have sold their homes or their investment homes that they would rent out. So now, if you're thinking about like an annual rental, you don't have those single-family homes to kind of fall back on. You have to go to an apartment community, cuz you're better off going there to get some sort of inventory that you're looking for to fit your needs.

Greg Bray: This is Greg from Blue Tangerine, [00:15:00] and I just wanted to tell you how excited we are about our upcoming event, The Home Builder Digital Marketing Summit. It's coming up September 21st and 22nd in Phoenix, Arizona. Now, this is an event that you do not want to miss. We're gonna be talking about websites, SEO, analytics, reports, how to use social media influencers more, how to improve your online reviews, how to really do everything you need to do to start selling homes online.

Again, The Home Builder Digital Marketing Summit on September 21st and 22nd in Phoenix, Arizona. Go to buildermarketingsummit.com. Click register. Please be sure to join us at The Home Builder Digital Marketing Summit.

So, I think it's interesting to ponder Christine, the idea that there's at least a portion of the rental market that is pre-home purchase. They're renting right now because they aren't quite ready to actually buy. Whether that's because they're checking out the area, whether that's because of where they are in life and down payment issues and financing, and some of [00:16:00] those things

So, if they become comfortable with a certain level of technology engagement in the buying or the leasing process of rental properties, and then they go to a single-family home builder and it's a step backwards in technology and of ability, I think that's gonna be a little bit of a disconnect in that future. I think we need to recognize that they're coming with this set of expectations of what they're able to see and what they're able to do online and that's just gonna continue as they move forward in that journey. Again, some people are not in that kind of linear track there.

Christine O'Toole: Right.

Greg Bray: But I think there is an expectation of you know, we want, eventually, want these renters to come buy a house from a home builder. Any thoughts on how you feel multifamily compares with single-family and some of those tools and availability?

Christine O'Toole: Well, I think the advantage that multifamily has over the home builder aspect is the fact that unless you're doing a ground-up apartment home community, you have the ability to go in pretty much right away and [00:17:00] take those pictures and take the Matterports and do virtual staging so that your prospects already can visualize themselves in that home.

On the flip side, when you're thinking about a new home that's being built from the ground up. Take a brand new community, right? So, they're marketing it. They're getting the word out, but there's nothing to see. I used to face that all the time. We don't have any pictures. We don't even have a model and it's not even like I can stage a vacant unit right now within my community and then move it into a quote-unquote model. Like, they don't have that ability to do that.

So, I think home builders face that challenge all the time when you're starting a new community, or, you know, you're building a single-family home, or maybe it's just a small cluster. Maybe it's not such a big community, like Toll used to build. Unless you have renderings, it's really hard to get your prospects, to visualize what it's going to look like, and even with renderings, I feel like people are very cautious because renderings aren't [00:18:00] always what it's gonna look like at the end.

So, I think multifamily does have a leg up on that when it comes to that because there are only so many pictures you can take of the home being built and in-progress timelines. Like, we get it. It's being built. I understand this is gonna be beautiful, but I need to see more, and just because you're building the same product in Virginia or another state, am I gonna have those same selections and those same upgraded finishes in my home in New Jersey or Pennsylvania, wherever that is. So, I think that there are a lot of questions and things that are up in the air.

Greg Bray: So, as you think about the metrics that you track, you mentioned a few of them. Is there another set of key metrics that you're watching to make sure you can keep a pulse on what's happening?

Christine O'Toole: My biggest thing is Google Analytics because I wanna see who's coming to my website and what they're doing on my website. I want to understand the behaviors. I want to know what they're clicking on. I want to know how long they're spending on my site.

For [00:19:00] example, you know, you want to look at things like your bounce rate, your exit rate. There's actually a thing in Google Analytics, there's like a tree map. It lights up green and you can actually see, I'm a visual person, the top tabs that people are clicking on, on your website. Nine times out of ten, I can almost guarantee that it's floor plans, photos, and the amenities tab or the gallery tab. Those are the three most popular tabs that people are clicking on before they even go to the application tab.

There are a lot of things that you can set up within Google Analytics. You can set up goals. You know, like if you have a chatbot and, you know, you're using the AI portion of that, where people can text with it. They can view photos. They can view 3D tours, right from that chatbot. You should have the ability to add those items as events within your Analytics dashboard to understand how many people are interacting with that, and what percentage of your website visitors are [00:20:00] actually using a chatbot, and you know, is it worth their money and what whatnot. So, that's actually another interesting fact as well.

Another thing that I do is anytime I'm running a campaign or an ad, I always create a UTM code. Which is a unique tracking metric that you can actually assign to the campaign that then can be copied and pasted right into your Google Analytics so that you can see the success and follow it throughout the life cycle of that campaign. So, that's actually pretty fascinating.

I am a big data analytics person. I always say that I'm a marketing integrator cause I have the creative side, but I also have the analytical brain too. Something that's really important to me is, I'll run campaigns all day, but I need to make sure that they're effective and numbers don't lie. So, I just need to make sure that it's telling me a story holistically.

You know, aside from Google Analytics, I think your CRM is, to me, one of the most important things that you could possibly have for your company because what it does, especially from a [00:21:00] marketing standpoint, is it shows all the leads coming in. It shows you what source is bringing that lead-in. For myself, with the CRM that I was using before IRT and also the CRM that I'm using within this company, two very different dashboards, I must say, but they're all essentially telling you the same data, how many people are coming in per source and what's the conversion?

Then you can use that and those numbers compared to your Analytics dashboard, compared to the feedback that you're also getting from your teams, especially when it comes to budget season. So, you're gonna take all of the numbers and all of the data that's being provided to you throughout the year, and then come budget season, that's when you can say, okay, this performed better than this did. Maybe we need to move some money around with those various line items and whatnot. So, those are really the biggest analytical dashboards that I use.

Greg Bray: When you're looking ahead, Christine, to the next couple of years, what kind of trends [00:22:00] are you guys watching, especially from a digital perspective, that you're starting to get ready for?

Christine O'Toole: Well, I think it goes back to people applying site unseen, and I'm curious to see how that plays out in the next few years, and even the next few months, I'm curious if it's just a trend and it's gonna die off in a year, or I'm curious that as our technology and our AI systems get smarter is that going then to create a quote-unquote smarter prospect where they can do even more homework and they can even do more research without meeting us? They already don't need us as much as they once did, and I'm just curious if that's going to eventually taper off, where they really don't even call us anymore. I'm watching that closely. The other thing that I watch too is, I don't know if you guys have ever heard of this, but the U-Haul Index.

Greg Bray: Not familiar with that one.

Kevin Weitzel: Is this something new on the podcast? Breakout with it Christine. What is it?.

Christine O'Toole: So, U-Haul [00:23:00] comes out with these very interesting statistics. Let's say, for example, Colorado. The Colorado U-Haul Index will show you a percentage of people who rented a U-Haul for one way. Where they're moving out of, and then on the flip side, if they're moving out of Colorado, where are they going? So it's very interesting to see this roadmap with where people are going.

So, there's a lot of people moving out of California, according to this U-Haul Index that I just read the other day, moving out of California, and either going to Tennessee or Dallas. There are a lot of people moving out of places like Jersey, New York, and Rhode Island and moving to Colorado, but again, it's just fascinating to think about how many one-way rentals from various different states are there and where are they going?

Kevin Weitzel: Is there any chance that that correlates directly with the Mary Jane Index, i.e. marijuana, where pot is legal, that's where people are moving [00:24:00] to. I'm just curious. Not that I'm a pot smoker myself. I can't confirm nor deny whether I am or I'm not, but I wonder if it correlates with that in any way, shape, or form.

But no, in all, seriousness, I really wish sometimes, like today's conversation that we use the video and I'll tell you why. You said UTM and Greg lit up like a school kid, just all excited. He's like, somebody's using nerdy terms that I love. You just made my day, cause I got to see the joy and elation in Greg. He just got so flipping excited when you used a nerd term.

Greg Bray: I do know how to spell UTM. Yes, I do.

Christine O'Toole: Yes. There's another one on the social side, UGC. Have you heard of that one, on the social side, user-generated content?

Kevin Weitzel: You gotta understand who you're talking to here, Christine. I am practically a step above a cave dweller. You know.

Greg Bray: A pot-smoking cave dweller, evidently.

Kevin Weitzel: What?

Christine O'Toole: There you go.

Kevin Weitzel: What?

Christine O'Toole: There you go.

Kevin Weitzel: Whoa. That's almost sounded [00:25:00] accusatory. Come on now.

Greg Bray: You brought it up. You brought it up. All right. Look at the time.

Kevin Weitzel: When you're looking at, that you've seen basically everything from both worlds. On a joking note, do any of your former colleagues on the home building side go, you're a trader, you're going to the other side, but no, that's a joke question. In all reality, are you finding that you can utilize, from the home building industry, to translate to direct marketing outreach on the rental side cause you know, the pain points?

Christine O'Toole: I do know the pain points, and I do know that a lot of our prospects and our residents are going to rent with us for a short amount of time because nine times out of ten, especially in those markets like Colorado, like Dallas, they're not looking to rent for the rest of their lives. They will eventually want to buy a house.

From a marketing standpoint, I then have to come up with, okay, how am I going to confront this? I can't stop somebody from buying a house because that's what they [00:26:00] want to do, and eventually they're going to get there. But how do I stop, or how do I even get in front of the changing time? And what I mean by that is, let's say on the flip side somebody puts their house up on the market. Now they want to rent. They don't know where to go. How do I then create that relationship with that side? So, that's one thing that I'm always thinking about is how do I create that relationship and drive more traffic and help to strengthen those relationships with our real estate partners.

Kevin Weitzel: And let me ask you one last one cause I know we're getting a little tight on our schedule here, but do you find that you're seeing an increase of people renting based off of being disenfranchised from the home building market because prices have risen so much? That has number one increased in price, number two, being bought up by investment companies.

Christine O'Toole: Yes.

Kevin Weitzel: Do you find that your portfolio is being challenged because of that influx from that disenfranchisement?

Christine O'Toole: Well, I think not just my portfolio and not just my company. I think all of us in the multifamily world feel that. Especially when the interest rates were [00:27:00] so low and home sales really skyrocketed. You know, I think the industry, in general, took a hit with a lot of lease breaks. You know, it's like, do we stay here for the next six months or nine months and, you know, wait our lease out, or do we just say we're leaving? We'll temporarily have to pay essentially like a double mortgage cause your rent and your mortgage, but we really need to jump on this home cause it's at the right price, it's at the right time, and at the right interest rate.

So, I think as an industry in general, yeah, that hurt a little bit, but at the same time, the demand for the rentals, it's there. So, we actually can't keep up sometimes with all the demand that comes in cause we don't have the supply all the time. So, if we're fully occupied, you know, all the leads coming in, we either have to refer them over to a sister property. You know, and this is just in general within the last few years, not just right now, but it's just interesting to see what the supply is, what the demand is, and do we have the supply to meet the demand.

[00:28:00] So, I think it's on both ends of the spectrum. Yeah. Again, it stung a little bit when home sales increased. Again, because of the interest rates and it was hot, and I think everybody that was thinking about, you know, do we buy a house now? We're not sure. It was kind of like a, you gotta get off the fence now and make a move. So again, those lease breaks, it did hurt, but that doesn't mean that we're sitting vacant for a long time. We have the demand.

Greg Bray: Well, Christine, we do appreciate how much time you spent with us today and wanted to just ask you as we wrap up if you had any last kind of marketing advice that you wanted to leave with our listeners?

Christine O'Toole: You know, I always like to say that marketing is essentially like the majestic highway between your interests and your prospects to your resident or your homeowner, and I want people to really think of the marketing funnel and how that impacts operations. What we do on the back end really helps to drive that traffic to help our site teams, whether you're selling [00:29:00] homes or whether you're selling rentals. The industry just changed so fast that your marketing efforts really also need to change just as quickly to keep up with the demand and to keep the interest of your direct consumers, like your renters and like your homeowners.

Greg Bray: Well, Christine, if there's anybody listening who wants to reach out and connect with you, what's the best way for them to get in touch?

Christine O'Toole: My LinkedIn has all of my updated information. You can shoot me an email if you want, or DM on LinkedIn.

Greg Bray: Awesome. Thank you so much for sharing with us today and thank you everybody for listening to The Home Builder Digital Marketing Podcast. I'm Greg Bray with Blue Tangerine.

Kevin Weitzel: And I'm Kevin Weitzel with OutHouse. Thank you.