Two Quick Tips on Determining Your “Market to Target”- Marketing Mondays with Stephanie Graves, Marketing and Training Director, Asset Plus Companies

If you have chatted with any marketing professionals regarding your property you’ll hear them say something like, “you must properly analyze your property to determine your target market and demographics for effective marketing”.  But what does that mean and how do I do it, some of you may be asking (truly the ones that are asking are probably not reading MI, but I digress)?   Here are some tips to quickly get you thinking about your “market to target”:

1. Calculate the right income earners.  Take the average rent of your apartment homes and multiple it by your qualifying income level.  For ease of math, let us say my average rent is $500.  I require that my residents make three times the rental amount to qualify.  I can quickly calculate $500 X 3 = $1500 per month or around $10.00/per hour is what my typical resident needs to make to qualify for my apartments.  Use this amount to base your marketing efforts.  Target those clients that are about 10% higher and 10% lower (roommate possibilities) than this amount.  You’ll want to look for businesses or jobs that pay about $10.00 per hour, as this is the average income of your typical client.  Does this mean that people making less or more will not lease with you?  Of course not, but this gives you a good base to start so you are not just randomly flyer marketing. 

Think about this, if your average income is $10.00 per hour than you probably will not target doctors or nurses right?  But you would target possibly hospital janitorial staff or front desk clerks at a hospital right?  As you approach hospitals and market, target your efforts to those that are within your target income, rather than to the higher income earners.  Make your flyers or give away appeals to the right income earner.

2. Survey your residents to determine their psychographics.  What did you call me?  Simply put, while demographics are what makes up your target market psychographics are what your target market does.  While demographics are very important I like to focus on psychographics because those tell me what my target market DOES, so I can go where they go and do what they do.  How do you determine that? Ask them!  Make your questionnaires fun and include questions like:

a.      It’s Saturday night and you are hungry, where would you go to grab a quick bite?

b.     You are on a ‘date night’, what romantic, yet economical restaurant would you take your sweetie to?

c.     What grocery store do you shop at?

d.     If price was not an issue would you shop anywhere else?  Where?

e.     Which of the following can you NOT live without

            i.      Monthly hair appointments, who do you recommend?

            ii.     Mani or pedi appointments, who do you recommend?

            iii.    Weekly happy hour, where do you recommend?

            iv.    Daily work out, where do you recommend?

This is a great start to target local businesses that your current residents already frequent and can solicit a few more!

This is an excellent start to your marketing efforts.  Is it all encompassing – NO!  But it is a good start to your efforts and it is a plan!  Your supervisor will be impressed with your thought process and efforts when you tell him/her how you targeted your businesses based on income and your current residents’ patterns.  More importantly I believe you’ll see more results by targeted efforts.  

HOUSTON, February 28 -- GHP Management, a subsidiary of G.H. Palmer Associates, recently awarded Asset Campus Housing with the management of their most recent student housing development.

The Lorenzo is a 2013-2014 mixed use student housing development located in Los Angeles, California. The property will be built in two phases: Phase 1 will be completed in fall 2013 with just under 2,000 beds, while Phase 2 will be completed in fall 2014 with an additional 1,658 beds. Upon completion, The Lorenzo will have a total of 913 units and 3,648 beds available to students in the greater Los Angeles area.

The site is located less than one mile away from the University of Southern California,  St. Mary’s College, LA Trade Tech, Exposition Park and the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. Further entertainment near The Lorenzo includes the renowned Staples Center, LA Live, the Music Center and the Disney Concert Hall. In addition, the site is directly adjacent to one of the 19 stations on the future Expo Line, which will be the first mass transit line to connect Downtown Los Angeles with the Westside.

Paving the way for all future student housing developments, The Lorenzo will offer an unparalleled variety of amenities available to residents. Community amenities will include: five libraries with computers and break out study rooms, a fully amenitized virtual gaming and arcade room featuring XBOX 360 and Wii, a theatre room with stadium seating and   karaoke features, a three story fitness facility complete with a climbing wall, a running track and an aerobic/dance fitness room. Outdoor features will include five rooftop sundecks with views of downtown, four resort style swimming pools with cabanas, three heated outdoor Jacuzzis, two indoor basketball courts with elevated joggings tracks circling each court, and a pro-style sand volleyball court. All apartments will be fully furnished with granite counter tops, brushed nickel hardware, stainless steel Whirlpool appliances, wood plank flooring in living and kitchen area and plush cut pile Berber carpet in bedrooms.  

Asset Campus Housing is proud to work with GHP Management in the lease-up of this new development and looks forward to introducing The Lorenzo as the premier student housing community in Los Angeles, California.

About Asset Campus Housing

Headquartered in Houston, Texas, ACH is an affiliate of Houston-based Asset Plus Companies, a third party property management firm specializing in real estate services for investors, developers, and owners. Asset Campus Housing manages a student housing portfolio of 65+ properties, exceeding 42,000 beds located throughout the United States. For additional information, please visit: www.assetcampus.com.

About G.H. Palmer Associates

G. H. Palmer Associates, established in 1975, is a diversified real estate company with an   aggressive commitment to the future of high-quality, investment grade real estate. The firm has been involved in a variety of properties as a general partner for acquisition of residential, commercial and industrial properties. To these partnerships, the company has contributed the creative and administrative leadership as well as the financial depth to assure each property’s successful operation and performance.

February is Apartment Career Month and the National Apartment Association has selected to partner with Asset Plus Companies in launching a program to market careers in the apartment industry to college students nationwide. UNITS, the most read magazine in the multifamily housing industry, featured an article highlighting why most college grads do not initially seek careers in the apartment industry.

 Many people, especially new college graduates, don’t realize the variety of careers offered by the apartment industry. Multifamily housing companies employ more than 1 million people. Reaching out to recent college graduates is not new to the industry. In fact, the efforts highlighted below are but two examples of the ways in which the apartment industry is reaching out to new sources of potential job candidates.

UNITS interviewed our very own Chief Operating Officer, Ryan McGrath, to find out what exactly Asset Plus is doing to successfully recruit college graduates to the industry. Mr. McGrath discusses the training technique in which begins way back when the student is a resident at one of our student housing properties. 

Often times, a resident will enjoy living at our communities so much that they will then apply to become a resident advisor the following year. Supervisors keep an eye out for young staff members who have a good work ethic, personal integrity and the willingness to learn. As of today, we currently have 13 previous resident advisors at our student housing communities, now working at our Houston corporate office.

We are proud to partner with the National Apartment Association in promoting careers in the apartment industry and support our industry’s endeavors in recruiting the top college graduates.

To read the full UNITS article, please follow this link: http://www.naahq.org/publications/units/2012/01_12

Thank you to everyone who has played a part in our 25 years of success!

Last Saturday, the Asset Plus team along with friends and family members participated in the annual Autism Speaks Walk located in Houston, Texas at Reliant Stadium. With the success of our 2010-2011 campaign to fundraise and raise awareness for Autism Speaks, Asset Plus Companies was featured as one of this year’s largest corporate sponsors. 

Autism Speaks is a non-profit that is dear to the hearts of many of our employees and their families; the annual walk is an opportunity for all of us to take a step in the right direction for advancing the research into the causes, treatments and a cure for autism.

Over 9,500 people were in attendance at Saturday’s walk and over $300,000 was raised at Houston’s Walk Now for Autism Speaks event.

With over 225 people in attendance, Asset Plus Companies celebrated its 25th anniversary with property managers, vendors, clients and the entire corporate office last Tuesday.

The evening was an opportunity for all three of the company’s divisions: multifamily, student housing and commercial, to celebrate 25 years of success together.

Multiple employees were recognized in front of their peers for their hard work and dedication this past year including: Property Manager of the Year, Rookie of the Year, Ambassador of the Year and Property of the Year.

Along with the awards presented, we also introduced Asset Plus’ most recent philanthropic endeavors with the non-profit Charity Water. Charity Water  is a non-profit organization bringing clean and safe drinking water to people in developing nations - 100% of public donations directly fund water projects.  

We will be supporting Charity Water company wide and look forward to raising over $100,000 with the support of employees, residents and clients by the end of 2012.  Look forward to receiving more information and material on how you and your property can help with this cause.

In the meantime, you can visit our company’s profile on the Charity Water website at: www.mycharitywater.org/25thanniversary and make your contribution!

Thank you once again to everyone who has helped Asset Plus Companies achieve 25 years of success; we are truly blessed to have such an incredible Asset Plus Family.

Our multifamily division was recently assigned management of five multifamily properties located in Baton Rouge and New Orleans, Louisiana. The five new properties under management add over 890 units to our multifamily division.  

We are excited to welcome Castille Severn, Clearmont Apartments, Oaks of Kingsbridge, Williamsburg and Yorkshire Edenborn to our Asset Plus team.

Asset Campus Housing recently received the Best Mobile Marketing Campaign – Off Campus award from the Student Housing Business - Innovator Awards . The ACH iPhone app was released in January of 2011 and since then has been a valuable resource to all current and prospective residents at ACH properties.

The judges on the SHB Innovator Awards committee noted “this is a great example of recognizing a new marketing channel and then exploiting it on multiple levels (rent payment, maintenance and notifications).  This iPhone app is just the beginning of a good start on using technology to drive traffic to properties.

The ACH team is currently getting ready to release version 2.0 of the student housing iPhone app with new and improved features that will surely peak the interest of prospective and currents residents.