Asset Plus/Asset Campus team members attended the annual Student Housing InterFace conference last week along with 700 peers in the industry. The team took home the Innovatorawardfor Best New Development Over 200 Beds for the development of 25Twenty in Lubbock, Texas.
The Innovator Awards recognize the student housing industry's most original and successful developers, owners, architects and managers.
25Twentyis a compelling investment for Asset Plus/Asset Campus since the property is located in a public university market with solid enrollment growth and strong barriers to entry. Prior to the grand opening in July 2011, the team had successfully pre-leased the property to 100% occupancy for the fall 2011 academic school year.
25Twenty’s premiere location separates it from other student housing developments in the market. This development is located within walking distance ofTexas Tech Universityand the Jones AT&T Stadium. Residents are provided convenient access to parking in the adjacent 11-story Raider Park garage, which is a mixed used development with an open-air rooftop bar and ground level retail.
Asset Plus/Asset Campus designed this property to feature top of the line amenities including: a 15-seat computer lab, “Full Swing Golf” Simulator, tanning room, 1,800-sq.ft. fitness center, soft serve ice cream machine, two courtyards containing a sundeck with swimming pool, poolside hammock area, outdoor grilling station, pro-style sand volleyball court, competitive horseshoe pits and an outdoor fire pit.
With all the different means of communication available to residents on our student housing properties, YouTube continues to be a popular way to connect with the targeted demographic.
The Pointe at 3636, an ACH student housing property located in East Lansing, MI, recently used YouTube to invite residents to their upcoming Block Party. Not only did they inform residents about the event details (time, location, food, prizes, etc.) but they also used their property mascot, Pointy the Penguin, to help promote the event.
ACH student housing properties nationwide have different property mascots that are used to draw attention to their respective properties. Whether the mascots are walking around campus passing out flyers, being seen on the jumbotron at the university football games or making appearances on YouTube videos like such, they are extremely helpful during the leasing season!
We will share more photos and videos of different property mascots in the near future - stay tuned!
When welcoming a prospective resident to your community, there are 5 things that are essential to include in your property marketing video.
Captions.
Every slide, photo or employee needs to have a detailed caption. This helps prospective residents know which features are onsite as well as become familiar with employees' faces that they will be interacting with on a regular basis
Timely Transitions.
Often times we see videos that rotate photo frames too quickly. We recommend spending at least 5 seconds on each photo you highlight before transitioning to the next.
Music.
Nothing is worse than a beautiful video with smooth transitions and great photos, but has NO music. The video needs to have background music that is appealing to your target demographic - multifamily and student housing videos' music may differ slightly. Contact us if you would like to see further examples of our music selections on student housing or multifamily videos.
Call to Action.
A strong marketing video ends with a call to action. You want to keep the text short and sweet because chances are, if they are watching a video about your property - they don't much want to be reading about your property. A powerful call to action will include the property's phone number and website along with any current promotions.
Contact Information.
Every video you can upload includes an area to fill out information about your video - DO NOT overlook this step! This is where you can include all of your property's contact information AND your property's website URL. This will provide an easy way for prospective residents to find you if they do not make it to the end of your video, or if they like what they see in the first 20 seconds and want to contact you immediately!
Hosting a Casino Night at a student housing community is a great way to get residents, staff and the local community excited and involved with your property. Most of our student housing properties host a Casino Night at the beginning of the spring semester (usually end of January/early February) and attract a wide range of guests including: residents, non-residents, prospective students, community members and ACH corporate team members.
Spending weeks ahead of time planning the event, our staff is responsible for hiring a third party Casino Party Rental Company to bring in the poker tables, poker chips and professional card dealers and requesting local vendors to donate prizes for our attendees during the Casino Night. In the past, we had one property collect over $5,000 in donated prizes! Other essential elements to consider when planning a successful Casino Night include: food & drinks – must have some delicious hand food & bubbly soft drinks at all time during the event, decorations – follow a generic Casino theme and delegate your most creative staff member(s) to be in charge of cost effectively turning your property into the Wynn Casino, and lastly promotion – you have got to sell this event to not only your residents, but also their friends and the entire University student body. Promoting this event will be easy if you have everything planned and organized; you will be able to let everyone know the prizes they could win, the games they can play (Roulette, Craps, Poker, Black Jack, etc.) and what they will be served!
Our team at Gateway at Lubbock is hosting their annual Casino Night this coming Tuesday and has created a YouTube video to promote their event. Watch their creative promotional video below:
Domain at Town Centre, a new student housing development near West Virginia University, held its Grand Opening on January 25, 2012. The onsite staff as well as many corporate team members facilitated in making the event a success. With over 200 people in attendance, the Domain was able to achieve 100% occupancy for the Fall 2012 Academic School Year. Setting a company record for how quickly a new lease-up has been able to fill—ACH began preleasing the Domain in September, 2011.
Campus Circle | Tallahassee, Florida
Campus Circle, a new student housing development near Florida State University, held its Grand Opening on January 18, 2012. Over 400 visitors enjoyed food from a local vendor, music from a local DJ and free take home photos from a photo booth during the event. The positive turnout increased the new development’s popularity amongst FSU students and assisted in placing Campus Circle ahead of the market while going into the spring leasing season.
The Heights at Tallahassee, a student housing property located near Florida State University, often receives questions from their residents on what it is like to be a community assistant. The staff told us that they wanted to be able to provide feedback to their residents through examples, so they have created a series of YouTube videos called “True Life - I’m a Heights CA”.
Our community assistants attend university full time and serve various roles on a day to day basis; leasing agent, bookkeeper, mail-sorter, outreach marketer, community liaison and maintenance assistant. With their ability to manage all of these tasks while maintaining a positive attitude, these young adults are true role models for their peers as well as their corporate team members. We applaud all of our student workers and look forward to learning more about what it is like to be an onsite CA through the series: “True Life – I’m a Heights CA”.
According to Internet World Stats, over 78% of the United States population has access to the internet. This means that over 78% of the US population has free access to online reviews, ratings and opinions of both services and products that are available to consumers. With that being said, there is vast opportunity for our property managers and onsite team member to utilize the internet in communicating with future and current residents.
For this week’s video, our staff at 25Twenty in Lubbock, Texas, caught fever of the latest YouTube hit that is going on around campuses nationwide, and created their own version of the series called “Stuff 25Twenty Says”. This video features two minutes of basic one liners highlighting all of 25Twenty's amenities and reasons why they are the best housing in Lubbock!
Knowing what is going on at your local University is important for all off campus student housing communities, however, keeping up with what is popular online is just as imperative when it comes to managing resident retention. By being friends with your residents on Facebook or having them "Like" your business fan page, you are able to observe what is trending and popular amongst your audience. With this knowledge you can plan events and YouTube videos based upon the students' interests.
Our team in Lubbock demonstrates their familiarity with the Texas Tech market by creating clever videos like such and posting them on their Facebook Fan Pages. Kudos, team!
All of the multifamily and student housing properties that we manage are held accountable to host at least one monthly Resident Event.
Resident Events provide all tenants a time to meet their neighbors and their property management team. It is important that we as property managers not only provide our residents with a great place to call home, but also a place where the ENJOY living. These monthly events are free for residents and we encourage them to bring their friends and family members. Most events include free food, drinks, music and planned activities that involve everyone.
The team at Knights Circle made a YouTube video that gives you some "Tips For Throwing A Good Party" if you need some ideas, check it out!
The first commercial Christmas cards were commissioned by Sir Henry Cole in London in 1843 and featured an illustration by John Horsley (pictured below).
Over time, the images and distribution method of Holiday cards has changed dramatically. The World Wars brought cards with patriotic themes while in the 1950s there were many "studio cards" with cartoon illustrations and sometimes risque humor. In 1953, U.S. President Eisenhower issued the first official White House card.
Since then, changes in technology have assisted in the decline of the hand written Holiday Greeting cards. Consumers are now able to go online and personalize Holiday e-cards at no cost! In addition to sending e-cards, individuals and companies also have the ability to send real time holiday greetings to loved ones at any location due to social sites like Skype an YouTube.
This Friday's YouTube video features one of our student housing management teams wishing their residents Happy Holidays by interchanging the words to the "12 Days of Christmas"! Check out the video and let us know what you think!
This Friday we have a fun video from the team at The Domain at Tempe in Tempe, Arizona.
The Domain at Tempe is one of our student housing properties that features luxurious amenities like a 4,000 sq. ft. fitness club, exclusive tanning salon with stand up beds, a rooftop social lounge with firepits and a gameroom with pool tables, shuffleboard, and LCD TV's. In order to highlight all of their stand out amenities, the team created a short video that included ALL staff members dancing to the ever-so popular 90's hit, The Macarena.
Asset Plus Companies has one of the industry’s lowest supervisor to property ratios: 1-to-6 for multifamily properties and 1-to-4 for student housing properties.
