Zillow Group is shining a spotlight on the best and brightest multifamily marketers across the country. These apartment industry pros have used Zillow Group Rentals to enhance their marketing efforts, and now they’re sharing their marketing best practices with us.

When Brian Miller took the reins as director of marketing for Berger Rental Communities, he was excited by having “a lot to do.”

His background in digital advertising and real estate, mixed with several years of multifamily experience, created an exceptional opportunity for Berger to revamp their marketing strategy.

In the two years he’s been with the company, he and his team have advanced the brand’s websites, evolved digital advertising for its properties and implemented a robust data and analytics program. And that’s just the beginning.

An end-to-end approach

Brian is a “strong believer” in everything working together to create a “rich content experience” for prospects and residents alike. For the vast majority of renters, that experience begins online and across multiple devices.

Once people find an apartment home they like, they continue to research it — first, online, with Google searches, community websites, Facebook and review sites, such as Apartment Ratings and Yelp, then in person with tours.

“I get a lot of satisfaction from delivering a positive user experience from start to finish,” Brian said. “The community needs to be appealing. Marketing extends into how our people communicate with prospects and  our residents. Retention is a big piece of it. You have to see it all the way through.”

When a Berger prospect makes the jump from digital to face-to-face interaction, Bill Nye, vice president of operations, ensures a consistent experience that exceeds expectations.

“It’s like a fast food commercial,” he explained. “A fast food company works so hard to promote its food. It looks fantastic in the ads. But then you go in, and it’s not appetizing. As a customer, you feel fleeced. At Berger, we promote a certain level of experience. When a prospect shows up at one of our communities, the face-to-face interaction has to match our online presence.”

By providing the on-site teams with extensive training and support, Bill, a 20-year industry veteran and sought-after speaker, ensures an outstanding customer experience.

“It starts with investing in our people — giving them the tools and showing them what success looks like,” he said.

Building the team

When Brian started at Berger, he was a department of one. He understood the monumental effort behind online reputation management, so he expanded, hiring a social media and reputation manager.

While he retains control over the brand, ILS listings and the overall marketing strategy, he works with regional managers, community managers and leasing consultants to implement each moving part.

“They all play a role in marketing to some degree,” he said.

Additionally, he and Bill hired a sales trainer, whose role is a hybrid between sales and marketing. She ensures the leasing teams know how to shop comps and perform market surveys, but most importantly, she knows how to give someone a tour and close the deal.

“She trains the on-site team to understand the experience we’re selling online and demonstrates how to manifest it in face-to-face interactions,” Bill added. “She shows the team how to manage its leads and convert.”

The business impact

The small but mighty team is making a tremendous difference in Berger’s business. Just a few months ago, a Berger community in Norristown, PA was one of the worst-performing communities in the portfolio, reporting low occupancy and high delinquency rates.

After implementing new sales strategies and tightening up its digital marketing, Berger raised the community’s occupancy by 15 percent, making it the third-highest in the company’s portfolio.

“That happened in 90 days, without using concessions and devaluing our product,” Bill said. “It’s a testimony to the entire approach we use of connecting the online image to the face-to-face experience. Our lead management numbers have never been better. Our approval rates, our conversation rates — all of those things are going through the roof.”

Today, the company manages a diverse portfolio of 28 communities, 23 of which it owns. The properties range in size from 29 homes to 694 and encompass conventional and student housing.

Brian has built a digitally savvy marketing team. His properties and websites are winning awards, and Berger was recently named Property Manager of the Year by a Philadelphia-based publication.

How the data tells the story

We spoke with Brian and Bill to learn more about how marketing and operations work together to deliver exceptional customer experiences and accelerate business. Here’s what they had to say.

Zillow: With all the areas that need attention and all the opportunities for marketing to continue to evolve, how do you prioritize?

Bill: We let the data tell us what needs to be a priority. We rely on that instead of relying on “it’s always worked that way in the past.”

For example, I came onboard a year ago. One of the first things I looked at was our approval ratings. They were unacceptably low, so that became a priority.

Zillow: What metrics are important to measure for your marketing?

Brian: When it comes to online reputation, we look at the frequency of reviews on an ongoing basis. We want people to share positive and negative experiences, so we can either celebrate or recalibrate.

We also look at leads to tour, leases from tours and approval ratings. Those are huge — they help us determine if we’re turning away too many people and if our standards are too high. Or, maybe our standards are too light, and delinquency rates spike. We identify sources that tend to renew, so we can set up our on-site teams to succeed. We look at cost per move in, too.

Zillow: How do you track all these?

Brian: We use a lead management tool. I have a unique tracking number and email for everything we do. It’s all time stamped, date stamped and source stamped, then logged into our system.

That’s where our teams work the leads from, and they update everything in there. That’s where the data starts. Then we can see things like how long we’ve been working the lead, how long before they move in and which sources are most effective.

Zillow: Speaking of effective sources, we have to ask: Was that community you turned around in Norristown using Zillow?

Bill: Yes, it was using Zillow.

Brian: We talk about data, and we talk about metrics, so internet advertising is a must.

When I came over to Berger, we had one community using Zillow. I called my sales rep and said, “We need to change this.” Once we got budgets in line, we made some moves. I am so glad we did. Now, the majority of our communities use Zillow.

Zillow: How have Zillow Group Rentals’ products been performing for you?

Brian: On the class A portion of our portfolio, Zillow leases produced the highest average rent of all our marketing sources — over $100 more than any other ILS. The average Zillow lead moved in quicker than any other online source as well. Our year-to-date average for move ins is 48 days. With Zillow, it’s 30.

Bill: When you cut that move-in date by 18 days in our portfolio, that’s about $600 more in rental revenue.

Brian: This is very important to know, because at the end of the year when we make our budget decisions, it can’t just be, “Well, this source had a dozen leases, and this one had a baker’s dozen.”

We need to decide which one to pick, because we have to cut budget somewhere. We can actually do the math. I’m paying 50 percent less for Zillow, yet I’m getting x amount of dollars more. It just makes sense. When you put the data like that, it just doesn’t lie.

Zillow: Do you know why?

Brian: I have a theory. When I go to Zillow, I could be a home buyer, or I could be a renter. But, if I shop for a home to purchase and find I’m not ready or I just want to wait, then I can look at homes to rent instead.

Zillow: Over half of renters (58 percent) are also considering buying a place.

Brian: I think people go from looking at homes to buy to being a renter, because Zillow has the options. It’s so easy. No other source really has that capability or that large of an audience to capitalize on it.

Zillow: Talk a little bit about how you target your prospects.

Brian: We have a variety of communities, so it really depends. I hate to make sweeping decisions on anything. Every time we take over a new community, we need to make an assessment.

We look at our applications. We try to understand where they were before we arrived. We look at ZIP codes and the average incomes of the residents. We use that information to pick the right ILS, or we use something a little more targeted like a Facebook ad campaign.