Hello, everyone. We're going to get started in just a few minutes, so we'll make sure everyone has the opportunity to join. Now, while we're waiting, everyone, please say hello in the chat. We'd love to see who all is joining us today. Hi. Hello, Nashua. Hello, Paul, Anita. Oh, man. Everyone's crawling on now. I love it. We are getting a number of people. We're gonna give everyone a few more minutes. We still have folks jumping on. Hello, Robert and Amy, Stephanie. Oh, someone from Denver. Hello. Hello, Clover from Denver, Florida, Georgia, New York. I love this. I love it. Alright, everyone. Let's get started. Welcome to today's webinar, AI plus The Dynamic Duo of Your Multifamily Marketing Plan. My name is Tracy Johnson, and I'm the CMO at Grace Hill. I'm also the moderator for today's presentation, and you're in for a great treat as today's panel of experts dive into strategizing the ultimate balance between AI driven efficiency and genuine human connection. Today's agenda is on the screen. Jen, if you can just go back one. Today's agenda is on your screen. We'll spend the next thirty minutes sharing, and then we'll wrap up with a live q and a at the end. So I think most of you are familiar with Grace Hill, and you may even associate us with industry best in class training and policies. But now and some folks don't know this. Now Grace Hill is so much more than that. Over the past few years, we've dramatically increased our technology offerings for the multifamily industry, including two of our most recent acquisitions, including Reelink video and virtual leasing tools and HelloData AI, an automated market analysis platform. We have complete solutions that improve the performance of your people, your property, and your company, and that's what we stand for. In addition to training and policies, we have mystery shopping, employee and tenant surveys, and now with the addition of Reelink, we have a full suite of solutions for marketers includes including resident surveys, reputation management, unit level video tours, live video tours, three sixty tours, all of this with approval workflows. So if you haven't seen Grace Hill lately, then you may need to check us out. So that's a little bit about us. So now let's dive in and meet our panelists. First, welcome to the virtual stage, Ellen Timmers, associate director of client success and and our Reelink expert today, Jamie Gorski, founder of CatchPoint Collective and cofounder of Journey Lens, and Siobhan Park, head of marketing at Reply. Thank you guys so much for joining us. Alright. So let's start off today's conversation with a question for the audience. Alright. Audience, are you ready? How comfortable are you with using AI? We want you to take a moment to answer this question, and then after you've done that, pop into the chat. We'd also love to hear what AI tools you're using. So answer the poll question and then feel free to pop into the chat and tell us all about the AI tools that you're using. I hear you, Stephanie. Chat GPT, HubSpot AI, Chat GPT, a lot of Chat GPTs, Elise AI, Chat GPT, Copilot, Birdeye, Gemini, Socie Genius, Leopro. Oh, a lot a lot from you, Stephanie. Thanks for that input. Chat GPT. Alright. I think we can close the poll. I think everyone's had an opportunity to do that. So how comfortable are you with using AI? We have some expert levels. Love that. Still learning. I would put myself also in that category. A little weary. That's okay. Thank you for answering. At least no one said, what's AI? Thank you guys for answering that. Let's get to our first discussion question. Are my panelists ready? We're here. Jamie, this one's for you. How does efficiency meet creativity when using AI? Yeah. I think we're in a really interesting point in our business, because of the AI tools and many that you all were mentioning and others, it gives us the ability because of the AI tool sort of being the behind the scenes engine, it's gonna free us up to be more creative and provide that human connection. And so I'm I am really excited about that, and we all know this. Right? I mean, we've been so busy. We didn't answer the phone. We couldn't get back to our customers. But now if we especially if we have some of these AI communications and we're allowing the, the communications to be done and the appointments to be set by these great tools, then that heavy lifting isn't on us and our teams. And then we can shape that story and really become very creative. And I think about this industry, which is such a good good industry, and we've had many leasing agents come in. Right? And they come in, and they're good at their jobs, and then we promote them to assistant managers. And what happens? They're not as happy because they love that connection. They love selling that home, helping someone find their home. Well, now we can actually sort of uplevel those positions and give them the ability to really connect and, again, let that heavy lifting be done by AI. So, Tracy, I'm, like, beyond excited that that I think we'll really be able to do a much better job than we've ever done before and really make that human connection. And I think, again, we're we're multifamily. You know? We just don't lease apartments. We provide homes, and I so I think it's very important that we do that. Right. I I couldn't agree more. Ellen, do you have anything additional to add there? Yeah. Absolutely. I think, specifically, in our industry, we're at a really great time where we're able to use AI to, like Jamie said, enhance our team's roles and not replace it. We know AI is here. It's here to stay. It's not going anywhere, but AI is not coming for your job. AI is here to make it so you can actually do your job really efficiently. I look at the tools that are already out there in our chatbots on your websites and our tour schedulers where they're able to do that basic starter level top of funnel leasing for you so you can focus on the prospects that are in front of you. You can focus on your residents. It's going to take away that are in front of you. You can focus on your residents. It's going to take away the back and forth of scheduling an appointment. It's gonna take away the back and forth of asking about availability and pricing. If you've been on-site for five minutes, you've taken a phone call where someone just calls and says, how much is your two bedroom apartment? Well, we don't wanna start the conversation that way. Right? That's not great leasing. AI really comes in and is able to answer those questions while pushing people through the funnel. So you're not sacrificing your time while you're qualifying your prospects. So I think we're seeing that so much, again, in those chatbots, those tour schedulers on your websites to really push people down the funnel. And then you're able to make better content because you're able to take the time a little more on the areas that it really matters. I look when it comes to video. Of course, that's what I know. That's what I preach. Right? We're now able to use AI and use our tools to make video faster and smarter, not to replace our teams, but so we can answer those questions and get more personalized in our content because the really easy top of funnel repeatable stuff is being done for us. We're not having to do that. We can then take what we have and really add that personal touch because we're not spending time going back and forth in eight emails trying to schedule one tour. We're really able to streamline our processes. And like Jamie said, letting our team shine in the areas that they're interested in instead of just giving repetitive tasks and hoping for the best. And then we're able to use AI to kind of back our human powered content. We've all seen those emails that we know or those LinkedIn posts or whatever, right, that we know are, like, so clearly AI written and not a human was in sight. And I know I've used Gemini and chat GPT to help me write an email before, and I read it back and I'm like, I would quite genuinely never say this. There is not an ounce of Ellen in this email, and it does a great job of getting my ideas off the ground. I used it just this morning to help me when I didn't know where to start on something, but I read it back and I was like, well, that's not how I would say it, but now I know what I'm trying to say. I can brain dump into AI and then take it and make it Ellen. And I think that's a huge benefit of all of these tools is you're able to make it really human without having to take as much brainpower. Sometimes I just stare at an email and think, how do I even get started on this? Well, I can do that for me now. It's really great. I use that quite genuinely all the time when I can't just get my thoughts out. But you're able then to take that AI powered content and create Allen powered content with it faster, easier, and without banging my head against the wall because I could not get my email out today. Oh, that is great perspective, guys. Thank you so much for that. I will I do wanna just give offer a one quick reminder. As you're thinking of questions, feel free to go ahead and pop them into the q and a or even the chat. We'll we have folks monitoring both. I've got both up here on my screen, so if you see my eyes going back and forth, that's what's happening, but go ahead and pop in your questions. At the end, we're gonna have a q and a time. Okay. So let's get started with question number two. Are you ready? Why authenticity matters more than ever? Alright, Siobhan. Can you offer your thoughts here? Yeah. Absolutely. So this is something that I really strongly believe in as a marketer. I think authenticity is what is what actually gets you to connect with people. I think few years ago, we did this renter persona ebook. We did a whole bunch of research into the generational characteristics of boomers versus Gen z versus millennials. And just I think we did that ebook maybe the first time around in two thousand nineteen. And the first time we did it, what we found was that a lot of generations were calling for automation. They wanted stuff quickly, efficiently. They wanted it as soon as possible. And then what we have found over time is that need is still there, but that need has evolved, and that need has evolved into personalization, authenticity. They don't want the same response that ten other people are gonna get. They wanna get information, and they wanna get responses, and they wanna get interactions that are personally authentic to them, especially when it comes to something as important as where they're gonna live and what they're gonna call home. So what we're seeing is kind of that evolution just as the technology has evolved. You know, back in two thousand nineteen, it was not the easiest thing to do a whole bunch of personalization. A lot of these tools didn't even exist. So, you know, as marketers, we were doing what we could back then. But then as the technology has evolved as quickly as it has, people are now expecting. It's not just a want. They're expecting that level of personalization and connection to a wonderful point Ellen made. Some of these tools I mean, a lot of people, they're only a few months, maybe a year into using these tools, but how good are all of us at seeing something and going, that's AI? Like, we just know. Right? Because we know it doesn't sound like the person or it doesn't sound like the brand that we're interacting with. And so people are really quickly able to tell what's AI, and we can even we might be able to tell that it's AI, but we can appreciate it more if it feels more personal, if it feels like it's not just a copy and paste repeat thing. So something that I preach really heavily is really trying to infuse your personality into your content, whether it's videos, whether it's social posts, LinkedIn, emails, whatever. It's really about getting the tools that you're using to work better and more efficiently for you. Something that I'm a huge fan of prompting, I've kind of coached and helped a lot of people around me is the the importance of prompting. I don't know if everyone understands how important that is, but the first prompt I make for the rep like, when I made the first reply prompt in chat GBT, it took me an hour. I was putting in our brand guide. We have a culture code. I was putting in the phrases we use, the things I we love to say, the things we don't like to say, examples of content. I mean, that prompt went on and on and on, but what it got back and returned were things that sounded like reply. I did the same thing for my personal LinkedIn. I'm very type a, so I was putting in my personality type, my MBTI, like, everything I could possibly think about myself. I was putting in there. So it's a little bit of a short term investment to spend all that time and energy, but what you'll get in return is authentic content that's going to sound like you or your brand, your property, whatever. And that is what's going to con people are going to connect more. They're gonna have better interaction. I that's just something I truly believe in. So yeah. Thank you so much for that detail. And by the way, if you heard a little bell, that's me keeping our speakers on time. So sorry about that. Shavon, you were not over time. That was from the previous question, so we're all good there. Alright. Jamie, do you have anything additional to add? We have about three minutes for you. Yeah. I think, and we've seen this in the industry. You know? We used to talk about model apartments, and then we'd say nobody wants to see the model apartment. They wanna see the real apartment. It's almost the same here too. Right? We wanna create impactful content, but that doesn't mean it has to be perfect. It has to be personal, and it has to be real. And so AI can help us create that content, but we have to make it connect. And, you know, I I see, you know, even on your slide, you said renters are craving that connection, and more people are lonely than ever. And for us, if we can just again, it we provide homes. If there's an industry that should do it, it should be us. We should be reaching out, providing that connection. And and I think there's so many ways to do that. And you think about, again, if we've got, you know, the leasing AI tools really helping us, other AI tools helping us kind of think about content. But what if we're really attuned to what that customer needs? And they're, like, telling us that they're gonna be working from home. Okay. Well, why don't we share a video of how their home office could be set up with simple design tips? Or maybe they have a dog, and we have doggy days where we have on-site vets and grooming and photos. Why don't we send a photo I mean, a video of that? You got runners in your, your community, record and share a reel of the best local trail. So it can go on and on, but, you know, having that personal connection can make such a difference. I stayed at a hotel recently in Chicago. I was coming for a swimming race. It wasn't recently. It was in the summer. I wouldn't swim in the cold weather there. But and the hotel had really not very many staff. They had really gone digital, and you could feel it. You walk in, there's not a lot of people. But I didn't feel it in the way that I was serviced, including when I got to my room. There was a fruit basket and said, we know you're here for a race. We thought you might want something healthy. I I couldn't believe it. What? I mean, what a smart touch. Right? So I think that's what this is going to do for us. Again, all these great tools, they give us time to really, do a better job with our customers and really connect. I agree and focus on, you know, what really matters. Right? That's right. That's right. Alright. So we're doing great, guys. Let's move on to discussion question number three. So how do we create oh, here's a little stat. Eighty six percent of people say personal asset personalization impacts their buying decisions. We all know that. Let's go on to discussion question number three. How to create high impact with a personal touch? Alright, Shavonn. This one's yours. Yeah. So there's a lot of ways to do that. It really kind of depends on the type of content you're making. So, you know, whether you're tasked with making social posts, you're tasked with responding to prospects or leads, there's so many ways you can do it. I know one way that Ellen and I really wanted to talk about was a mutual customer that we had. So this was Dolben, and we actually created an integration. Sorry. Like, the chair behind me keeps, like, popping up. It's so distracting me. Sorry. We created a, integration on our property website. So we made the property websites for Dolby. We worked with Reelink. We made a really cool integration that on the floor plans page, it will now show a personalized video walk through of that unit. And what it does is it creates that really kind of special interaction for people when they're on the website to not just get the picture of a standard floor plan, but they're getting an actual walk through of available units to see what that actually looks like. Ellen, do you wanna add something onto that before Yeah. I think one thing to note here is we did this for Dolben, and it was honestly, like, comical how impactful it was, how quickly. I think it was I'm pulling up the number here, but a hundred and sixty three percent increase in property in property and unit specific video tour engagement just by getting the video integrated. And that's our top of funnel prospects. Right? That's the people that are just clicking on and seeing what there is to see. And we know if they're clicking through our websites, if they're staying longer on our websites, the longer they're on our websites, the more likely they are to convert to leads, the more likely they are to actually come tour your property. So if we're seeing a hundred and sixty three percent increase, imagine what that property saw in terms of increased leads. So it's just yes. It takes time to make these videos, but the beauty of them is we can get them up on your websites. We can get them up public facing, get people clicking into them. And then you can take this exact same content and add one clip to it and make it personalized. You can add a note at the beginning that says, hey, Jamie. I saw you were interested in Timmers Towers. That's my fake property I always use. Hey, Jamie. I saw you're interested in Timmers Towers. We would love to show you around. Here's that two c floor plan you were looking at. I'm here all weekend. Please let me know what questions you have. You just add that to your video. You're not creating a whole new video for Jamie, but Jamie thinks you created a whole new video for Jamie. Right? And Jamie feels like you just took such good care of her, and you already care about her needs. And if you care about her this much at the top of funnel, think about how much you're gonna care about her when she's the resident next door to the leasing office. And all we did was take this video that we've already put on a website that's already generating a ton of traffic and added one clip to make it personal. It's a huge impact from top of funnel all the way down. This is fantastic. So great. Alright. So guys, keep your questions coming in. We've got some questions coming in, so keep thinking about them. As you think about questions, keep putting them in the q and a section or in the chat. We're monitoring both. Alright. So getting towards the end here and our final thoughts, what do you what have we really learned today? Well, you can go to the next slide, Jen. AI is here to stay. It's not going anywhere. I think we all probably know that. We've all most of you on here are using some form of AI, so that's fantastic. And it's absolutely necessary for us to scale because we're not gonna be able to maybe add a whole lot of people or a whole lot of, technology in order to do that, and leveraging AI is the way to help us. Renters crave human connection. We've all talked about that. All the panelists shared their thoughts on that human connection, and I think we, just as humans, in our own daily lives, we see that same thing. We all crave that same thing. And as Ellen just shared, personalized videos convert, and they're easy to do. They're easy to do. They convert, and they're easy to do. And I know some that's something I can hear Jamie say, uh-huh, uh-huh, because she's super passionate about this part. So thank you guys so much for, listening to us today. We do have a few more things to do, and we're gonna talk about our q and a, so make sure you keep the questions coming in. I do wanna let our audience know that if your team is challenged in any way that Grace Hill is here to help, our experts are available for personalized demos and consultations after today's webinar. If you want to learn more about any of the Grace Hill solutions, you can take a moment and enter more info, Reelink, or more info, reputation management, or, you know, more info, training. If you want information on any of Grace Hill solutions, we'll be able to help you. So just type in the chat more info, Reelink, whatever it is you're interested in, and we'll make sure to get the right person in contact with you. So before we get to our q and a, I've got a couple of, thoughts about our upcoming events. Who is going to apartmentalize next week? Alright. It's a big week next week. So I would like to personally invite you guys to stop by our Grace Hill booth. We have some fantastic things going on in our booth, and we have, we have an experience. So just like Ellen would and, actually, Ellen will be there. We have a mini apartment in the Grace Hill booth booth this year, and our Reelink experts will be there, and they'll be able to show you how to actually shoot a video in five minutes or less right there in our little mini apartment, so it's going to be a really fun experience. We've also got some great swag. You can see the pictures there of our of our wine tumbler and our t shirts. We've got some great swag to give away, and you can enter into a drawing for a two thousand dollar vacation giveaway. And you didn't hear it from me, but Elvis may be in the building. So or at booth one two three five at our booth. So we've got some big things going, for apartment lot. So we hope to see you guys there. And we also have other webinars and live events coming up. Our next live event is going to be talking about Reelink. So you have to, are your well, I'll I'll just say this. Are your leasing strategies sizzling or fizzling? Well, if you join us for a live look at Reelink, our all in one video platform designed to help your multifamily teams, will be there. This panelist will be there to show you. You see Ellen again, to show you all about Reelink specifically. If you want to join the webinar, just scan the QR code here and go ahead and get yourself signed up. We are also giving away, some swag. If you attend the webinar, we're gonna be doing some live drawings, so you could win a Lululemon bag and a selfie light and a mic and a, like, a whole little video kit. So sign up for our webinar, which it comes in the end of June if you'd like to do that. We also have the performance summit. Our performance summit is our Grace Hill user conference, and it's coming up in October. We're, handling registrations today. So make sure that if you're interested in our performance summit, you go to our website and sign up for the the summit. It is our user conference. You'll hear about all the new Grace Hill things that we have coming out, and you'll also, get to hear from some other industry experts like doctor Debbie. She'll be there. There's a whole list of panelists or, speakers that will be there. Alright. So now let's get some q and a done. I am seeing so many questions come in. Let me take a look here. I hope you guys have enjoyed this webinar today. Let's see. We have some folks that would like some more information. Alright. I'm not sure who wants to take this question, but I'll ask, and then you guys, Jamie, Shavon, and Ellen, you guys can figure out who's gonna take it. Which AI is working well in leasing conversions? Anybody have any thoughts on that? I mean, I can there's some really great tools, and they're evolving. We all know it. Certainly, we've seen that Elise AI from the leasing side, those communications has done very well. And it's really transitioning from prompt based to really becoming more conversational, more personalized. It's a wonderful tool. I'm excited to see what funnel does because they've obviously done some changes. And, we know Yardi and RealPage are also launching products, but Elise AI is a great product. We're also seeing, any type of tour scheduler. If you're giving your teams the ability to schedule a tour directly on their website, there was numbers put out, I think, by Yardi or RentCafe, that showed that if prospects were given the choice to take an in person tour, a self guided tour, an agent led virtual tour, or a self guided virtual tour, they were picking agent led virtual, which is actually four like, forty percent were picking agent led virtual. But having a tour scheduler is huge in converting traffic, and we've seen really crazy numbers from out of people that will happily never call you and never talk to you until they show up in front of you in your office via a tour scheduler. So one of those tools, I think RentCafe has their own product. Kylie has a product. There's a bunch of them. But having something on your website where they can self schedule with an active calendar and choose their own tour type is huge. Helen, may I add something to what you said, which is slightly different, but you prompted it, which is one of the reasons and, Tracy, you said this, that I've been a fan of Reelink and I have, and I have, and I've taken it to several companies. And partly is because I could see if you did those virtual tours well, either being a video guided or a personalized video tour as we talked about or just a video tour. They're high converting. The highest converting tours that I had were virtual guided, not in person. The second highest was personalized videos that were sent. That was so shocking to me that that was even higher converting than in person. And so I think that's why I'm such a fan of this, and I think it's what is it? Convenience? What you know, there's you can really make it personalized. You can show them the real product. I I think too, when by the time that people contact us, they're already sold. Right? They're just trying to get over the finish line. So I think video and virtual tours are really helpful if done right. Awesome. Thank you, guys. We've got here's another question. This one might be for you, Ellen. What is the easiest way to upload a video from your phone when the system says it's too large? Well, I am biased, so I'm gonna tell you it's Reelink. But, actually, any I mean, you just wanna use the cloud. Right? We know that emailing links is really hard. Emailing, like, an actual m p four or video file is almost never gonna work. It's too big. It's gonna take too long. So you you need to get it in the cloud. If that's Reelink, we would love that, obviously, but it needs to be in the cloud. It needs to be digital. It needs to be accessible via some type of link because it's the files are never gonna be able to be downloaded otherwise. So, again, we'd love to talk to you about ReLink, but it should be something digital, something in the cloud that you can send a link instead of sending the actual file. Thank you. Alright. So here's another question. We've got a lot of questions, guys. I don't think AI is going to take our jobs, but do you see companies hiring prompt specialist? That's an interesting question. I I Paul wrote that. When it came in, I got so excited about it. I think it's so smart. Right? I mean, you think about yeah. Our industry is so changing. I think Paul's really bringing something up we should all be thinking about. And and, you know, it's funny. Even if you're not fully aware what to do, you know that that's important. So having someone that's an expert that can do that, I think it's I think it's a great idea. I was gonna say I've started to see a shift in looking for prompt building skill set. So, for example, I know it's not marketing, but even on the engineering side at Reply, when we're interviewing engineers to build out our products, one of the things our CTO is asking is asking them how to build prompts because that's just becoming a part of normal workflow. So Right. I'm seeing this increasing when I have friends interviewing for roles. I have more and more people talking about, companies that are actively evaluating people's abilities to build prompts because that's just a natural part of how work is going to be shifted from here on out. So I'm I'm definitely seeing that trend already. Awesome. Yeah. And I saw that someone else posted something in the chat about that too. So here's another question. Do self scheduling tours, do you get a high number of no shows? And this might be good for you, Jamie, since based off your experience with your clients and then your own experience with multifamily working in the in the Yeah. I think that there's a lot of things that you can do to to to make sure it's not as high. If you don't touch that lead at all, say that you only use AI tools and you only use the online scheduler and you don't reach out and do a warm touch, so to that customer before the tour, you can have a high percentage that don't show up. But if you just insert yourself, do that warm touch, introduce yourself, find out more about their needs, really prepare for that that tour for them. And and, again, it could be self guided. But just knowing that you've reached out, you will see your numbers become better and your conversions better. So not only we have more shows, but you'll have higher converting leads. So I think we're still in this place. Right? I mean, you can talk to some companies. AvalonBay has said ninety six percent of their leasing is all AI. All AI. You can talk to others that are sort of going, yes. We use a lot of AI, but we insert the human touch. And then you can, you know, talk to others, and it's more human touch with some AI. I think we're in this business still. We provide homes. We need that human touch and that connection. So as long as you do that, you can see your numbers improve. Thank you so much. Thank you for that. I think we've got time for maybe a one, or two more. Yes. We will send you the recording of the call and the presentation that will be sent out. Miranda, you would ask that question. Okay. So this one is specifically for Shavon. I'm an entry level marketing. What's the best way to use AI to enhance personalization in marketing and reaching new audiences? I absolutely love this question. I could probably I could do a whole other webinar on this. So I'm gonna encourage you to also scan the QR code and reach out to me personally because I'd love to talk about it. But the gist of it is that, for me, the best way is really using, AI to understand the initial wants of your customers and then using that to create content. There is literally a thousand ways you could do that, so that's why I said I could talk about it all day. But whether you have data at your feet, your tips, whether you have, maybe calls from, leads that have called in, like, you've got call recordings, using whatever you have available to maybe put that in the chat GBT and aggregate. So you ask it, hey. What are the most commonly asked things? What are people most interested in? And then you can even ask chat GBT. One of my favorite prompts ever is create this type of content to emotionally connect with my customer and just see what it spits back out at you, and it'll give you so much wonderful information. A little plug for reply. We also do have a brand new I didn't tell anyone ahead of time. We just released it today. We have a ebook with seventy plus chat GBT prompts that are more than just, oh, make social media posts. So, you can reach out to me. Go to reply website. That's we have great examples there too if you're kind of new to prompting and you're like, I don't even know how to level that up. But that would be my advice is using the prompts to really connect emotionally with your customers. I love it. Thank you guys so much. Thanks, Shavon. That was a great answer. We are all out of time today, guys. Thank you so much for all of your input and for your engagement in our webinar. Thank you to our panelists. We really, really appreciate you taking the time to prepare all of this. Don't forget, we have a lot of things coming up. You can see us next week at Apartmentalize. But until then, I hope everyone has a great day and thank you so much for attending. Bye everybody. Thank you. Thank you.
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