The Great Debate: Local SEO or GEO for Multifamily Marketing Success

We are here. Okay. We are live. Hey, everyone. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hi there. People are filtering in. Alright. Welcome. Welcome. We'll give everyone Ashley, let's give everyone another couple of minutes to to join. So we're gonna fill the the time, this two minutes because it makes it feel like forever. So did everyone watch the Oscars? Oh, yeah. We did. That was a fun time. Yeah. It was. I did really like Ariana Grande's dress. Like, it was really pretty, I thought. Yeah. Their song was beautiful. I think I've had it on repeat a couple of times. Just so soft and pretty. It was so good. I loved that movie anyway. So Oh, it was fantastic. I love how her fashion is almost giving an Audrey Hepburn nod these days, which, like, there's a rumor she could be in a film like that, which I would just love. Oh, I love that. Adam She's so talented. Adam Sandler's, dress was pretty good too. Right? That was hilarious. Yeah. Oh, let's be real. That's all of us on our off camera Yeah. Live from days. That's yeah. We may have our basketball shorts on right now. Right? So We might. You never Do I sit down? I may or may not have shoes on right now. I love that. Conan did a really good job, though. Yeah. I thought he did a really good job too. Yeah. I thought so too. So I think it was I thought it was good. Alright, Ashley. Where are we? Is it about time? I think it's about time. We're seeing where everybody's tuning in from. So if everybody can let us know because we have a lot of people from Texas, and then we'll get it going. I think we're ready. Okay. Alright. So Okay. Let's get started. Welcome, everyone, to our great debate live event. Today, our panelists will be debating, discussing the pros and cons of SEO versus geotargeting, and you'll hear thoughts on leveraging each of these in your own marketing strategies. My name is Tracy Johnson, and I'm the CMO for Grace Hill, and I'll be your moderator today. My goal alright, guys. Panelists, remember this. My goal is to keep everyone playing nice in the sandbox as they as you guys debate it out. I'm just kidding. This is gonna be fun. So let's dive in. Next slide. Today, we will cover a series of important questions relating to SEO versus geo targeting, and our hope is that you'll come away with some great information that will drive better ROI results, for your efforts. We'll also have a few poll questions along the way, and we'll wrap up with a live q and a. We will be monitoring the chat, so if you have questions, please feel free to enter those, and then we will be sure to answer them as time allows. We should have some time at the end to answer some questions, so definitely put those in the chat. Alright. Let's now introduce you to our esteemed speaker panel today. First, we have James O'Loughlin with Pixar Digital, a digital marketing agency based in Cincinnati, Ohio. James is the CEO and founder and has over twenty years of experience with digital marketing and SEO specifically. That might be a hint as to which side he's on. James is focused on the cutting edge of what's next, and he brings that enthusiasm and knowledge to every client, and I can attest to that. Grace Hill is a client. Fun fact about James, I thought this was really cool. He bought his current house with funds earned from cryptocurrency back before it was cool. Next, we have two multifamily veterans. Katie Mancuso Rice is an accomplished multifamily marketing executive with over a decade of experience leveraging data driven marketing strategies to drive growth and optimize financial performance. Formerly the vice president of sales and marketing at JVM, she led initiatives that bridged corporate leadership with community teams, enhancing occupancy and customer experiences through strategic digital marketing. Katie also has a passion for running and she is chasing the seven world marathon majors and will be lacing up for her sixth marathon this fall, and each year she runs for a cause. I thought this was super cool. This year, she will be running for the Chicago based nonprofit, the Danny Did Foundation. And last but not least, we have Tracy Cherry. Tracy is a multifamily marketing leader with over twenty years of experience in leasing training and community engagement. As the marketing director at any property management, she develops strategic campaigns, maximizes lead generation, and strengthens resident retention through innovative outreach. A skilled trainer and public speaker, Tracy equips teams with the tools to succeed while ensuring alignment with their organizational goals. Tracy's favorite job in the world is being a mom to her three teens, and in her spare time with three teenagers, I'm not sure there's much spare time, but with her three in her spare time, she operates a children's volunteer program working with kiddos ages five to seventeen, teaching them the the importance of giving back to others, which is really good with where we are today. So go to the next slide, please, Ashley. As we get started alright. Is everybody ready? Let's take a quick poll. How do you learn about marketing trends in multifamily? How are you staying educated? Alright. Answering. The right answer is webinars. Yeah. Right? They're doing well as about to vote, but the panelists can't vote. So Yeah. Right. Do you have some results here, Ash? Yep. Alright. I'm gonna end the poll in five seconds. Five, four, three, two, one. Let's see. Okay. Let me share the results. Can everyone see them? Can you guys see them? Alright. Hi. Brilliant. Thank you. Multifamily insiders. That's a good one. Love Brent and the things that they're doing there. Webinars. Good answer, everybody. Good answer. Alright. Thank you, everybody, for your feedback. Alright. So let's get started. Are we ready? Are you guys ready to rumble? It's alright. Alright. Okay. So before you answer this first question, I want you guys all to know, I didn't tell you this until just now, but I have this little trusty buzzer, and this is gonna keep us on track in case it gets too rowdy. So alright. This first question is for all of you. Can you each define how you see SEO and geo targeting playing a role in multifamily marketing today? Why should marketers care about one or both of these strategies? Katie, do you wanna start? I would love to. Alright. So I will I will preface as a slight spoiler. We should be caring about both of these. We should be knowledgeable about both of these. But with my background, SEO is the foundation of long term cost effective marketing strategies. You wanna ensure your properties are visible for your renters, and we're talking about both new renters and renewals alike. So that way when they're searching for apartments, their amenities, what neighborhood they're moving to, if they're staying in a neighborhood, that you're always readily visible to that customer. Geotargeting is absolutely an important, so you need to make sure that you're keeping a pulse on this strategy because it's gonna also help kinda that momentum. But SEO is really gonna be building that credibility, the trust, and that sustained organic traffic. And there are gonna be a few different ways we talk about this later throughout the day on, like, how you do that because it's so much more than keywords. You gotta think about video content. You gotta think about reviews. There's a lot of different components. So know that when we're talking about SEO, it's not just those keywords that you're looking at. That's right. Great great answer. Great insight. James? Well, that's a hard act to follow because I do believe I do believe in, you know, SEO sort of at the spirit, but GEO can give you immediate results when you need results and you can't wait around. So I think that, you know, if you have properties, you know, that are just sitting sitting vacant or you need to make people aware of an immediacy, that's not something that local SEO will handle for you. And you can get real time results. You can do hyper targeted ads to, you know, on campaigns. And then you can see these results in near real time. What are people clicking on? Where are they going? What are they interested in? And I think it's, you know, offers, flexibility, and it's it's really perfect for mobile. Because a lot of people are gonna be searching on their mobile device. Not that SEO isn't, but I just think that, yeah, there is an and when there is an immediacy, you're not gonna get that with SEO. Okay. Great. Alright, Tracy. Yeah. Totally agree with both. Yeah. Both of you guys. I agree. I think that SEO and GEO are like the dynamic duo of multifamily marketing. Right? You really have to have a strategy in both because SEO means you're in front of them before they even know what community they wanna live in. You're talking about reviews and credibility and, geotargeting. It's kind of the secret sauce in getting in front of someone immediately and who's actively looking in your area. So it just together, they make sure that you're not seen. They make sure that you're top of mind and you're first. Awesome. Alright. Great information. Alright. That was that was really, really good. Alright. So let's go to question two. Okay. This one's for Katie and James. Alright. Are you guys ready? Now be nice. We're ready. SEO is often seen as a long term investment while geo targeting delivers faster results. How should marketers decide when to prioritize one over the other? James. I think it goes down to, you know, comes down to immediacy. I agree that SEO I like to say it's like investing in bonds. You're gonna get long term dividends, but you don't know when you're gonna cash out on them. With the investment in g geotargeting, you know that you need something right now. There's an immediacy to the problem, and you can invest in that. And you can see with with the tools that are available, to you, you can see a return on ad spend. You know, ours is somebody, you know, filling out a form? Are they making a call? Are they doing all those sort of things? You can see every sort of ad platform is gonna allow that to see where, you know, where these things are working efficiently. It also comes down to really having a good campaign or campaigns that you're delivering to your audience. You're trying to make them convinced that, you know, you have the property that they want. And you really you know, to do that effectively, you know, you really need to be multimedia in that. You really need to have tours and, you know, all you know, video tours and just all the information right at somebody's finger, fingertips to make that decision. And, again, I'll go back to the data. The data is gonna help you determine, oh, I spent x amount. I got this many clicks. I got this many leads, which you're really not gonna see in SEO. You will see it over long term. But if you need to do something immediately, you know, geo geotargeting is gonna be your be your, channel. Okay. Alright, Katie. Thought? Well, I completely respect and agree. I really wanna think through the lens of, like, do you want a quick fix? Are you trying to build something that's delivering consistent results and proactive results? And stop having those conversations of like, oh my goodness. We're not leasing. What is happening? How do we fix it right now? So I'm gonna use an analogy Tracy shared earlier. I'm a runner, so I use running analogies all the time. I'm training for a marathon, right, in the fall. I'm starting to train now so that way that race day is gonna be sustainable, enjoyable, effective, and I'm able to walk the next day. So think of it a little bit that way about SEO. Geo targeting, like James shared, it's gonna generate those immediate leads. But once those stop or once certain campaign stops, the results can as well. So SEO, on that other hand, that's a consistent foundation. It's compounding over time. It's relevancy. It's continuing to show your rank. That's why it's really important. Do not set it and forget it. Then it's not going to maintain that relevance relevancy for those consistent results. So keep at it. I always think long term investment, SEO is gonna be, that game changer for you, but you do need to include that geotargeting strategy in order to be successful. So I'll just say it depends, but I'm always gonna be the long game and the long term sustainable fix on my end. Okay. Awesome. That that's great. Great information, guys. Alright. So now let's go to question three. Alright. This one is something that's near and dear to my heart. This one's about limited marketing budgets, something we can all relate to. With limited marketing budgets, which we probably all have at some point, how can properties evaluate the ROI of SEO versus geo targeting campaigns? And we've talked a little bit about this already, but I think it'll be good for you guys to elaborate. Is one strategy more cost effective over time? And I think how about Tracy and Katie for this one? Tracy, do you wanna start? Yeah. Absolutely. Katie and I can talk marketing budgets all the time in ROI. Right? We had a conversation this morning of, like, hey. If this is our conversion ratio, we need triple the leads. What is that gonna take? And I'm like, triple the dollars. Right? So, I think that's important. But SEO is like planting a garden. So I'm, like, really big on that. But it does take time to grow. But once it does, it's like, Katie, you can't set it and forget about it. You have to nurture it. But it consistently brings in that organic traffic without the extra cost per lead. But on the other hand, geotargeting is like flipping that switch on and you're ready to go. You really get immediate results from that, targeting in real time, but it comes with a price. It's a little bit pricey. And then is it the best strategy for your teams? And sometimes it's really the mix of a mix of both. But using geo targeting for quick wins and SEO for long term, that's the way to go. And then tracking your leads and measure conversions like James was talking about earlier, you really have to watch those and adjust as needed to get the most out of your budget. That I I couldn't agree more. That's that we talk about that all the time on the Grace Hill side as well. Katie? I I I would say I'm gonna completely agree with Tracy on this one. There's not much debating here. But what I wanna encourage any of the marketers in the room, whether you're a decision maker, whether you're on-site evaluating leasing and marketing, or whether you're in the corporate office. The biggest thing I wanna encourage everybody, think of of marketing. And in this case, SEO or geo spending. Think of it as an investment and not an expense. And in order to educate those around you on that, you gotta empower them with that data. What do those KPIs look like to the right audience? I'm gonna use another analogy, so stay with me. We've got strawberries, and we've got jam. I don't know if you can fully see these. Mine's chocolate covered because I love chocolate. Who doesn't? So your marketers, we're gonna look at the really nitty gritty KPIs. We're gonna look at impressions, click through rates, queries. But your asset managers, your executives in the c suite, they care more about the jam. What is the rent growth? What is the retention? What is, applications, leads? I also wanna think about more leads doesn't always mean more leases. So what is the quality of those leads? Have you had a strong SEO and geo targeting strategy? It's actually really good for those leads to go down. It's less work for your teams because you're getting the right people in the door for leasing. So we we definitely rubbing our pennies together. Tracy and I probably could pull our hair out talking about that. But Mhmm. Once you flip that script into that investment, you're really gonna have much easier easier conversations to get more dollars in the end to do the array of campaign strategies that you want. Awesome. Yeah. And I couldn't agree more. We we talk about that all the time at Grace Hill on my marketing team. We're always trying to get get more. We were just talking about targets yesterday. So, alright. So great information. I think I'm starting to see a trend here, but maybe not. We'll see. How's the chat coming, Ashley? Are are folks providing The chat's yeah. I think, Katie, you were just talking about this because Mike asked a question about which is better for driving qualified traffic that will convert to leases because I think that there is this constant push pull of quality leads versus quantity. So what are your thoughts on that? So what I what I like to always think when you're having quality lead conversations, think of it as when is your campaign trying to convert. Just because someone isn't ready to lease today doesn't mean they're not going to be leasing later out. So I I think as long as you are investing in well optimized website, hyperlocal content, so that's both SEO and geotargeting, and then strong reputation management, It's really more of a not that not set it and forget it that's going to help you drive those consistent quality leads. If you are only investing in spot fixes with geotargeting or spot fixes and changing your SEO strategy way too often, that quick fix is actually gonna cost you more and get you those unqualified leads. So, really, the name of the game is, like, staying on top of it, investing when you need to invest, testing. I like test AB testing is fantastic. Always seeing what's going to work and really analyzing those results, sharing those results, and not being afraid to fail, which is really, really scary in leasing season. So if you're always proactive and testing these different SEO and, geotargeting strategies, you'll know what works and doesn't work for your audience. I think the playoff of that, the the one thing is when somebody is in market or, you know, they're ready to lease, they're ready to be engaged, The SEO requires somebody to be actively searching and looking Mhmm. Where the geotargeting, you can give subtle reminders. Hey. We exist. This is the place for you. We're great. Look at our pool. Look at our hot tub. Look at all this. You know? So you're reminding look how close we are to these places. So unless somebody is actively going to Google and searching, or we could talk about chatbots too, but that's a whole separate subject. Next webinar. Yeah. Yeah. They want that. Next webinar. But, you know, that is where push marketing is, you know, gonna help you when somebody is in market. And if they, you know, they visit your site, you can begin to retarget them and make sure that they are reminded that you exist. You can retarget them. And then picking the channels that you retarget, maybe it's Meta, maybe it's LinkedIn, maybe it's TikTok, maybe it's programmatic, maybe it's in podcasts. But you can you can continually to remind people, and it takes at least seven touches for them to know that you exist. Thank you. Thanks, guys. That was really good. Alright. So now let's go to question four. What and this one is going to be for Tracy and James. Alright. So you guys ready? What are the biggest challenges marketers face when implementing SEO or geotargeting strategies and leasing teams understanding the ROI? How can these hurdles be overcome? I think it's simple. I'll take that. I'll go for it. Sorry, James, to interrupt. But Go for it. Feel strongly about but I think it's really important to educate our teams. I sat at a meeting this morning to try to talk about why, adding money into Google is not an immediate turn for getting fifty pieces of traffic this week. Right? So I think the biggest challenges is making sure that everyone knows about your spend. So SEO can feel like a long term game, and geotargeting requires a strategy to avoid wasting your money. So the leasing teams don't see the immediate impact of SEO, which can make it hard to get buy in. Right? So the key, again, talking to them, showing them what their marketing spend is, and then real life examples about how SEO drives business, and organic traffic to their property. And some of the things that we use here are are Google Analytics, any ILS dashboards. We use Knox, so it's a CRM reports that we use, or any call tracking software that's really important to show them what's coming in, where did it come from, and how we close that. So I think when we help our teams understand the why behind the strategies, they become our biggest advocates, and they start understanding our why. And that's when the magic happens. I I a hundred percent agree with that. Jay Yeah. I think a lot. I'm gonna use another analogy. I'm I like running. I'm gonna go into cycling. I do a lot of what's called, endurance cycling. In fact, I'm signed up to do a four hundred mile, bike race in Arkansas in April, and this is called it's it's an off road race. So one of the things that I need to do is pick the right, technology. You know? I'm not gonna show up to that race on on a road bike or, you know, or a or a tricycle or something like that. I need specific technologies to help me, you know, get up these mountains. You know, it has forty five thousand feet of climbing, so I need the right gearing. It's off road, so I need the right tires. The analogy I'm trying to make there is you need to determine what channels work best for you. So you need to pick the the technologies that are gonna work best and, you know, that are affordable. You know? Part of my decision making process is, you know, what can I afford? I can't afford, you know, the, like, the the best of the best of the best stuff. But what what technologies can I afford that match my budget? You know, you know, pinching these pennies together. And then what are gonna deliver the best results? A lot of times, I recommend, you know, that people start in multichannels. You know? Is it gonna be Meta? Is it gonna be LinkedIn? Is it gonna be TikTok? Is it gonna be, Axe? Is it gonna be any of these, you know, retargeting? Is it gonna be programmatic? And start with your limited budget, similar campaign so you have similar messages within all of them, and see which one is getting people to your front step. You know? And then what, you know, the next leap is, are they in the top of your funnel? Because that's ultimately what you wanna do within that. And within those, you're gonna also wanna do some AB tests for, you know, similar image, different words, similar words, different image. You know, all of this is about optimization of of, you know, the channels that you're using. And I think somebody asked a question about, like, a high bounce rate in chat, and I think this really goes in line. You need congruency. You need congruency with what you're offering somebody to the landing page that they're looking at. So just I mean, a simple example would be, you know, I wanna get my dog trimmed, and I I googled that or I saw an ad for that. And I end up on a just a general sort of pet grooming page. You know? That's not as specific as the benefits of, you know, getting your dog trimmed at Acme dog trimmers. Right? So you really want to have campaigns that have corresponding landing pages that are congruent to the messaging. So you'd get that little nibble with somebody. They're like, oh, I'm interested. Now when I go to the landing page, you really want to embrace them with, you know, all of your your brand and your messaging that is, related to that campaign. Okay. Thank you. That was that was great insight. Alright. Next question. Hey, Tracy. Before we move on, I'm gonna ask you a question, James, because we got a question specific to the panelists here. And since you were just talking about tools, I think that this is applicable to what we're talking about now versus holding it towards the end. So I'm gonna throw a curve ball if you guys wanna start brainstorming. The question was asked by Claire. Can you address specific examples of g GEO efforts and what vendors you use for that service? James, I remember you talking about direct mail campaigns and then also, like, TV streaming ads. If you wanna maybe touch on that really quickly or if there are any other examples. There is a a a super cool company that I'm starting to use. It's called NaviStone, where any visitor to your site, they do on demand printing where they will send a postcard to the visitor with seventy five to eighty percent accuracy. Sometimes they say ninety percent. So that's a cool service. Also, there's a lot of different programmatic, display companies out there that you you essentially, can do, geotargeting or foot traffic attribution where within five meters, you can target somebody that's actually walked on your property. You can use an exclusion list that you remove all the emails of people that, you know, have been there. So you could you could really target people, with that foot traffic attribution. You could, yeah. So those would those would be, two of the things. And I think retargeting is huge, where you just wanna retarget visitors to your site that you because you know that they're they're interested. And I would change the messaging just a little bit, you know, because it's not a first touch. It's sort of a second touch to sorta reinforce what they might be interested in. And I'd love to add I actually wrote down, Tracy. I I loved the quote that you said, so I jot it down. Like, have your teams know the why to understand the ROI. And and thinking through that lens, like, James, in your analogy, you shared it too. You know, we're rubbing pennies together sometimes. Or if we're evaluating investing in something, we're determining, okay, what's the offset cost then? What is what am I getting rid of to afford this? So to kinda answer some of those product tools, I'll say, I'll I'll put my geo targeting and geo hat on for a second. So some of the tools that I've used within our industry, that also creates some team bonding, hyper local video content. So I'm a huge advocate of real link. It's no surprise whether often you'll see, like, building tours of your apartment, building tours of amenities, building tours of team building. But, like, let's take it one step further. Where are your residents going to grab coffee every day? Where are they catching the bus, or where are they finding parking? What is that hyperlocal content that you can capture and involve your teams? Because at the end of the day or let's say budget season, sometimes our leasing teams are against our marketing teams. And it's like, why is marketing spending so much money? This is ridiculous. So to go back to that analogy Tracy provided, if they don't know that that why, they're just gonna wanna cut those dollars or there's gonna be a divide and a silo between those teams. So if you empower them with tools like video content, if you empower them by analyzing reputation management, knowing what your customers are saying, knowing, what they like near and around you, those are those are some tools, that I like to use to involve the team so then you're not against each other in budget season. Budget season is stressful enough. Let let's get everybody on the same page and invest in tools, invest in technology, so that way we're implementing things, and the dollars we are spending are truly gonna drive those lasting results. Awesome. Tracy, do you have anything additional to add there? No. I agree with both of them, and this is a topic that we can touch on so much. But I disagree with Katie and James. It's just all about knowledge and what that looks like and what's the best for you as James used in his bike analogy, which I will tell you. I'm so and I ran twenty minutes on the treadmill this week, and I'm, like, high fiving myself. And you guys are marathons and bike races, so hats off to you, but I do feel that you just have to find what works best for you and make sure you're knowledgeable to share with your teams. Yeah. And I especially like what you said earlier, Katie, where, I mean, you just can't be afraid to fail because you you you you might. You might skin your knees, but you probably need to fail fast, right, and move and move on. So alright. Great great information, guys. Alright. Let's go into the next question. Question five. Real quick. Somebody asked about high bounce rates and just another technology. I recommend putting Microsoft's Clarity on your site. It it'll it'll do real time tracking of how people are are interacting with your site. It'll do recordings. You can add funnels and events there to see if they're clicking on stuff. And the best thing is it's free. So it's called Microsoft Clarity, and it's really, gonna give you some insights as to why people are leaving a page. Sorry. I I saw somebody ask that. That's okay. Thank you, Jane. Thanks for that thanks for that input. Alright. Question five. In highly competitive rental markets where properties are often similar, how does SEO or geotargeting help property properties stand out? And we're gonna give this to Tracy and Katie. Tracy, you wanna start? Yeah. I think this one was gonna go to James, and we'll definitely start on that. So in the market, it's no. That's okay. James and Katie. Sorry. Yeah. That's okay. Don't worry because I have a I have a spin for it. And it's really hard because we're both like, I'm very pro geotargeting, but I think we can both go back and forth on SEO and geotargeting. So as marketers, we can talk for days about this. Alright. Katie? Sure. So I think, you know, I'll give a good example. We're all saying luxury. Right? That's one of those words that we're all like, oh my gosh. Please don't use it anymore because everybody's luxury. And then what is luxury if we're all luxury? So you wanna make sure that you're really standing out. I'll I'll answer this through the SEO lens. How are you answering questions online, on your website, on your social channels before your renters are even asking them, before your prospects are even asking them? There are so few people that are actually stepping foot on-site to tour your property, if at all. We know there's a number of renters out there who are leasing site on scene. So how are we giving them the most accurate, the most in-depth, answers to the questions that they have? There's a number of different SEO ways to do this even beyond just an FAQ page on, your website or through the copy that you have. So making sure that you're really in-depth answering those questions. That's gonna help them also understand what the lifestyle is like at their property. That's a great way to show customer service is that you're going to anticipate the needs before they even have them. So I think that's one way to stand out showing your people. I love to show the leasing teams. I love to actually show the maintenance teams even more because let's be real. They're the heartbeat of our our properties. They're the ones that actually interact with our renters the most at once they're actually in the building. So let's show our team. Let's humanize this experience. Our prospects are making a decision where to live. That is such a in-depth deep decision for them to make. So when you're you you gotta think of the people when you think of both SEO and and geotargeting strategies, really at the core to make sure that that you can stand out and be the edge. Because service is really is what you can set apart regardless of the newest and latest and greatest amenities. I think so I was I'll just jump in because I was part of this question too. I think that in a really hypercompetitive market and, you know, this is gonna be a a a shout out to Reolink here for video. I know that one, you know, one of the panelists here or or part of this team, they are looking to move to Chicago. And specifically, yeah, specifically searched for Not a Yeah. For virtual tours, you know, and and virtual tour Chicago. So and I think that the data that, you can share, Ashley, and and I'm sort of right reading it is, like, you know, they're three times more likely to lease, and a lot of people are getting a lot less traffic on location because they're just viewing your property online. So, Ashley, what do you have to say about Reolink in in a highly competitive market? Yes. So I've I've told this story a few times. But when I moved from Indianapolis to Chicago, I obviously didn't wanna tour in person. I didn't wanna make three and a half hour track over there. So I and this wasn't just because I work for Reelink, but this was actually, like, a true authentic experience where I was aware of virtual tours. So I knew that if a property when I was typing luxury Chicago apartments into the search engine, If I went to that property and they didn't have a virtual tour, they wanna have a live virtual tour, I instantly cross them off my list of potential, communities to live at. And so that was my own experience than that. And my sense, I think, would be more SEO focused because I was coming from Indiana, typing that in on Google to identify which community to go to. But yeah. Great. Great insight. Great story. Alright, guys. Let's keep moving here. We've got just another few minutes. I see the chats are continuing to come in. Alright. So this question, James, we're gonna ask you to answer this question again. Are you ready? Sure. Builds visibility for those actively searching online while geotargeting hones in our renters new nearby. How do these approaches appeal to different types of prospects? We've talked a little bit about that. And when should marketers use each? Well, I I mean, to be clear, I'm I'm also a big proponent of SEO, but I'm I'm just here to battle it out for, geotargeting. And I think that, you know, I've sort of re reiterate reiterating, you know, what we've been talking about previously is just to determine the right channels, you should really try them with the message. But but before that, I think you need to establish your strategy and the personas of, like, the people that you're targeting to know who they are, to know their sort of incomes, to know their interests, to really hone in on who feels that your property is is desirable. And to understand that, then you can craft, these compelling, you know, messages to try in the different channels. I am not gonna say that one channel is gonna work better than the other. It's ultimately gonna be the persona that you're targeting and where they are most likely to, you you know, to to live. The reason, you know, because we're we're essentially what we're doing is push marketing. It's like old school TV radio where they would just market to everybody. Well, now you have all of these tools in your toolkit where you can say, okay. Within five mile radius of our location or within twenty mile radius. And this is somebody that likes things that are nearby, or they like to go to the restaurants or nearby, or or those interests that they might have, or they're into, you know, into gyms and you have a gym or whatever it is, they're sort of this persona that you're building, then you want to try and figure out which channel it's gonna work best in to pick that technology. And then you wanna write compelling campaigns that will appeal to them, will show off your property. Then you want going back to conversion rate optimization or CRO, you wanna build landing pages that will really speak to them. So as opposed to just showing the property, try to tell the story that they can relate to that will really when you're when you're approaching, you know, you're you're you're making these personas, imagine, like, shaking their hand and saying, this is what I think you would like here, as opposed to just showing a property. Right? Try to paint a picture. Try to tell a story because people are gonna make decisions with their heart versus just facts and data. I love that, James. That's that's really good. Katie or Tracy, do you guys have anything to add to that? I would I would just say, like, James, I couldn't agree with you more. I think, you know, when we're talking about how people feel, they're making that decision with heart like you're saying. That's why it's also so important to understand the brand that whether it's the brand of your entire management company or the brand of your individual property because that's gonna be a way that you curate that feeling before folks are on site. So I think branding is, I think just as important to be integrated in either of these campaigns. Like, know exactly who you are and almost even more so know who you're not. So that way you can really hone into that customer and give that feeling that you're trying to articulate or or help them experience. Mhmm. Love it. I totally agree. I mean, we talk about pulling at the heartstrings. That's really how it works. Right? James sees a new bike. Katie might see a new running shoes. I may see a new bag. Right? So what you look at it and you're like, this is great, but think about how much happens at home. Like, people have babies. They get married. They meet new friends. They get divorced. There's so many things that happen. Pulling at those heartstrings, telling those stories, presenting your property how you want to that fits in their lifestyle is exactly how you have to do it. And I think that, you know, to build off of that, like, reviews are really important for your, you know, you know, for your business to try and establish those reviews and get those reviews. And we actually see utilizing reviews and campaigns, you know, where we might pick a stock photo of somebody, but, you know, I absolutely love living here and. People trust the third party review as much as a friend. Mhmm. So I think that you're you know, what what you should think about in your marketing is, like, painting a story or picture of, you know, what the property embodies as opposed to just, like, twelve ninety nine, you know, six months, you know, just, like, the numbers. That's very important to people, but they're gonna make that decision from their from their heart. I love that you brought up reviews, Jane, because James, because if you think about it, our reputation is what people are saying about us when we're not in the room. This is what our prospects, our renters, everybody is saying about us. So you can really kinda give that story through those reviews. But then I will encourage, be open to feedback, be open to change, listen and embrace those reviews because there is oftentimes, when people leave good reviews, it's not because you only gave good service. It's also how you handled a bad situation because we're all human. We need to to lean in with our hearts too. So making sure that you're not only getting those reviews, but you're also listening to the positive and the negative feedback and acting on that because that'll show authenticity, which then will show up in your SEO and and geotargeting campaigns. Are you authentic? Are you accurate? Are you is the story you're painting really what is experienced? Your reviews is what's gonna paint that picture. Yeah. And I think, actually, the way well, two things. I know Grace Hill has a reputation management suite that's very helpful for this. But, secondly, when you unless you're requesting reviews, the people that only wanna leave a review is somebody who's, like, frustrated or mad. So you really need to try and generate those reviews. The other piece to this is how you react to the bad review is the picture that you paint for people that are reading this. Because a bad review is an opportunity for, one, you to, you know, reflect on your property or your organization or, you know, what you're offering. But the response to that is is is invaluable from the perspective that potential leasers reading that will be like, oh, yeah. They handled that. They're, like, you know, they're on top of things. They recognize the problem. They've addressed it. You know? Maybe it could be a legitimate problem, and you've just shown how you know, that you're the adult in the room, and they're like, oh, I wanna you know? I feel comfortable being here because they're gonna listen to me. Right. Right. Great, great information. Alright. We gotta move on to the next question. I was about to get my buzzer out. I'm I'm gonna move on to the next question right after this question. Okay. I think it's a follow-up here discussing. Katie, you were talking a little bit about PNC versus property level, and a good private question came in about that. So that's why I wanna touch on it real quest real quick. So Craig said, if a property of apartments are all located in close proximity to one another and we have a limited digital marketing ad budget, Is it best to market each property specifics website or direct all traffic to a single corporate website that allows all properties and portfolio level availability? What are your thoughts on that? Well, one, I will say you have an advantage if you're corporate website or if you have a hub of websites that'll feed out. A lot of property management companies don't do that yet or don't do that in-depthly quite yet. I think you it's also gonna depend on what your individual asset goals are. If you have if it's third party managed or if it's collective managed. At the end of the day, you really do need the success of every property. So I think I'd probably answer your question with a question, which my husband hates when I do, but it usually is what I do, is what are your occupancy needs and goals of each of those, not only today, but the sixty and ninety days ahead? Because really in digital advertising, we're looking at the sixty plus day window. And you wanna understand, okay. Is this a problem just right now, or is it gonna fix itself in sixty days? Is your is it just an immediate fix that you need, or is it a long term fix? Because that's gonna determine if you need to do some boots on the ground marketing. Digital advertising for only a right now problem isn't always gonna be the solution. That's where geotargeting can help you, but you really need to look at both the zoomed in and zoomed out lens. I do think, again, it's fantastic if you have both as an opportunity to push to both direct website and property management company website. So you're already ahead of the game there. But get really into the data and knowing operationally what is working, what isn't working in your occupancy goals as your north star of your marketing goals, and it's gonna set you apart. I can't necessarily tell you to do one or the other without really understanding that. But if you are empowered with all of that data and know what that looks like, you're gonna be able to make a much more educated decision and one that those around you are gonna feel empowered by. Okay. Alright. Thanks, Ashley. Alright. Let's go to question seven. Do you think an effective this is for all of you, by the way. Do you think an effective multifamily marketing strategy can be successful with only SEO or geotargeting, or is a hybrid approach the way to go? I think I know the answer. But go ahead, Katie. I think it's fair to kinda see. Hybrid is where we probably align, but I I would really say SEO is really the backbone of every marketing strategy. Branding rooted in that SEO, constantly optimizing it to ensure at the right times. You're going to see success. It's going to provide long term sustainable visibility, and it's going to build that trust. It's going to attract high quality leads, and and geotargeting they're absolutely that hybrid is where my answer is because it's going to give that short term hyper local awareness campaigns. So there there really is a place for both, and I encourage you again go back to understanding what are the goals of your asset as well. Is this a long term hold? Is this a short term hold? Are you in Lisa? There are so many other factors, but know that that branded rooted in SEO is gonna be really your your long term backbone. Awesome. Tracy? Totally agree with that. I feel like it's a really good mix about blending the two. You really put your community in front of the right prospects at the right time with geotargeting, but creating the full funnel funnel approach with SEO and really setting, your credibility is super important. So, yeah, I've I really came into this as geotargeting focus. We're in we have a ton of lease ups, so I'm like, geotargeting is way to go. But when you really look at SEO, you really have to blend them together. Yeah. You really have to consider both James, but about thirty percent. I started doing SEO twenty five years ago, so, which is two thousand. And I think that the important thing to think about with SEO is you need the right partner or team because you can't just say, oh, give me some SEO. Right? You really think to think about strategy and implementation and monitoring that. And, yeah, you need a a team to understand that understands sort of SEO to do it. So I believe SEO is completely integral if you have the right message, you have the right things you wanna focus on, and then you're ever present. I will add, we all use Google every day. Nobody knows how it works. That's why you need a team to help you figure that out. Geotargeting is, I think, part you know, if you're making a soup or a dish, it's very important that you have that piece in there. How much you want to add you know, how much garlic you wanna add, you know, let's call that geotargeting, is sort of up to the taste of the dish that you're trying to prepare. I think you definitely need a hybrid approach in this, and it and it comes down to, you know, the strategy and your brand and, you know, where you're gonna get the best bang for the buck. And that ult ultimately comes down to, you know, being able to measure those results long term. So don't do any of these things unless you can measure the results. And I think that's critical. You can't just put SEO out into the universe and and say, oh, we're doing SEO. We can't just do an ad and be like, oh, we're doing an ad. You need to make sure that you identify your KPIs, then that you have the data to look at, and then you have to say, this isn't working or this is working, and then continue on the path of what is working. Yeah. It's definitely not a fix it and forget it sort of approach. Yeah. It's definitely not. Alright. Great information, guys. Alright. So here we go. Pros and cons of local SEO. It'll be interesting to see where everyone chimes in. So we've talked a lot about this. The pros are long term ROI, increased visibility, builds trust. It's cost effective over time. It's it's the long game. That's what Katie was talking about earlier. Cons, it takes time. That's part of what James was just referencing. It's complex. Nobody knows how Google works. It's ever changing. There's a competitive landscape to it. So and then with GEO, you know, the pros are you get real time fast results. It's right there. It's highly targeted depending on your goals. Katie talked about that earlier. Flexible. It offers flexibility in your strategy. You can adapt quicker. It's perfect for mobile. James mentioned that earlier. Cons, it's a short term. It's the same. It can be really really expensive, and there's a limited audience reach. It's not it's not everyone. It is very specific. So this is really great information. Let's see who the winner is. I bet I know. Oh, yes. I knew it. It was likely a combination of both tailored to your property's goals and timelines. You've heard the panel talk about that over and over, so thank you guys so much for the panel. First of all, thank you for sharing your insight and information. We're gonna go to some questions now. So are you monitoring the chat there, Ashley? While you're getting the questions together, we'll take some more. There's a couple of quick things that I want to talk about. Number one, we have another webinar specifically for marketers just like you coming up in a couple of weeks on March the twentieth, maximizing your ROI for marketers with AI powered reputation management. James talked about that earlier and about Grace Hill's, reputation management solutions. And, also, if anyone is interested in learning more about any of the Grace Hill solutions for marketers, including Reelink. We've talked a little bit about that. Virtual leasing and video tools, our reputation management solutions, or resident survey solutions. We've got several things that are specific for marketers. Put in the chat great debate, and then we'll make sure someone reaches out to you. So if you have any questions about any of our solutions, please put that in the chat, and we will make sure someone reaches out to you. Okay. So now we have the next poll question. Are we ready? Yep. Okay. So I'm launching so we wanna make content for you all. This is, the multifamily industry. It's who we serve. So we wanna know what topics are interesting to you so we can find experts to answer your question. So if you could answer this question as we plan our next webinar, we'd love your input. Which topic would be most valuable to you? And if there's something else, you can also put it in the chat as well. And we may or may not have voted off camera as to what you guys were gonna put in there. So we'll see. Okay. I'm gonna give it about ten more seconds here. And in the meantime, while that's going, we did have a question. It was a really good question. Let me find it here. About oh, here it is. From Josh. Is it worth it if over seventy percent of your prospects are not within a fifty mile radius and are from out of state? Would you then suggest SEO over geotargeting? Yes. Yeah. James? I I think I would break it seventy thirty. Right? I would definitely, you know, focus on on the the SEO there because you're not gonna reach people. If only thirty percent of your people are, you know, within that market, you're only gonna reach them, you know, with that ad that ad spend there. So definitely SEO. Alright. Anything else, Katie or Tracy, on that? Yeah. I would I would just echo. Like, I I agree with the SEO play there. However, like we were talking with Ashley's search earlier, you never know who's moving from out of state or who's remote and maybe hybrid in another location. So I think in today's environment, you don't know necessarily if they are relocating, if they're moving. You don't know all that now more than ever. So I wouldn't say write them off as an instant renter just yet. So you you don't know what their life decisions are looking like with those timelines, but I would agree with the SEO. And then add retargeting there for anything just across the board. Agreed. Agreed. Okay. One last question here, from Tess. What advice do you have for a one person marketing team with a large property portfolio? I can give some great advice on that. I'm a one person team right now. We're missing two employees on our team. We're in seven lease ups and have thirty other properties. So it's been a little bit busy, but in my life, I think just truly organizing is the way to go and making sure that you're you set everything in your calendar. You're able to look at the campaigns to see what's working and make quick actions too if you need to make changes on that. When you're talking about ROI too and you are I I've been a one woman band many times in my career. That is when, obviously, we're talking about competing budgets here, but that is when it is so critical to find partners that are truly extensions of your team. That is the difference between a vendor and a partner. That relationship nurturing is so important because that's what's gonna give you the biggest bang for your buck. It's going to have, you're gonna get margin that way. You're really so I would say map out what vendor partners you wanna work with. Take as many meetings as you can on who is going to help you achieve those goals and be extra hands on your team even if they don't exactly work on your team. Yep. Yeah. I would echo that too. You need an you, either you go to management and they hire more people or you you hire out, which is finding those partners. And I think, yeah, what I've tried to illustrate is I wouldn't recommend that you personally learn SEO. You know, you find that partner to help you with. Now I think that the geo could be a little easier, and you could run some campaigns. And you could you you could personally, you know, manage these things with you know, out in a a partner, but you could find a partner that could do both of these for you. But as far as, like, the skill set, you could gets you you could spin up some geo campaigns a lot easier with than trying to figure out local SEO. Still, go to find that partner, and they'll be an extension of of you and, you know, in in your brand. Yep. I love that. Alright. So we are just at time. We only have three minutes left. We thank you guys so much for coming today. Thank you thank you to our panel. You guys did great. Well, I really appreciate you guys. Thank you to Ashley and Stephanie who were the wind beneath our wings on this with the questions, so we appreciate you guys. We Grace Hill does have our performance coming performance summit coming up in the fall. It is our user conference. We're bringing it back and bringing it back to Texas, so look for more information on that. And you guys, thank you so much. If you wanna connect with any of our speakers today, and I would love to connect with all of you on LinkedIn. So hook us up, scan scan the, QR codes, and connect with all of the speakers. Thank you guys so much for coming. Have a blessed day. Thank you. Bye bye. Thank you. Everybody.