Augmented Reality comes to an apartment marketing site near you!
Thursday, January 7, 2010 at 5:00PM With the launch of the Droid as the second major application enabled phone, augmented reality (AR) has come to the apartment marketing world. For the apartment owner and manager, this means another layer of tools to use and another level of technology to understand for apartment marketing. I had mistakenly believed the shift to augmented reality would take a few years for the technology and phones to offer real value for the day to day marketing of apartments units, but I was wrong. Apartment cell phone apps driven by the powerful GPS enabled phones are now part of the way apartments can be marketed. Each time a GPS enabled cell phone is sold, another potential AR user is created.Going forward when choosing an apartment advertising rental site, owners and managers have new features to consider: First, what application, commonly called an “app”, does the site offer for the mobile users? Is the app tool available in both iphone and Droid configurations? What is the quality of the end user experience and how reliable is it? Second, what information from the chosen advertising site is fed into what third party virtual reality applications such as Layar or Aloqa?For example, HotPads.com information can be found as a channel on Aloqa, an app for the Droid. Layar, another Droid and iphone app, includes information from ForRent.com and Apartments.com. Craigs List does not self-promote an app, but at least one app can be found for the service, appropriately named CraigsHome. CraigsHome for the Droid populates CraigsList apartment ads on a map and you can drill down into individual listings. You can retrieve data based upon your current location (GPS enabled), zip code or unit type.You won’t be surprised to learn the number of listings can be limited, depending upon which AR program and advertising site you select to view. It is still early in this technology and the number of users of the services is limited by the number of app phones. However, as the number of app users increases and the number of channels included in the various augmented reality programs increases, apartment advertisers (owners and managers) will have to become increasingly familiar with the packages offered by the various on-line advertising rental services, as well as the augmented reality services that they feed into.Knowing what works, what does’t work and which apps and services are being used and by whom, will become yet another task required of an owner or leasing staff. The choice of one service over another will have a dramatic impact on who has access to your apartment advertisements.The once simple task of writing a single newspaper ad has been transformed into a complex and intricate set of decisions and tasks. Social media advertising requires daily attention and an understanding of the medium. Apartment advertising is now generally found in many locations – the company web site, the company FaceBook page, the company Twitter account, and third party sites such as Rentals.com, CraigsList.org or Apartments.com to name just a few. All of this information data requires real-time coordination, updating, monitoring and response.If you have an apartment to rent, now more than ever, there is a significant benefit and downright need to engage an experienced and knowledgeable leasing agent to coordinate the new complex world of advertising, marketing and the rental of an available unit. Unless you are in the rental business full-time, it is unlikely if not impossible, for you to keep up with the pace of the Internet and the changing apartment marketing landscape.
If you are an owner or manager of rental housing, please share how your apartment marketing and advertising protocols have changed in the last year. How do you expect it to change in the next year?
If you have additional questions about 21st century and social media apartment marketing, you may contact the offices of Lightner Property Group.
This article first appeared on www.Examiner.com
in December, 2009.
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Postscript - January 7, 2010
Like so many of the new technologies, Augmented Reality (AR) is going to breath new life into sites and marketing practices that were approaching the “dated” status. Many of us had started to speculate that CraigsList was becoming passe with the changes brought to marketing by Twitter. With Augmented Reality (AR) all of that has been turned on its head and the deck reshuffled. Again.
Former magazines turned web sites such as www.Apartments.com and www.ForRent.com, were often ignored over other smaller nitch or market sites by the small to mid-side owner. Those same sites should now temporarily have the upper hand in apartment marketing because they are first to the market with fun phone apps.
Watch the phone app market as it is likely it will drive users to the end user marketing sites and determine the winner in the apartment marketing advertising market. The more useful and fun the app, the stronger the foothold.
If your potential renter is high-tech and gaget savvy, you need to pay serious attention to which sites offer phone apps. If the site you choose does not have phone app access, it is likely your potential renter will not look at your advertising, no matter how good your ad or site may be.
At some level, this is the tail wagging the dog. The user is placing more value on the tool they use and the way they access information, and placing less value on the end information result. The logic may be that apartment owners who understand the value of an app will be better landlords and provide a better renter experience.
When you think about it, it may just be that logic is correct. Time will tell.
