Reaching out beyond the boundaries of your property will build a stronger sense of community for you and your residents. Connecting with and building valuable relationships with the businesses near your community will pay off in more ways than one.

    Imagine increased resident retention.

    Imagine a website that pays for itself.

    Imagine your website paying you.

    Now experience all of this as reality!

Here is my real-life experience. While managing a large apartment community in St. Louis, Missouri, we were often approached by local insurance agents, moving companies, pizza delivery folks, etc. and asked to hand out information, flyers, and coupons to our residents. Of course they always came with handfuls of pens, notepads and candy offered in return, most of which would get stuffed in a drawer and later tossed in the trash. One day an insurance agent visited our office and politely asked if we would put some of his information in the move in packets….and a light bulb turned on in my head! I said “Sure, we are happy put your information in our move in packets, AND we will also post an ad on our website (in the Resident Links section) for only $25.00 per month.” To my surprise, he said “That sounds great-can I pay for 6 months up front?” We wrote a simple one page contract, signed on the dotted line, collected his ad text and company logo and posted the ad almost immediately and he became our first paying advertiser! It didn´t take long to realize the value of this relationship and we quickly began approaching the pizza delivery, local banks, movers, storage facilities, restaurants, beauty salons, personal trainers, coffee shops and more! We were armed with the fact that our residents were their ideal and target customers. We were also able to demonstrate the effectiveness of our website traffic through the "Urchin/LiveStats" button in our Apartment Toolbox®.

We started with a few core requirements…

  ➢ Advertisers could choose to pay the monthly fee in cash or gift cards/certificates.
  ➢ Their ads had to contain an exclusive discount for our residents, i.e. buy one get one free, 10% off first visit, etc.
  ➢ We guaranteed exclusivity to our advertisers…we would only allow one bank, one insurance agent, one hair salon etc.

The result was that we were able to build strong relationships with our surrounding neighborhood while providing valuable savings for our residents. We not only paid for our website, but earned an additional $400 per month in ancillary income. Visits to our website went from 2500 to over 10,000 per month due to the additional exposure from our new network of connections. Our individual apartment website became a community portal for more than just our residents. Attendance to social activities increased since residents were visiting our website more frequently: they were more aware of community events. Both prospect traffic and resident retention increased and some of our advertisers even offered to put a link to us on their website. Everything we needed was already a part of our Ellipse website. It was a true (and easy!) networking success story.

With Labor Day comes a flurry of activity around your community´s BBQ pits, grills, or other outdoor cooking apparatus. While the importance of fire safety and outlining an outdoor cooking policy for your residents cannot be overstated, safety measures in the handling and preparation of meals prepared outdoors can often be overlooked.

While sending out “Labor Day” Relate 24⁄7^sm On Demand message from your leasing office reminding your residents that they cannot, in fact, employ an open flame on their patios, you may wish to include the following safety measures from the USDA Fact Sheet on Safe Food Handling.

Thaw Safely
Completely thaw meat and poultry before grilling so it cooks more evenly. Use the refrigerator for slow, safe thawing or thaw sealed packages in cold water. You can microwave defrost if the food will be placed immediately on the grill.

Marinating
Marinate food in the refrigerator, not on the counter. Poultry and cubed meat or stew meat can be marinated up to 2 days. Beef, veal, pork, and lamb roasts, chops, and steaks may be marinated up to 5 days. If some of the marinade is to be used as a sauce on the cooked food, reserve a portion of the marinade before putting raw meat and poultry in it. However, if the marinade used on raw meat or poultry is to be reused, make sure to let it come to a boil first to destroy any harmful bacteria.

Keep Cold Food Cold
Keep meat and poultry refrigerated until ready to use. Only take out the meat and poultry that will immediately be placed on the grill.

When using a cooler, keep it out of the direct sun by placing it in the shade or shelter. Avoid opening the lid too often, which lets cold air out and warm air in. Pack beverages in one cooler and perishables in a separate cooler.

Keep Everything Clean
Be sure there are plenty of clean utensils and platters. To prevent food borne illness, don´t use the same platter and utensils for raw and cooked meat and poultry. Harmful bacteria present in raw meat and poultry and their juices can contaminate safely cooked food.

Serving the Food
When taking food off the grill, use a clean platter. Don´t put cooked food on the same platter that held raw meat or poultry. Any harmful bacteria present in the raw meat juices could contaminate safely cooked food.

In hot weather (above 90 °F), food should never sit out for more than 1 hour.

They are stealthy and sly, inquisitive with an investigative eye. They lurk among the unsuspecting, grading spectacles intact, looking for the good and bad communications from your community. Who are these multi-aliased private investigators? None other than our very own Net Mystery Shoppers! Whether it is website content updated or an effective email response, they shop to help you with the dos and don´ts of internet etiquette.

Ellipse Communications wants you to be prepared for the surprise shop, which is why we are offering this list of what you need to do in order to “make the grade”. Be sure to keep your website´s info up-to-date and send a timely custom response containing these five key points.

1. Address the inquirer by name. Everyone likes to see their own name in print and it shows that you are giving them the personal attention they deserve.
2. Answer the inquirer´s question or questions first. No one wants to have to read through several paragraphs just to get to the answers they seek. Answer first and then move on to other information you wish to provide.
3. Let them know when you are available. If you are taking the time to write a response, you´d like the prospect to meet with you when they do visit your property. Give them the hours each day that you are on site and whether or not you are available other times by appointment, etc.
4. Give them a call to action. This should be a reason for them to respond back, answer a question, or come by to view your property. It can be anything that makes them want to interact further with you and your community.
5. Ask for their preferred method of contact. This is courteous and can also provide you with additional information about the inquirer. They may really prefer speaking with you over the phone but contacted you first by email to test the waters. Or, they may wish to keep correspondence through email until they are ready to come by in person. Either way, you have their permission to continue interacting with them and are one contact closer to making them your new resident!

Don´t know about Net Mystery Shopper^SM? Contact jramey@ellipseinc.com to find out more!

Two weeks ago I moved into a 2 bedroom 2 bath with one of my friends. For me this move was from one apartment to another in the same 1200 unit complex. Since this is my 4th lease in the same place, I had forgotten how confusing it was when I first moved in … that is until I became the live in concierge for my roommate.

In the past 15 days I´ve:

• told her on two different occasions she was parking in a place residents aren´t allowed to park over night
• directed her to the nearest ATM
• given her directions to the grocery store
• directed her to the laundry room in our building
• directed her to the place on the property where she had to go to buy a card to pay for the laundry machines

And still on MY to-do list is to figure out how she can get her name and cell phone number on the call box in our building so she can buzz people in. As well as show her where to put in a service request online for our silly oven drawer that falls on the floor if you open it.

So my question, and really my point is - why on Earth did no one tell her any of these things when she moved in? Granted, there is a lot of information to share but I would think standard move-in day procedure should include information about the fact that her car will be towed if she doesn´t park in the gated resident parking garage. I´m wondering, does my leasing office get calls everyday asking how to buy a laundry card? Perhaps all of this standard information was in the big fat way too expensive printed folder that´s underneath the boxes on her desk that she hasn´t unpacked. Just for grins I checked the property website to see if there were any new resident resources … there wasn´t.

Have you stepped into the shoes of a new resident lately? What do you have in place to make the first few weeks in their new home feel like home?