In our latest Resident Experts Series, we sat down with Dana Pate, founder and CEO of Stitch Marketing, a consulting firm tailor-made to serve the rental housing industry to discuss how multifamily businesses should approach branding and what they can do to build a strong brand that resonates with their target audience. The following are a few of the key takeaways from our conversation.

Branding vs. marketing

First and foremost, it’s important to know the difference between marketing and branding. A lot of times, the two get conflated, but they are two different tactics that help you drive sales. According to Pate, marketing is focused on motivating your audience to complete a call to action, whether that be filling out a form, completing an application, or signing a lease. 

Whereas, branding is not about making your audience do something, but rather feel something. Simply put, branding encompasses your business’ personality—what people think about when they see your logo, read your name, etc. Marketing leans heavily on branding as it builds out websites, landing pages, email templates, all the way down to how your offices and models are staged, but it needs to have a solid brand in place to build successful, cohesive, and coherent campaigns.

Your brand needs to be flexible

When you think about strong brands, companies like Disney or Coke come to mind. They’ve spent nearly a hundred years building strong brands that resonate across a wide audience. At this point, they don’t need to make major changes to attract more business, but not every brand is Disney or Coke. 

Pate mentioned the evolution of Stanley from a blue collar staple to the go-to cup for moms and influencers. Stanley realized they were missing out on selling to half of the population and got lucky when one of those influencers posted about how much she loved her Stanley mug and the rest is history. Stanley wouldn’t have had that success if they weren’t open to being more than just a lunchbox and thermos for construction workers.

Foundation of a strong brand

The key to building a strong brand is authenticity. Your brand needs to feel authentic to who you are as a company and what you’re trying to be. It also has to be a top down strategy. If your advertising and website highlights luxury, your properties and staff should imbue luxury as well. If there is a disconnect between any part of your brand and business execution then you could lose the trust of your audience and ultimately lose out on their business.

Site level teams are going to be the ones who actually deliver your brand to residents and prospects, so it's important they have a keen understanding of what your brand means so they can deliver what you're actually selling.

Finally, it’s important to know who your target audience is and what they want from your business. If you don’t have a specific target audience in mind you run the risk of going too broad, which will make it hard to create a brand that resonates and attracts the individuals you are marketing to.

Measuring ROI of your brand campaign

PPC is still one of the biggest ways to track ROI and the success of your brand efforts. “How your brand is shown on Google and in that paid space really is important because it really targets the bottom of the funnel users or those prospects that are ready to move in,” said Pate.

Additionally, success in email marketing is a good way to measure impact. That’s because the effectiveness of email campaigns is a good indicator of whether or not A: prospects know who you are; and B: whether they trust you enough to click on a link through an email. With each email you’re nudging prospects further and further along until they ultimately sign on the dotted line.

Building your brand through events

When putting on events, Pate said it’s important to “party with a purpose.” It's critical to know what your goals are going into the event. Are you trying to increase applications, create awareness about a new property, or supporting a local group? It doesn’t matter what it is as long as you know what that purpose is.

Next, don’t expect your site teams to be expert party planners. Some might have that aptitude, but don’t be afraid to work with event planners to throw an event that will meet your goals and be an extension of your brand. Your site teams will play an important role in executing the party the day of.

Learn more

To learn more about how to build an authentic brand, listen to our entire conversation with Dana Pate by clicking here.