Multi-Housing News - September 2008 - (Page 54)

tech report Internet Marketing Captures Renters By Keat Foong, Executive Editor Like it or not, the Internet is growing in importance as a medium for marketing apartments—especially given that the industry’s prime audience is the technologically savvy younger generations. “We’re seeing right now companies of all sizes looking to the Internet. A few years ago, it was just some of the big players,” asserts Arlene Mayfield, president of ApartmentGuide.com. Martha Logan, vice president of operations at the Atlanta-based apartment management company RAM Partners LLC, says that on average, as much as 30 percent of her company’s traffic today originates from the Internet in one form or other. No doubt, the percentages of business sourced from the Internet may be even higher for other companies. In any case, Internet-generated leads will be growing for the industry as more and more consumers are turning to the Web when searching for apartments. Consumers can find apartments in one of three ways on the Internet, notes Kevin Dolye, senior vice president and general manager at Apartments.com. They can type in the URL address of the apartment Internet Listing Service (ILS) if they already know it; they can perform a general search for apartments of the types and locations they desire on search engines such as Google; or they can find the apartments through other sites such as those for newspapers. Apartment companies that subscribe to ILS sites would want to make sure the sites are the ones that come up high on the search engines when key words such as “apartments” are typed in. The apartment sites can top the search engines as either a paid (sponsored) or unpaid (organic) site. However, search engines, though important, may not necessarily be the overwhelming source of Internet leads. According to Doyle, Apartments.com’s research shows that only about 30 percent of its total online traffic originates from search engines. He maintains that newspaper networks and real estate Web sites on, say Yahoo, drive the other, non-search-related traffic to the company’s Web site. “You cannot get totally focused on Google,” he says. “You need more than Google to drive your web traffic.” Of course, there are also the unpaid Web sites on which apartment companies can list their properties. In terms of subscribing to apartment listing sites, Logan says RAM Partners, a client of technology company CallSource, lists NOW AVAILABLE AS A DIGITAL EDITION Multi-Housing News, direct to your laptop or desktop in state-of-the-art format • Easy, reader-friendly navigation – page by page or click directly to the speciﬁc feature you want to read ﬁrst • Sharpest reproduction, zoom features and more • Additional photos and content not available in print • Direct links to advertisers’ web sites • Environmentally sensitive • Easy to store and reference Go to Multi-HousingNews.com and click on SUBSCRIBE at upper right. 54 September 2008 | Multi-Housing News | Producer of Multi-Housing World http://ApartmentGuide.com http://Apartments.com http://Apartments.com http://www.multi-housingnews.com http://www.multi-housingnews.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Multi-Housing News - September 2008

Multi-Housing News - September 2008
Contents
Calendar of Events
From the Editor
Executive Insight
Property Management: Growth Plans
Development & Design: Low-Rise Trends
Market Pulse
Special Report: Green Design Makes 'Cents'
Market Report: Boston
Top Architects List
Finance: HUD
Products: Cabinetry
Tech Report: Internet Listing Services
NMHC Notebook
Property Showcase: Fitness Center

Multi-Housing News - September 2008