“Strike while the iron is hot,” goes the old saying. It’s about acting when the opportunity arises, and it applies whether you’re a blacksmith or a multifamily marketing professional.

When apartment seekers visit your website and are interested in your community, they are ready to act. If you can compel them to take the next step now, you speed the leasing journey.

But what if your prospective tenant is searching in the evening, on a weekend, or on a holiday—when your leasing team isn’t on-site? This scenario is common: 44% of tours are scheduled outside the typical on-site leasing hours of 9 am to 6 pm. Being available when apartment seekers are ready to act means having a 24/7/365 solution in place.

That’s what makes the automated tour scheduler one of the most effective conversion module in any multifamily marketer’s toolkit. And statistics from our own internal research as well as external sources prove the great results and effectiveness of self-scheduled tours:

  • Adding a self-scheduling tool like Schedule Genie® can increase website leads by an average of 57%
  • Communities that effectively drive increased website traffic can achieve 23 or more scheduled tours each month
  • Communities that are not only effective but excel at driving increased website traffic can realize over 60 scheduled tours per month

A single visit before booking

Additional data on the leasing journey emphasizes the importance of compelling conversion. Our research has shown that the typical apartment seeker who uses a self-scheduling module only visits your community’s website a single time before scheduling a tour (that calls to mind another adage: You have only one chance to make a first impression). This data tells us that most prospective tenants act fast, and your leasing team might miss out if you’re using a contact form or fielding tour requests via email. Your prospects might not be willing to wait around for your response, especially if another community they are considering offers self-scheduling tools.

Working smarter with automation

If it isn’t clear that you need to give your prospects an easy way to act, consider things from the angle of productivity. According to Anyone Home, 42% of communication between leasing associates and prospects is about scheduling tours or rescheduling missed tours. That’s nearly half of all communication. Couldn’t your leasing team be spending that time in more productive ways?

Interested in learning more about how we can increase your lead-to-lease conversions with modules like self-scheduled tours? Reach out to talk with one of our experts.

Automation and personalization

Automated tools like Schedule Genie are making the business of business easier. It’s important, though, to know when automation is helpful and when it works against you. First, understand that automation removes a person from a process, and personalization is about making a general campaign or automated tool feel individually relevant. The best marketing uses automation to accelerate conversion and preserves the human touch when it is needed.

Let’s look at Schedule Genie as an example. When a tour is scheduled with Schedule Genie, the prospect receives a confirmation email. These emails can be customized to the community and can also include links to area attractions that might drive further interest, like a local eatery to visit after the tour ends. In addition, when a prospective tenant needs something specific, it’s essential that the human touch remains part of your process. That’s why we offer Live Chat, which is powered by a human team that can engage apartment seekers in conversations that lead to tours and leases.

Interested in learning more about using our automated scheduler and other conversion tools to fill your community faster?

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