Last modified on May 12th, 2014
By Aimee Miller

Everyone knows that companies need a brand, but do apartment communities? The answer may be yes. Apartment communities can benefit in multiple ways from strong branding. Having a brand aids in marketing and reinforces a specific environment around the community. In many ways, having a brand is simply having a unique identity.

What Is a Brand and How Does It Work?

To understand why branding works, you need to understand exactly what a brand is. A brand isn’t a logo or a name, but rather an idea. Brands are the feelings and the experiences that a viewer associates with a concept. The logo and name is merely a trigger to these intangible items. When you build a brand, your goal is to create an image surrounding your community.

By branding a luxury community, you will provoke others to think of luxury and sophistication when they see your logo or the name of your apartment complex. Further, the residents of the apartment community will also buy into this feeling of luxury and will ensure that the building lives up to these standards. You’ll be able to market more effectively and draw like-minded residents into the community to further develop it.

On the other end of the spectrum, you could brand a fun, party community instead. In a college town, billing an apartment complex as an exciting place for residents could greatly increase occupancy and help in marketing. Owners who rent out their apartment complex would benefit from this, and the ability to create a community of similar renters will make managing the complex easier overall.

How Do You Develop a Brand?

Developing a brand requires a significant amount of marketing. You need to link your apartment complex to a set of characteristics within a person’s mind, and this takes time. Your branding must remain consistent throughout your campaign and you should have a clear goal regarding your marketing.

Your brand will need to be developed throughout all of the media involved in the apartment community. The community’s websites, property listings and brochures should all reflect the branding you’re trying to emphasize. Social media accounts can be used to further develop your brand.

Apart from developing your brand, you also need to protect it. You need to tailor each brand to its community rather than trying to develop a brand across all of your properties and you need to ensure that you don’t overstep your boundaries when securing your brand. Fair housing laws, for example, must still be followed regardless of the brand you’re trying to build.

Moreover, a property management company alone cannot build a brand. The residents, owners and even the neighbors of a property will also have a say in the way the community is perceived. Trying to work against this can stifle your branding efforts. Instead, you should be trying to develop a brand around what already exists. Emphasize the high points of the property when you’re trying to give the community an identity.

Branding a property is an ongoing process. Not only do you need to develop the brand from the ground up, but you need to conscientiously support the brand in everything you do. With time, however, building a brand will undoubtedly pay off. Building a brand both tells others what they should expect from the community and tells the community what it is expected to provide.