Branding influences all aspects of our lives from the places we go to our food and clothing choices. Brands dictate how a product is seen and can directly affect customer behavior. For marketing purposes, branding is a crucial tool for fostering loyalty.

The same goes for multifamily apartments. While a renter’s checklist will include cleanliness, location, and other considerations, branding and how a building is perceived are becoming increasingly important. So much so, in fact, that property managers should now be making concerted efforts to establish brands that speak to their key demographics.

Doing this is not easy but, fortunately, technology is on hand to help.

Fully loaded, white-labelled resident apps are now the very best way to establish a property brand and make your multifamily desirable. Keep reading to see how.

What is a white-labelled resident app?

White-labelled resident apps are oven-ready solutions that you can make your own. This extends beyond simply changing some titles but think customized logos, personalized color schemes, and removing and adding elements that work for your community.

Most importantly, a white-labelled app offers all of the services of a property management suite with the convenience of a smartphone application. As smartphones are now an essential, everyday part of life, this integrates your multifamily app into residents’ lives in a natural way.

This means there’s no need to reinvent the wheel here and pay for software development teams to create a brand new app. Simply tap into a platform such as Flamingo and begin customizing your own app, with all of the high-tech features ready to use by your community.

No bugs, beta-testing, or development costs. Just an app that works perfectly for your building.

How do white-labelled apps help build a brand?

The most obvious way a white-label resident app establishes your brand is through imagery. Residents will be greeted with an app icon that reflects your property logo building the connection between the building and the brand.

Upon opening the app, logo, titling, and word choice are all up to you and your marketing team. Apps tend to come with preset choices which can be left as is or customized to meet your branding goals.

While images and text go some way to create your brand, resident apps don’t stop there.

Multifamily branding is about establishing community, connecting people, and offering a desirable lifestyle. And this is where a fully loaded white-labelled resident app shines:

1.    Image is everything: events, photos & reviews

When it comes to marketing a multifamily, brand perception largely comes down to photos and reviews. Resident apps are able to shape these in your favor.

A fully loaded resident app will have comprehensive event booking tools that benefit both property managers and residents. Look for RSVP tools and photo-sharing capabilities to social media platforms. You want photos shared that reflect your property’s vibrant and fun community within premium surroundings.

Good resident apps allow automatic approval by residents to use photos taken at these engaging events for marketing purposes. Organic photo sharing can also be encouraged by residents, reflecting well on a brand and establishing a trustworthy perception.

The same goes for reviews. Most new residents will look for off-the-cuff, real reviews by actual residents on platforms like Google. Marketing speak only goes so far, so apps with review generation tools are now essential.


You can encourage residents to share their photos and positive reviews by offering rewards. These can be some credit towards amenity use, favorable leasing terms, or even vouchers for retail outlets.

2.    Create the best renter experience: Renter tools

Multifamily businesses thrive on recommendations and referrals. Making the renter experience as good as possible, therefore, is one of the most important branding efforts.

Resident apps that feature a comprehensive suite of renter tools ensure residents are not switching between 2 or 3 different apps to carry out basic tasks. This frustrates residents and reflects badly on your brand.

Instead, a single, consolidated app forges a link between your brand and feelings of convenience for residents. This includes paying rent and booking amenities, with integration with resident portals built-in.

Residents simply open your branded app and know they’re able to check information such as a fully digital resident guide anytime, anywhere. This information can be updated and amended instantly, keeping residents up-to-date.

This should include maintenance booking too. A resident app cannot rightfully call itself fully loaded without easing the burden of maintenance requests, issuing tickets to residents, and letting them know instantly the status of their submission.

3.    Your community is the brand: Social tools

Unsurprisingly, people want to live in a building with a thriving, lively community. However, without a white-labelled multifamily app that encourages resident engagement, communities may never truly flourish.

Resident apps can help build apartment communities through social tools. This includes familiar features such as community feeds that resemble infinite scrolls seen on Facebook and Twitter. Here, residents can post images, share their thoughts, and post derpy pet pictures. Tools also include resident-to-resident messaging to allow friendships to form within a building.

As a branding tool, social features are essential. They lead to happier residents that feel truly connected with a building through the community. This leads to better reviews, more media shared, and more referrals, essential ingredients for a healthy multifamily brand.

4.    Check in with residents regularly: Surveys

It’s important to not let your brand become tarnished through negative resident experiences. If something’s not right, you need to give residents a way of communicating this without needing to resort to bad reviews or worse.

Hand a real estate agent, prevent the home model and explain the business contract, rent, buy, mortgage, loan, or home insurance.

Fully loaded resident apps will feature tools to regularly check in with residents and see how things are going. These pulse surveys are brief and non-intrusive and are welcomed by residents to voice their concerns directly with property managers using the familiarity of their branded resident app.

This data can then be poured over by your team and issues can be dealt with quickly. This means residents feel listened to, empowered, and much more likely to remain a resident within the building.

Over time, efforts such as this will begin to reflect in reviews and online or offline discussions. These low-key branding efforts are often some of the most important to driving prospective residents toward your property.

Takeaways

While lots of resident apps let you customize the look of an app, fully-loaded white label-resident apps are the only way to truly enhance your brand.

These connect people with their community, their building, and make them feel valued as residents. Residents are then encouraged to share their positive views in reviews, photos, and referrals.

Image Source: BigStockPhoto.com (Licensed)

 

Related Categories: Work, Reviews