Apartment Marketing Advice We Secretly Can’t Stand

Not all apartment marketing advice is good advice—and some of the most common recommendations may actually be hurting your results.

In this episode of The Multifamily Marketers Podcast, hosts Josh Grillo and Caroline Mills break down the marketing advice they hear all the time but secretly can’t stand.

From “just post more on social media” to “we need more leads,” this episode challenges the quick fixes and explains why strategy, conversion, and understanding the renter journey matter more than chasing trends.

You’ll learn:

• Why posting more on social media doesn’t matter without a clear strategy
• Why “more leads” won’t fix a broken leasing process
• How to choose the right platforms instead of trying to be everywhere
• Why a prettier website doesn’t always mean a better-performing website
• What to analyze before lowering rent when occupancy drops
• How AI can support marketers—but why it won’t replace strategy

To suggest a topic, get in touch!

For more multifamily marketing help, connect with us at Resident360.

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TRANSCRIPT

Episode 43: Apartment Marketing Advice We Secretly Can’t Stand

Podcast Co-Hosts: Josh Grillo and Caroline Mills, Resident360

Josh: Welcome back to the Multifamily Marketers Podcast. I’m your host, Josh Grillo, co-founder here at Resident360, and I’m joined by my co-host, our director of digital marketing, Miss Caroline Mills. How are you, Caroline?

Caroline: Hey, Josh. Good morning. It’s a beautiful sunny day in Florida. How’s San Diego treating you?

Josh: Let’s see, it’s June 2nd, and school lets out tomorrow for my kids. They’re definitely excited, because almost all the other schools let out last week. Their charter school is on a different district’s calendar, so they get an extra three days, unfortunately for them.

Caroline: That’s the worst for them.

Josh: Yeah. But other than that, we’re great out here. We have a short but cool topic today: apartment marketing advice we can’t stand.

Caroline: A little controversy today.

Josh: Hopefully it doesn’t ruffle any feathers. Caroline came up with this topic, so point all the blame at Caroline.

Caroline: Right? It’s all on me. All my advice.

Josh: But these are things everybody has heard, and they make you think, “Oh my gosh, I can’t stand this one,” or “Why do people keep saying this over and over again?” So we thought it would be fun to put together a list, since we’re on the client side and hear these things from our clients and customers. Let’s take it from the top, Caroline, with a big one: “Post more on social media.” How many times have you heard that one? “Just post more on social media.”

Caroline: Ew. Probably at least once a week. This one is constant. And we’ve talked about social media posting here, and we of course urge people to post on social media, so I don’t want anyone saying, “Well, you guys tell me to post on social media all the time.” Our point is about how you’re posting and the strategy behind it. The problem is that posting more often, or posting every day, isn’t a strategy. I’d rather see a property publish three meaningful posts each week than 14 random photos of the clubhouse just to hit their monthly quota.

Josh: So you’re saying quantity doesn’t necessarily equal results.

Caroline: Exactly. If your content isn’t engaging prospects, showcasing the lifestyle, or highlighting resident experiences, your posting just creates more noise. The better question isn’t “How often are we posting?” It’s “Why would someone stop scrolling, or visit our page to look at us?”

Josh: So have a strategy behind your posting.

Caroline: Yes. Don’t just post random photos.

Josh: All right, Caroline, here’s another one, one of the most common requests marketing teams get: “We need more leads.”

Caroline: I said the last one was weekly. This one’s daily.

Josh: I was going to ask: Why does this one make you cringe?

Caroline: It’s definitely a daily one. A lot of the time, this comes back to strategy and research, and our team goes through it with clients all the time. Honestly, more leads don’t always solve your problem. Sometimes the issue isn’t lead volume; it’s conversion. It’s what’s happening on site or on the website. I see properties generating hundreds of leads every month, but they’re not responding, not answering the phone, closing the office at 4:00 p.m., missing calls, and struggling to convert people. If I pour more leads into that kind of funnel, I haven’t fixed anything. I’m not solving any of the issues, and they’re not going to get more leases. All I’ve done is make the leak bigger.

Josh: So before asking for more leads, we should ask what we’re doing with the leads we already have.

Caroline: One hundred percent. Take care of what you’ve got before you throw more into it.

Josh: All right, another piece of advice I hear all the time: You need to be on every platform. Facebook, Pinterest, Threads, YouTube, everything. What do you think? Do we need to be everywhere?

Caroline: I think that’s one of the fastest ways to waste time, truly. Most properties don’t need to dominate every platform in front of them. I’d rather see a property do two channels exceptionally well than waste time doing six channels poorly. The goal isn’t collecting platforms or being everywhere. The goal is reaching your audience where they actually spend their time.

Josh: Good. All right, let’s talk websites. People often say, “The website just needs a redesign.” Do you agree, Caroline?

Caroline: This is a good follow-up to our website episode from a few weeks ago, and the answer is: not always. Like we talked about then, a beautiful website can still perform terribly. Before you throw a lot of money into a redesign or a rebrand, the real question is: Does the website convert? Can people find the floor plans? Can they schedule a tour? Does it load quickly enough? Does it work on mobile? If your website has all the things we talk about that make a good website, it might not be the issue. And rebranding is different from needing a whole new website. A prettier website doesn’t necessarily mean a better website.

Josh: So maybe your website doesn’t need a redesign.

Caroline: It might not. That might not be where your issue is.

Josh: All right, here’s a fun one. Occupancy drops, and the immediate reaction is to lower rent. Caroline?

Caroline: This is a good one, because we often think, “Our competitors are a little more expensive than us,” or “That new development down the street is offering this, that, and the other.” Sometimes lowering rent is the right move, but it shouldn’t be your first move. Before reducing rents, I always want to talk with my teams and understand: Is traffic actually down? Are tours down? Are applications down? Are prospects getting lost somewhere in the process? Because once you lower pricing, it’s a lot harder to recover if you haven’t fixed those other issues.

Josh: Good one. All right, let’s stir the pot one more time. Topic: AI. Will AI replace multifamily marketers?

Caroline: That’s a good one to finish on.

Josh: That is a toughie.

Caroline: We talk about AI and how we use it in different ways all the time, and it’s definitely an incredible tool. It helps us work faster, generate ideas, and improve our efficiency. But AI won’t necessarily understand your property’s positioning, your market dynamics, your competitive landscape, or how residents experience things the way a marketer does. Marketers who embrace AI will definitely outperform those who don’t, but AI isn’t replacing your strategy or what happens on site. You can have all the AI in the world, but if prospects don’t convert when they come in for a tour, it won’t matter.

Josh: All right, final question, Caroline. What’s one piece of apartment marketing advice people should stop repeating tomorrow?

Caroline: Surprising no one, it’s “More leads solve everything,” because that’s the one I deal with on a daily basis.

Josh: More leads don’t solve everything?

Caroline: Go back to the beginning of the episode and listen all over again! If your process is broken, more leads will just make the problem bigger. Now you’ve spent more marketing dollars and still haven’t fixed the issue. Focus on your experience, your conversion process, and your follow-up first. Then we can scale from there.

Josh: Love it, love it, love it. All right, this is a short and sweet one. If you enjoyed today’s episode, please like, subscribe, and follow the Multifamily Marketers Podcast. We’ll be back next week with another episode. Caroline, thanks as always. And to everybody listening, we’ll see you next week. Take care now.

Caroline: Thank you, guys. Bye!