20. Build (Upon) Your Brand
• (Re)establish your brand voice
• Lock down your assets
• Determine how you want to be
perceived
• Focus on what you represent
multifamily-social-media.com 20
Hello it’s me… Thanks for that warm introduction Sarah. I’m excited to be here. What a enlightening summit this has been. Hopefully I’m not going to be the one to put out the lights. I’m excited to day to talk today about something that is near and dear to my heart, mostly because it nearly stopped my heart last year. But that something is branding or rebranding in this case. Because branding isn’t a “do it once and your done” proposition. There needs to be tweaks and shifts until you get to a place where you are comfortable.
You might not even need to rebrand, just refresh. So as I’m going through these cases try to think of a something in your sphere of influence that could use a rebrand or a refresh. Whether that be a underperforming community, your corporate logo or even your just a communities online presence in order to attract the right type of prospect.
There are probably hundreds of reasons to rebrand. These are a few reasons that resonated with us. Don’t rebrand if you are just going to change your name. Does anyone here remember the Netfilx/Quikster fiasco? Make sure there is a business purpose behind it. Before we rebranded we did extensive research on what and how to go about a successful rebrand. We looked at companies who have done it well and for a variety of reasons.
I want to talk about a couple of those case studies for a few minutes. Let’s talk about a brand who had an outdated image and needed to broaden it’s audience or perish.
Old spice. Your grandpas aftershave right? A few years ago Old spice was literally and figuratively circling the drain. They did some market research and found that 60% of men’s body washes and colognes were purchased by women.
They rebranded to appeal more to that female audience.
The results speak for themselves.
Let’s look at another company. This company had a loyal customer base, but the appeal was very region specific.
Is it a faux pas to talk about been in wine country? I’m not sure. I don’t drink. But a do appreciate good branding.
Dos Equis sales have doubled in the 5 years between 2008 and 2013 and is now the fastest growing beer brand in America.
Talk about staying thirsty my friends.
One more example of a company that
This is a company that their story really hit home to me. Who saw the movie Castaway? Might have done more for the wilson brand than fedex, but it tells an interesting story.
So why did property solutions rebrand? It was a very deliberate set of circumstances that required years of thought and effort.
In all seriousness our rebrand was a combination of showcasing tech advantages and our commitment to our property management software as well as to create excitement, reinvigoration in our company and in the industry.
We had 5 months to pull off the rebrand. It’s not something that I’m hoping to do again, but I’m glad we did it.
Set up the story with our story
At first I was afraid I was petrified
We had a ton a brand equity built up with PSI that I was afraid we would lose
Wanted to make sure we did it right - Created marketing plans for internal and external audiences
Created a cross-functional team within the company
Wanted to make a big splash
Set up the story with our story
1,800 pair of red shoes, $10,000 in cash prizes and a Cirque du Soleil show
Set up the story with our story
1,800 pair of red shoes, $10,000 in cash prizes and a Cirque du Soleil show
As soon as Dave stepped off the stage I took a deep breath and said “Whew, we are rebranded”
From that point on everything had to be entrata.
One thing we knew we needed to use really well was social media.
No one at the conference was going to use the hashtag #propertysolutionsisnowentrata but everyone at the show one social would be using #naaeduconf
During NAA we interviewed clients about the rebrand asking them to describe our brand and 3 words and to give us their thoughts on the rebrand. These were our most clicked on, most viewed pieces of content.
So that’s our the story of our rebrand. Why should you care about that? How can this help me you ask? I’m so glad you asked.
I wanted to take the remaining time and talk about the lessons we learned and the key takeaways so if you’re ever going through something like this you won’t have to make the same mistakes.
Like I said earlier. I felt like we had a lot of brand equity in Property Solutions and I was afraid we were going to lose it. So we made the decision early on that we needed to keep some of the key elements of the brand that people were familiar with and liked.
But it also gave us an opportunity to reinvent a few things and hopefully changes some minds on how we were being perceived.
First you need to determine - Who is your target audience?
What do they want in a community?
“The real job of design is designing what I call liquid identities, which are identities that are recognizable in every form of media because of a kit of parts that are used in combinations and in repetition.”
-Paula Scher
Your brand voice isn’t just your logo, but for us we wanted to showcase our brand voice attributes in our logo.
Created a new font for our new brand – Not necessarily advocating for that. But your brand voice matters.
When I started at PSI we had many social channels and more were being added all the time. The problem was that there was no consistency.
Determine how you want to be perceived
Focus on what you represent
Residents don’t want you cluttering up their timeline or instagram feed.
This is exactly what Jay Baer talked about yesterday. Embrace your complaints. These are gold.
I have a timeshare and I recently stayed at a resort solely on how they responded to negative reviews.
This study is available online and you can stop by our table to get an infographic about the major findings.
Be real, be genuine. People are smart they can see through marketing speak. We realized that our marketing was leaning too much on the stuff that we were saying and not on what our clients and prospects necessarily wanted to hear.
Get your end users to tell your story.
“The real story of your community is life. Tell their stories.” – Stephanie
Emotional marketing
Own your concept of the space.
This is very important at the early stages of a rebrand or brand refresh.
Details when there needs to be details. Brevity in the mediums that require brevity.
Stephanie talked about this yesterday, but you don’t have to have separate content for all of your mediums. It just needs to be consistent.
This is where instagram is king.
This is the reason that we gave away 1800 pairs of red shoes and thousands of dollars of Entrata gear.
Video, infographics, etc.
Ask residents to post the photos on your page and/or hashtag it….that way it’s more organic and to a wider audience
Talk about the Red Shoe contest here
Video, infographics, etc.
Ask residents to post the photos on your page and/or hashtag it….that way it’s more organic and to a wider audience (talk about the Red Shoe contest here)
Keep telling your story – You may be getting sick of it but your clients are only hearing a fraction of what you are saying.
Like I said earlier. I felt like we had a lot of brand equity in Property Solutions and I was afraid we were going to lose it. So we made the decision early on that we needed to keep some of the key elements of the brand that people were familiar with and liked.
But it also gave us an opportunity to reinvent a few things and hopefully changes some minds on how we were being perceived.
First you need to determine - Who is your target audience?
What do they want in a community?