I had the chance to attend the second annual Multifamily Marketing East Conference, and it did not disappoint. While it was created for multifamily pros, any marketer would’ve felt right at home. The room was filled with people who live and breathe strategy, storytelling, and customer experience. The kind of marketers who light up over a strong brand voice and will absolutely stop a conversation to comment on swag design.
With 20 different roundtable discussions, the hardest part is choosing only two to attend. As a roundtable facilitator, I only got to talk about one topic, twice 😉. Thankfully, everyone gets to hear the top takeaways from each roundtable, and the ideas were phenomenal. Here are five standout marketing ideas and insights I heard that you should absolutely steal.
Humanizing Your AI Communications
Consistency is key. Especially when using AI for any customer-facing communication or interaction. The presenters for this roundtable emphasized prompting AI to communicate empathetically and consistently with your messaging, ensuring your brand voice remains authentic.
My marketer friends out there are probably saying to themselves – yeah.. duh! That’s marketing 101.
True. BUT the problem comes in when people OUTSIDE of the marketing department get their hands on AI, and use it in their customer interactions.
How do we control the uncontrollable? Create AI prompts, infused with your brand voice and messaging, that non-marketing team members can use to generate on-brand customer experiences, retention strategies, content, and community-building initiatives. Taking it one step further, imagine developing a brand-specific GPT assistant accessible company-wide, instantly aligning every team member’s communication with your brand voice.
My take: AI’s real power is scaling expertise across an organization. Previously, if one person held unique knowledge, sharing that consistently across the company was challenging. Now, AI strategically bridges this gap, multiplying the impact of your best thinkers.
The CX Tour: Taking Your Brand on the Road
Presenters shared how creative customer experiences, like local partnerships or day trips (think bus tours to NYC, or a night at the ballpark), foster deeper connections. You can also treat your customers to an experience through cross-collaboration. For example, cover the cost of a happy hour at a local hot spot or pay for a group cooking class with a local, renowned chef. Your customers get a unique experience, and your company gains a new partner through your collaboration.
My take: Marketers often focus on bringing the experience to their brick-and-mortar location to attract customers. In multifamily marketing, we host events at our apartment communities all the time, but why stop there? Your residents have already bought into living in your community. Now you want to make the experience so sticky that they never want to leave, and give them something to tell their friends about.
What sounds more fun: a happy hour on your beautiful roof deck, or a bus trip to New York City in December? Extend your brand experience beyond your property or store location. Brands across industries regularly activate events off-premise to build stronger connections and deeper loyalty. (Think of Nike’s running clubs or Lululemon’s local yoga classes.)
Promo That Pulls Its Weight
Select promotional products that offer brand awareness “out in the wild”. Think branded growlers at local breweries or dog toys at animal shelters.
My take: There’s nothing worse than branded clutter gathering dust in a car’s cupholder. Effective promo items are those that people genuinely want to not only use, but also show off. When’s the last time you walked around the office to show everyone that squishy lightbulb-shaped stressball you “won”? Probably never… unless there’s not much going on at your office.
That said, I’m a total sucker for a quality product I can use, and if it has a clever tagline, even better, like this tote bag from the Multifamily Marketing East conference. It’s a high-quality tote, and the tagline is perfect for a conference full of marketers. I showed it to at least five friends when I came back, and I use it all the time now.
I loved the presenter’s idea about staging organic interactions with your promotional items through businesses where your target audience lives/works/plays – like the example with branded dog toys at animal shelters. Bonus tip: Be sure to also geofence those locations with targeted digital ads (Intrinsic Digital can help).
Shifting from Generalist to Specialist
There’s an expectation shift for marketing teams to transform from generalists to specialists. Measuring baseline efficiency and tracking improvement once roles become specialized was recommended as crucial.
Continual learning via podcasts, courses, and cross-team collaborations is essential as marketers face mounting expectations to become subject matter experts… in everything.
Presenters also stressed hiring for curiosity, noting curious employees naturally specialize and grow.
My take: Curiosity is a marketer’s superpower, and today’s marketers need an insatiable hunger for knowledge to succeed. Gone are the days when you could say, “That’s not my area of expertise.”
Teams are small but expected to be mighty, and AI will only raise the expectations to “make it go viral” or “just ChatGPT it” without a second of consideration for brand voice or the real work behind strategic, effective marketing.
If you feel like the goalpost keeps moving, you’re not alone. Staying nimble, curious, and plugged into your people is how you keep up.
I used to say nothing is impossible… and then 2022 and the years to follow have brought a storm of DAILY rapid innovation and change. It’s like drinking from a firehose and impossible to keep up on your own. It takes a village.
Start by dividing and conquering with your team so you can cover all the bases. Explore, and discover. Read, watch YouTube videos, listen to podcasts, follow thought leaders and experts on LinkedIn, and take courses. Then look outward.
We live in an incredible time where you can connect with anyone in the world with a click of a button. You don’t have to do it all yourself. That’s where the power of community comes in.
I’m part of several, but Karine Abbou’s WLAIM community, Mark Schaefer’s RISE community, and Kara Rafferty’s Multifamily Hive are my key to success. I get to hear from professionals in other industries, countries, specializations, and from varying perspectives about what’s working, what’s not, and what to avoid wasting time on, delivered to my device around the clock, seven days a week.
Empowering Teams to Create WOW Moments
Allowing customer-facing teams a discretionary budget to meet immediate customer needs (without layers of approval) unlocks moments of magic. Think Disney-level surprise and delight.
My take: I absolutely love this idea. Giving your team the freedom (and resources) to own the moment is powerful, no matter what industry you’re in.
Say a salon guest mentions they skipped breakfast before a long appointment, and your front desk team surprises them with a smoothie from the café next door. Or a coworking space member spills coffee on their shirt before a big pitch meeting. Your team picks up a clean tee or blouse from the boutique down the street and drops it off in their office. It’s not just great customer service. It’s unforgettable.
In multifamily, this might look like a resident on move-in day saying they can’t find where they packed their dog’s treats, and your team runs out to get a fresh bag. That one small gesture? It delights the resident and gives the team a real sense of pride and purpose.
These seemingly simple acts go a long way. First, the emotional payoff is huge for both the customer and the employee. That good energy? It sticks. It improves morale, retention, and makes everyone feel part of something meaningful.
Second, let’s talk ROI. A resident’s move-in experience has a huge influence on their entire lease journey. Kingsley research shows that residents who are happy on move-in day are 59% more likely to renew, and 79% are still satisfied at renewal.
Whether you’re in real estate, retail, hospitality, or healthcare, the message is the same: empower your people. They’re your brand in action. Give them the tools to deliver meaningful moments, and they’ll give your customers a reason to stay.
Got Ideas?
These weren’t just smart ideas, they were reminders of what great marketing really is: thoughtful, consistent, human. Whether you’re leading a national brand or flying solo in a one-person department, there’s something here you can steal, tweak, and make your own. So pick one, test it, and make it yours. And if you’ve got a marketing move others should steal? Share it below. We’re all ears!
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