You know you’re in a highly competitive industry where attracting residents and keeping current residents is a daily objective. While having in-demand amenities is important, increasingly, residents want a sense of community with neighbors. To attract and keep residents, consider these three strategies that use technology to build neighborly connections.
1. Neighbors that play together, stay together
A little friendly competition can go a long way to building community. Try launching a building-wide monthly fitness challenge that activates your fitness space and connects to neighborhood amenities. Residents can use your fitness facility treadmills and neighborhood walking trails to track progress through your building’s fitness app. Create an onboarding challenge with housewarming prizes just for new residents. Whether it’s a mini-marathon or making time for daily meditation, common challenges where residents work simultaneously toward health goals, creates a strong sense of togetherness.
Kick things off with a launch event every month in your fitness facility or lobby with free healthy treats to get residents interested, signed up and connecting with neighbors. And don’t forget to spread the word through your social channels, app and website, even featuring “contestants” in social media to showcase their progress and personal tips.
2. Stream apartment life-style content to residents’ homes
It’s not just about fitness either. Savvy building managers are now using platforms like FitnessOnDemand to stream other helpful content conveniently to residents in their apartments and homes. Live sessions with building maintenance professionals who can give easy tutorials on simple household fixes that save time and money for operations. Cooking classes, craft demo’s and wellness tutorials are also becoming popular as ways to add value, engagement and entertainment at the touch of a screen. Remember to use the scheduling feature on your chosen streaming platform and promote the access link to residents in email, social channels, your website and app.
3. Engage hard to reach residents with your fitness programming
Not everyone is wired for group classes or to even set foot in a fitness facility or gym. A 2019 survey by IHRSA revealed as many as 50% of Americans suffer from some form of “Gymtimidation” – anxiety they feel for many reasons: body image, lack of familiarity with gym equipment or large crowds. But that’s no reason these kinds of residents should miss out on everything your fitness amenities have to offer. It’s now simple with most streaming fitness platforms to stream workouts, specialty classes, and meditation content directly to residents’ phones and tablets in the privacy of their own apartments. Keep these audiences in mind when marketing your vacancies or engaging current residents. Curating easy, ready-made workouts they can access weekly or even daily, embed new community challenges, and cheer residents on through notifications -- all great ways to engage and build community.
These engagement strategies are simple, relatively low-cost ways to create goodwill, good vibes and good neighbors, which can help to sway the decision to sign on the dotted line and the decision to stay.
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