Backstory
April of 2019 I was a Freshman at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. I had never lived on my own and was both excited and nervous about all of the new experiences that were coming my way. Within the first few weeks of attending classes and living the campus lifestyle I started to notice something odd. Everywhere I went on campus, whether it was to grab lunch, meet a friend at the rec, or walk to class I was being bombarded with apartment marketing! Tables set up asking me to enter a giveaway, leasing agents walking around with wagons full of gift bags, flyers posted everywhere, it just never seemed to stop.
The peculiar thing about all this, was that when I talked to my peers they seemed to talk about this marketing activity in a negative light. It annoyed and frustrated them. They wanted to go about their lives without being solicited or bothered. They wanted to stay in their own bubble with no interference.
This got me thinking… How much money/time/energy is being spent by these apartment marketers on these kinds of marketing activities? Do they know that their effort is not resonating with students? There had to be a better way for them to get their marketing messages in front of students that would be less abrasive and more intuitive.
This observation led me down a 12 month journey of testing, learning, building, and failing over a dozen different ideas for improving how student housing apartments advertised to students. After what felt like a decade of no progress, I had finally created an effective system that would allow student housing marketers to reach their desired student demographics at scale through a medium that wasn’t only less abrasive, but infinitely more effective at creating interest and therefore driving leasing.
They wanted to go about their lives without being solicited or bothered. They wanted to stay in their own bubble with no interference.
What is Swarm?
To spare you the details about the dozen ideas that didn’t work, let’s just skip ahead to the one that did.
Swarm is a student-influencer marketing service that creates a network of student-influencers in your market capable of completely saturating your market with offers/promotional messaging via organic Instagram posts.
In other words, we get the really popular kids on campus to tell their friends to choose you over the other available housing options. We make your property stand out, even in the most competitive markets.
What makes Swarm unique is our ability to deliver your marketing messages to your property’s specific target demographics at scale through their peers. No other marketing channels allow a property to reach students at scale as effectively as a well managed, custom built network of student-influencers.
Since bringing this service to market, Swarm has been used by over 150 properties and has helped Student Housing marketers reach over 10 MILLION students.
So how does it work?
Our process for helping Student Housing properties reach students, generate interest, and drive leasing consists of four key steps.
Step 1. Property Onboarding
The first thing we do is collect information from the leasing/marketing manager for the property we are working with. We provide a form and conduct a discovery call to learn about the property’s unique situation, value propositions, and competitive environment. Our goal during this process is to gather all the info we need to set up an influencer campaign that reaches the right students with the right messaging.
Step 2. Market Research
Once all the property’s information has been collected and organized, we begin to research the market to discover where our key target demographics live online. We learn who they follow, what student groups they belong to, and who they are most influenced by. This part of our process is what makes Swarm unique. We utilize a suite of proprietary data tools and processes to discover the exact channels and strategies we can activate to put a property in front of their key target demographics, at scale.
Step 3. Influencer Recruiting
The next, and most important part of our process is recruiting influencers to promote your property. Of all the things we do here at Swarm, I believe this is what we do better than anyone else. We utilize the data collected to identify students in your market that are not only influential, but have a strong and engaged following of students that fit your target demographic profile. Our team reaches out to the influencers they identify and bring them into your campaign. All of our influencers are required to agree to our terms to ensure there is no conflict of interest in their promotions. We assemble our influencer networks to ensure that they not only have student followings, but that they have audience overlap. This means when we activate all of our influencers, students will see not just one, but several of their popular peers talking about your property and sharing your promotions. This accelerates word of mouth and creates additional touch points to keep your property in “front-of-mind” territory. We’ve found that this strategy is very effective as we cast a large net and reach students at scale. By reaching students dozens of times, your property will likely be the first one they think of when they begin shopping or talking about moving into an apartment!
Step. 4 Content Creation + Ad Distribution
Once the influencers have been recruited, we ask them to send us photos of them and their friends at popular/recognizable locations in your market. We use these photos to create scroll-stopping ads that highlight your property’s marketing messaging and offers. We send these ads back to our influencers for them to post and begin putting your property in front of students!
Once this step is underway the campaign is officially launched and the property being promoted will begin to reach thousands of students each week via our influencers!
We collect the data from the posts and engagement and provide detailed reports so you can see how many students you are reaching as well as how much engagement and interest your offers/promotions are generating each month.
I hope that this breakdown of our process has helped you better understand Swarm and the value we provide. If you have any questions or would like to connect with us to see if Swarm could be a good fit for your property, please shoot me email!
You can reach me directly at M@GETSWARM.CO !