Property Acquisitions: Digital Marketing Assets

You'll want a high-resolution version of the property logo. The file format should be .psd, .ai, or .png (preferably with a transparent background).

Considerations:

• You'll want a logo that can work well in both horizontal and vertical layouts.
• The best logos are recognizable, even without the name in text next to them. (Think Starbucks, Nike, or Apple.)
• You should have a version of the logo that works really well in a square format. This is ideal for social media profile pics, overlays on shareable images, and even for printing on t-shirts, hats & other swag.

Brand/identity standards can include your fonts, color palette, design elements such as background patterns & textures, and much more

You absolutely need high quality photos of the property, including:

• Exterior shots of the buildings and the grounds
• Interior shots of the apartments (preferably furnished, if possible)
• Photos of the amenity areas, both indoors and outdoors
• Photos of the onsite staff
• Photos of any local highlights in the surrounding neighborhood

Based on current screen resolutions and design trends, you'll want photos that are at least 1,200-1,400 pixels wide, if not larger. You'll definitely need high-res photos if you're creating any new print materials.

Photos should not have any kind of visible watermark, and you should have free license to use these photos across all of your marketing assets (both online and offline).

If you don't have high quality photos of the property, try a Google Business photographer in your area.

You'll need floor plans images for your marketing. At a minimum, you'll want high-resolution images on a transparent background. (Formats like gif and png.)

Floor plans should be easy to read and understand. 

Need new floor plans? Try using a service like 3dplans.com.

You absolutely should maintain ownership of the domain name for your property website. DO NOT allow any third-party to own your domain name.

Typically, your domain name will be held with a domain registrar such as GoDaddy, Network Solutions or many others. Make sure you have the login information for your registrar.

Purchase your domain name for multiple years, or set it to auto-renew. The last thing you want is to lose your site or have it go down because you forgot to renew your domain.

Your domain name is just the address where people will go to find your site. In addition to the domain, you'll need a hosting provider to host the actual files that make up your site.

Your hosting needs may vary depending on the technologies used to build your website. Ask your website provider for important details related to your web host, in case you ever need them -- this includes hosting provider name, login info, and other details related to your hosting account.

Can you make edits to the property website if you need to? If you're keeping the current website for the property, make sure you have administrative access to login and manage the website.

Google Analytics is the best way to measure how the property website is performing. If this service is installed on the website (and hopefully it is), you should get access to this data for reporting purposes.

What you'll need:

• Have a current Analytics user add your preferred Google account as a user. You should have full access rights at the Property level, including the ability to Manage Users, Edit, Collaborate, and Read & Analyze.

Once you have the access you need, you can remove old users or restrict their access as necessary.

In many cases, various email addresses for the property will be published online for leasing and customer service purposes. These may be addresses on the property domain, or sometimes they will forward to a third-party customer service center.

You may or may not want to continue to use these email addresses, but regardless, they're out there ... and current or potential residents may try to use them.

Here are a few options to consider:

1. Maintain the old email addresses and continue to monitor their incoming messages.
2. Forward the old email addresses to new addresses that will be more convenient for you to monitor.
3. Replace the old email addresses on the sites where they are published.

Need help claiming and managing your online listings? 30 Lines can help -- check out Top Line Local to learn how to take the hassle out of managing your local listings.

Ask the previous owner to email [email protected]. They will need to provide the following information to Apartment Ratings:

“We have sold this property to [New property management company]. Please transfer ownership of this listing to [New manager’s email].”

For more information, visit the Apartment Ratings Manager Center.

What you'll need:

• Email address associated with the property's Twitter account
• Username
• Password

What you'll need:

• Email address associated with the property's Instagram account (if applicable)
• Username
• Password

What you'll need:

• Email address associated with the property's Pinterest account (if applicable)
• Username
• Password

What you'll need:

• Email address associated with the property's Yahoo! account (Flickr is owned by Yahoo!, and requires a Yahoo! account for login)
• Username
• Password

What you'll need:

• Email address associated with the property's Twitter account
• Username
• Password

This may be the same page as the Google+ Local page, depending on how it's set up.

If it is a separate business Page, make sure your preferred Google account is set up as a Page Manager on both the Local and the business Pages. (In most cases, you can merge these pages later.)

What you'll need:

• Email address associated with the property's YouTube account
• Username
• Password