AIM 2023: Applied AI for Multifamily Marketing

The apartment industry is finding more uses for Generative AI or ChatGPT every day.

Uses for Generative AI or ChatGPT continue to grow at an amazing rate. The technology – just a few months old – is flooding many industries with the promise of improving operations while reducing time, effort, and cost.

The apartment industry stands to gain as well, as many companies are already applying it to basic content creation related to marketing, operations, and HR.

Using keynote speaker David Boyle’s book, Prompt, as a guide, veteran multifamily marketers Holli Beckman, Chief Marketing Officer at WC Smith; and Mike Whaling, Founder & President at 30 Lines, spoke with Boyle to deliver a series of take-home prompts that can be used to create more content, perform market research, gather comp data, and more.

“It’s an electric bike for the mind,” Boyle said. “We’re not able to query knowledge as we would query data, which we already do.

“We can now also manipulate knowledge as we do data: summarize, segment, find patterns, elaborate. ChatGPT can take knowledge from one source and apply it to another.”

Boyle expounded on how Generative AI is a quicker, better way, and that it involves less heavy lifting (brainstorming, first drafting) for marketing staff.

“This way, you can apply more time on strategy such as guiding and adding,” said, adding that studies show those who use the technology are happier in their work and have higher self-confidence.

It helps with anything that is thinking (who, what, why) or with communicating tasks (how can I persuade someone with this information), Boyle said.

“Everything we do all day is one or the other,” he said.

Boyle presented a “ladder” of uses for ChatGPT from strategic insights to small talk.

We’ll start with the top rung:

Strategic Insights and Decisions. Audience insights (unmet needs, opportunities). Evaluating risks, trends, or patterns. Analyzing complex situations. Developing recommendations or advice. 

Advanced Creativity and Ideation. Detailed original stories, and articles on reports. Persuasive arguments. Creative writing and problem-solving. 

Task Assistance. Step-by-step instructions, guidance, and solving basic problems. Writing job descriptions, plans, letters, etc. Proofreading and editing.

Information and Understanding. Explaining complicated concepts, summarizing articles, and providing definitions or explanations.

Playful Creations. Poems, songs, and stories. Simple brainstorming and ideation. 

Small Talk. Jokes, simple questions, and conversation. 

More Interesting Points: 

∙ Boyle said he looked into the market research that a company paid $100,000 for and was able to recreate about 70% of it for no charge by using ChatGPT.

∙ One apartment-specific example of its use was offered and discussed by Beckman and Whaling was marketing for a lease-up in a market such as Washington, D.C. It can translate tourist information into a story on why someone would want to live in your city and to market your apt building.

∙ They said ChatGPT could assist in determining potential resident make-up such as “status seekers,” which ChatGPT identified, with other attributes things such as “convenience cravers,” “experience enthusiasts,” and “community seekers.”

∙ From that understanding, marketing campaigns could be built to address and attract them to an apartment community that appeals to those traits..