From Lease-Up to Long-Term: How Property Managers Can Use Marketing to Retain Tenants

Property managers often pour enormous resources into the lease-up phase, racing to fill vacancies with little thought to what comes next. But in a real estate market where tenant expectations are rising, and turnover costs are soaring, focusing solely on attracting new residents is a losing strategy. The real opportunity lies in retention. Marketing to current tenants isn't just a courtesy—it's a proven way to reduce turnover, strengthen community, and improve the bottom line.

For many properties, the marketing engine slows down the moment a lease is signed. In reality, this is when the most impactful marketing work should begin. Long-term tenant engagement is a relationship, not a transaction. Property managers who actively market to current residents can build loyalty, foster community, and ultimately, retain tenants well beyond their initial lease term.

The True Cost of Tenant Turnover

Tenant turnover is expensive. Industry estimates suggest that replacing a tenant can cost between 1.5 and 3 times the monthly rent, when accounting for vacancy loss, marketing, cleaning, repairs, and administrative expenses. Even small reductions in turnover can significantly improve a property’s Net Operating Income (NOI).

Beyond financial costs, high turnover disrupts community cohesion, erodes resident satisfaction, and can damage a property's reputation if it's perceived as transient or poorly managed. Retention-focused marketing, therefore, isn’t just a value-add—it's a core business strategy.

Marketing Beyond Lease-Up: A Shift in Mindset

One of the most common mistakes in property management is treating marketing as a front-loaded effort that ends when the unit is filled. The key to retention marketing is recognizing that the move-in day is the beginning, not the finish line.

Ongoing communication, thoughtful content, and a focus on service all contribute to a sense of value that extends well beyond rent payments. Tenants who feel connected to their property and appreciated by management are more likely to renew when the time comes.

Building Community: Marketing Connection, Not Just Amenities

Tenants who feel like they belong to a community are far more likely to stay. Community-building marketing doesn’t have to be complicated, but it does need to be intentional.

Hosting regular events—whether virtual or on-site—helps create shared experiences. Fitness classes, holiday parties, farmers' markets, and resident appreciation days bring people together and foster lasting connections. Even simple initiatives like photo contests or food truck Fridays can make a property feel vibrant and engaged.

Properties that actively share these events on social media, in newsletters, and on community bulletin boards further reinforce the idea that living there is about more than the four walls of a unit—it’s about participating in something larger.

Content Marketing for Current Tenants: Stay Top-of-Mind

Too often, property managers limit content marketing to attracting new residents. But content can be just as powerful in nurturing the relationship with existing tenants.

Monthly newsletters, for example, can provide updates about maintenance schedules, introduce new staff members, and share local recommendations. Social media channels can highlight amenity improvements, showcase resident stories, or promote nearby businesses. By regularly producing content that is both useful and community-focused, managers can stay top-of-mind in positive ways.

The key is consistency. A property that communicates regularly—through social posts, emails, SMS alerts, or even on-site screens—becomes more than just a landlord. It becomes part of a tenant’s daily life.

Personalization: Making Tenants Feel Seen

Personalized marketing isn’t just a consumer trend—it matters in property management, too. Sending birthday messages, lease anniversary thank-you notes, or personalized maintenance follow-ups can make tenants feel valued.

Featuring resident spotlights—with permission—in newsletters or social media posts is another way to humanize the community. When tenants see themselves reflected in the property’s story, they build stronger emotional ties.

Small gestures, like a move-in welcome gift or remembering tenant preferences, can have a surprisingly large impact on renewal decisions. Personalization signals care, and care builds loyalty.

Service-Driven Social Media: Turning Marketing Into Customer Care

Social media isn’t just a branding tool—it can also be a responsive service channel. Properties that use platforms like Instagram, Facebook, or even Twitter to quickly address maintenance updates, emergency notifications, or tenant questions can demonstrate a level of attentiveness that builds trust.

Publicly acknowledging service requests or quickly resolving issues via social can actually turn potential complaints into positive moments that reinforce the property’s responsiveness. This kind of service-driven marketing positions the property as accessible, transparent, and committed to tenant satisfaction.

Measuring Retention Marketing Success

Retention marketing is most effective when it’s measurable. Key performance indicators (KPIs) might include:

• Lease renewal rates

• Tenant satisfaction survey results

• Social media engagement from current residents

• Event participation rates

• Maintenance resolution times

Regularly collecting and analyzing this data allows property managers to fine-tune their retention strategies, understand what resonates with their tenants, and improve areas where engagement may be slipping.

Soliciting feedback proactively—via surveys, suggestion boxes, or social listening—also signals to tenants that their opinions are valued, which further contributes to satisfaction and loyalty.

Retention Starts at Move-In

The most effective retention marketing begins the moment a tenant steps through the door. From welcome emails to first-month check-ins, early touchpoints set the tone for a relationship that lasts beyond a single lease term.

Property managers who focus on long-term engagement—through community building, personalized communication, consistent content, and service-driven social media—create environments where tenants feel valued and connected. That feeling is the foundation for renewals.

In an industry where filling vacancies often takes center stage, the quiet work of keeping tenants happy may seem less urgent. But smart property managers know that a well-tended community is their most valuable asset.

Retention isn’t just about offering incentives at renewal time—it’s about making tenants want to stay all along.

Marketing for Mixed-Use Developments: Selling a Lifestyle, Not Just a Space

In the world of real estate, mixed-use developments are on the rise—transforming city blocks into full-fledged communities that blend living, working, dining, and leisure into a single footprint. But marketing these developments requires more than signage and square footage. It requires storytelling. Because when you’re not just selling units but a vision of how life unfolds across multiple spaces, cohesive branding isn’t optional—it’s essential.

Too often, real estate marketing still treats mixed-use developments like a collection of independent assets: a residential tower with its own branding, a plaza with its own website, and a handful of retail tenants listed on a directory page. This siloed approach might suffice in the planning phase, but once the ribbon is cut, it fractures the community's identity before it even begins. The result? Confused audiences, muddled messaging, and missed opportunities to connect.

Instead, marketing should weave all components of the project—residential, commercial, and public—into a single, cohesive story. One that doesn’t just describe the space but invites people into the lifestyle it enables.

Crafting a Unifying Narrative

At the heart of any successful mixed-use marketing campaign lies a unifying narrative: a central idea that connects each element of the development to a larger purpose or personality. It’s not just “luxury apartments above convenient retail.” It’s “urban ease meets creative energy,” or “a walkable village with room to grow.”

The best mixed-use campaigns start by defining this anchor narrative early. What experience does this development promise? Who is it for? What kind of life does it support?

A successful example of this can be seen in Essex Crossing, a mixed-use development on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Rather than market itself simply as housing plus retail, the project positioned itself as a re-stitching of the neighborhood’s history—balancing new economic opportunity with a strong sense of place. Public parks, affordable housing, senior centers, and cultural institutions were all framed as part of the same vision. The result? A story not about buildings, but about belonging.

Lifestyle as the Product

Unlike traditional properties, mixed-use developments aren't selling a single use-case—they’re selling a way of life. Marketing must speak to the layered interactions that happen between spaces: grabbing coffee downstairs on the way to work, running into a neighbor at the local bookstore, attending a movie night at the community plaza.

It’s this symbiotic lifestyle that sets mixed-use apart. But if you don’t make that lifestyle visible in your marketing, the development risks being perceived as just another real estate mashup. Instead of promoting each component in isolation, marketing should highlight moments of overlap—the daily rhythms that make the space feel alive.

Visual storytelling is especially powerful here. Renderings and videos should capture people using the spaces together, not just empty buildings in golden-hour light. Show the plaza bustling on a Saturday morning. Capture a live-work resident heading from their apartment to their studio. Frame the development as a backdrop for real lives in motion.

Creating Place Attachment

Beyond amenities, people want to feel connected to a place. That’s where branding and storytelling come in—not just to sell a product, but to foster identity. When done well, marketing helps create what urbanists call “place attachment”: the emotional bond people form with the spaces they live, work, and socialize in.

To cultivate this, the development’s branding should reflect the values of the target community. Is this a family-friendly neighborhood where kids ride bikes to a corner park? A creative district with live music and maker spaces? A sustainable urban hub where every detail—from lighting to landscaping—supports a greener lifestyle?

The language, visuals, and tone of the campaign should reinforce this identity at every touchpoint, from signage to social media. Events like outdoor movie nights, art walks, and pop-up markets not only activate the space but also become storytelling moments themselves—each one reinforcing the development’s ethos in real time.

Aligning Stakeholders Around the Same Story

Mixed-use developments often involve a mix of stakeholders: residential developers, commercial brokers, leasing teams, hospitality partners, public agencies. Without a shared messaging strategy, each one may default to marketing their own piece of the puzzle—often at odds with the overall narrative.

Strong marketing leadership creates cohesion by aligning all stakeholders under one brand story. This includes:

• A shared messaging guide
  

• Unified design language across assets
  

• Clear guidelines for tenant promotions
  

• Cross-platform marketing coordination
  

This unified approach ensures that every message—whether it’s from a leasing agent, a restaurant partner, or a city press release—amplifies rather than competes with the broader vision.

Embracing Digital Discovery

Most buyers and renters today begin their search online, and the same holds true for would-be diners, tourists, and eventgoers. If your mixed-use development doesn’t have a strong digital presence that ties it all together, you’re invisible to a majority of your audience.

That means not just a beautiful website, but one that showcases the interplay between spaces. Dedicated sections for residents, businesses, and the public—yes—but all under the same roof. A single Instagram feed that captures life across the whole development. Paid campaigns that adjust messaging based on user behavior: an office tour for one user, a plaza event for another.

Even search engine optimization (SEO) plays a key role here. Too many developments invest in high-end design only to forget the basics: keywords, metadata, local listings, and accessible content that makes the project findable by more than just insiders.

Future-Proofing the Brand

Mixed-use developments evolve. Tenants come and go. Community events shift with the seasons. But your brand story should be resilient enough to grow alongside the project.

That means building in flexibility from the start—creating a voice and identity that can expand as the place does. It also means regularly refreshing content, visuals, and campaigns to reflect what’s new and what’s next.

Rather than relying on static brand collateral, think of your marketing materials as a living archive. Share updates as the community grows. Highlight new partnerships. Document milestones. And always frame them as part of the larger story: a place becoming more itself.

Build More Than Space—Build Identity

At the end of the day, mixed-use developments succeed not because they offer more square footage, but because they offer more meaning. When you’re marketing multiple spaces under one roof, your job isn’t just to describe what’s there—it’s to define what it all adds up to.

With the right branding and storytelling, your development becomes more than just real estate. It becomes a community people want to be part of. A place that feels alive. A lifestyle with its own identity—and an invitation for others to belong.

How Real Estate Tech Startups Can Win Over Developers, Brokers, and PM Firms

In the world of real estate technology, innovation alone isn’t enough. No matter how game-changing your platform is, you still need to convince developers, brokerages, and property management firms to take a chance on something new. And in an industry known for legacy systems and risk-averse stakeholders, that’s no small task.

But real estate tech startups aren’t out of luck—they just need to market smarter. By leaning into B2B marketing strategies that focus on credibility, education, and trust-building, startups can shorten sales cycles, open doors, and position themselves as indispensable.

Know Your Stakeholders—And What Matters to Them

Your product might serve the real estate industry, but each segment within it has different priorities:

• Developers want to see ROI, operational scalability, and whether your product fits their workflows.

• Brokerages prioritize usability, lead generation, and speed.

• Property Managers are looking for tools that improve tenant satisfaction, cut costs, or streamline maintenance.

Generic sales pitches fail because they don’t address these nuanced concerns. To gain traction, tailor your pitch and marketing materials to each audience’s pain points.

B2B marketers who personalize content to specific segments see up to 20% higher engagement rates.

Build Credibility Through Strategic Partnerships

Partnerships can offer powerful social proof. Whether it’s teaming up with a respected consultancy, joining a local real estate tech incubator, or co-launching a pilot program with a mid-sized PM firm, strategic alliances give you a halo of legitimacy.

Example: A smart lock startup might collaborate with a regional multifamily owner to install test units across a sample of buildings. With tangible results in hand, they can publish a case study showing increased tenant satisfaction and reduced rekeying costs.

These types of collaborations don’t just create buzz—they create proof.

Lead with Demos and Walkthroughs, Not Decks

Today’s B2B buyers want to experience a product, not just read about it. Interactive demos, sandbox environments, or quick-use test logins are far more effective than feature slides.

Tailor your walkthroughs:

• For property managers, highlight the interface for work order management.

• For brokers, show how your platform accelerates listing syndication or lead capture.

Even better? Record tailored walkthroughs they can revisit or share with decision-makers. The goal is not to pitch—it’s to empower.

Educate First, Sell Later

Thought leadership builds trust. Instead of pushing your product, publish content that helps your audience solve real problems. That could include:

• Blog posts on topics like "Reducing Tenant Churn with Digital Tools."

• Webinars that explore new leasing strategies.

• Guides to operational efficiency or ESG compliance.

This establishes your team as a trusted voice. It also improves search rankings and nurtures leads long before your sales team calls.

Companies that prioritize content marketing generate 67% more leads than those that don’t.

Show Up at the Right Events (And Say Something Worth Hearing)

Real estate is still a relationship-driven industry. PropTech panels, CRE summits, and property management conferences remain key spaces for connection.

Don’t just show up with a table. Apply to speak, lead a workshop, or offer a case study onstage. Position yourself as an expert, not a vendor.

When possible, capture your insights as downloadable content or event recaps—then share those across LinkedIn and email.

Let Your Customers Tell the Story

Case studies, testimonials, and even short video interviews from clients are your strongest sales tools.

If you’re still early and have few clients, anonymize the results or focus on pilot programs. What matters is showing impact.

Example:

• "Reduced unit turnover by 18% in 6 months"

• "Improved maintenance response times by 50%"

Numbers speak louder than adjectives. Add social proof to every page of your website and every deck you send.

Trust Is the Real MVP

In B2B real estate tech, you’re not just selling innovation—you’re selling peace of mind. Stakeholders want to know: Will this work? Will it integrate? Can I trust you?

That trust is earned over time. Through smart content, thoughtful partnerships, transparent demos, and data-driven success stories, startups can prove they belong at the table.

The best way to break into the market? Don’t pitch harder. Market smarter.

5 Untapped Real Estate Niches Ripe for Digital Marketing

As the real estate industry continues to shift, digital marketing has emerged as a vital tool for driving growth and visibility. While residential and traditional commercial properties have widely adopted online strategies, several high-potential niches remain underutilized in the digital realm. This article explores five such sectors—Medical Office Buildings, Ghost Kitchens, Student Housing, Self-Storage Facilities, and Data Centers—and how tailored digital marketing can unlock their full potential.

Medical Office Buildings (MOBs): Bridging Healthcare and Digital Outreach

Medical Office Buildings are in high demand, thanks to an aging population and a broader shift toward outpatient care. JLL data shows that Medical Office Building (MOB) occupancy hit 92.8% by the end of 2024, with leasing activity climbing by 15% year-over-year across major markets—totaling over 19 million square feet absorbed. This surge in demand presents a ripe opportunity for better marketing visibility.

Yet, many MOB operators lag behind in terms of digital presence. Their marketing often relies on traditional methods like broker referrals and listings buried deep within general commercial real estate sites. By pivoting toward smarter digital strategies, MOB stakeholders can drive both tenant interest and patient engagement.

Tailored strategies might include SEO campaigns around relevant healthcare services, 360-degree virtual tours tailored to medical build-outs, and educational content that highlights proximity to hospitals, certifications, and features like ADA compliance or built-in exam rooms.

Ghost Kitchens: Navigating the Digital-Only Dining Experience

Ghost kitchens—delivery-only restaurants without a storefront—emerged as a pandemic-era solution and continue to grow. The global ghost kitchen industry is expected to surge to $157 billion by 2030, with an anticipated compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 12%, according to Coherent Market Insights.

Despite being built around digital infrastructure, many ghost kitchen operators underinvest in long-term digital marketing.

Effective marketing in this space requires more than basic directory listings. To compete, operators should focus on geo-targeted ads that appeal to specific delivery radiuses, social content on TikTok and Instagram that showcases menu development and chef personalities, and partnerships with local food influencers.

Marketing for ghost kitchens is not about location visibility—it’s about digital discoverability. Consumers must connect with the brand story online before they ever click “order.”

Student Housing: Connecting with the Digital Native Generation

Modern student housing isn’t just about providing a place to sleep—it’s about lifestyle, connectivity, and community. Student housing investments more than doubled in 2022, pointing to increased demand and rising returns. But connecting with Gen Z students requires more than a brochure and a Craigslist post.

The most successful campaigns meet students where they are: on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. Campaigns should highlight amenities like fitness centers, co-working spaces, and community events through short-form video. Student ambassadors or micro-influencers can offer dorm tours and share real stories of day-to-day life, building trust and relatability.

Virtual leasing tools are essential. If prospective tenants can’t tour in person, self-guided 3D tours, FAQ highlight reels, and instant booking tools should bridge the gap.

Self-Storage Facilities: Unlocking Potential Through Online Presence

Self-storage remains one of the most resilient asset types, with investment activity totaling $3.2 billion in the latter half of 2024. Yet many facilities have outdated websites, limited review management, and nonexistent SEO.

In a space where convenience and trust are key decision drivers, local SEO is paramount. Facilities should focus on Google Business optimization, mobile-friendly booking platforms, and review generation campaigns that encourage satisfied renters to share their experiences.

Unlike traditional real estate, many storage customers make fast decisions based on proximity and ease. A clean, professional, and informative digital footprint is more persuasive than any on-site signage.

Data Centers: Powering the Digital Age with Strategic Marketing

Late 2024 saw colocation data centers in North America reach record-low vacancy rates of just 2.6%, a clear sign of rising demand for reliable digital infrastructure. These facilities power our cloud-based lives, but their marketing often fails to communicate that importance.

Marketing data centers requires a blend of technical authority and storytelling. Educational content like whitepapers, security-focused virtual walkthroughs, and backstage facility videos can help simplify the complexities of data centers for potential tenants and investors. On LinkedIn and in industry publications, brand trust can be built by highlighting energy efficiency, uptime reliability, and scalable solutions for growing tech firms.

Buyers in this category tend to have a more extended and research-intensive decision-making process. Content must speak to CIOs, operations leads, and procurement teams—all while reinforcing credibility and ROI.

Embracing Digital Strategies for Niche Real Estate Success

These five real estate niches—while very different in function—share one thing in common: untapped marketing potential. In an age where digital discovery often comes before broker contact, a thoughtful, tailored digital strategy can drive awareness, engagement, and conversions.

Whether you're operating a delivery-only ghost kitchen or managing a mission-critical data center, investing in strong storytelling, SEO, and cross-platform visibility can set you apart—and drive long-term success.