In the competitive world of student housing, standing out is not just an option—it’s a necessity. At GRO, we understand the unique challenges and opportunities that come with marketing student communities. Our tailored, multi-channel digital marketing campaigns are designed to do three things: attract more students, secure more leases, and empower our partners to win more deals.
From SEO to Paid Search to Meta Ads, our custom strategies deliver maximum ROI, putting your community in front of students exactly where they are.
Engage, Inspire, Convert. Websites That Work as Hard as You Do.
Our visually stunning, user-friendly websites create a seamless experience that engages students and captures leads that convert.
Showcasing the Vibe. Capturing the Vision.
Our stunning visuals highlight every detail of your property while showcasing the vibrant student lifestyle that makes it unique.
Bringing your community’s spirit to life.
We create unforgettable brand identities that capture the soul of your property and connect with students on a deeper level.
Student housing communities that have sufficient marketing budgets usually invest in a combination of search advertising, display advertising and an array of social advertising tactics. Paid search advertising, usually through Google, is the most popular and typically the most effective choice, followed by Instagram / Facebook advertising, TikTok advertising and then geofence advertising.
It varies by market, but all branding and creative elements (logo, renderings, marketing collateral, fence signage, and website), should be launched three months before leasing begins. This will provide your new development enough time to generate awareness and build frequency with students and parents.
It all depends on the market. Some university leasing seasons begin in the late summer before classes begin where others begin the following January of the academic year. For most markets, brand awareness and SEO start in the summer and the full marketing program is launched in the fall. It’s very common for student housing communities to increase marketing spend and launch new marketing tactics in the spring semester as well as the summer semester to make a final push.
It is very common to reduce or pause investment and marketing tactics when a student housing community reaches 100% occupancy, but certain marketing channels should run continuously. Budget should always be allocated towards Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to improve or sustain your organic rankings, as it is highly likely that your competitors are continuing to perform SEO on their websites.
The most common student housing websites feature six pages including the following pages: Home, floorplans, amenities, gallery, FAQ and contact.
Any goal or event on your website where a prospect’s information is submitted should be tracked and labeled as a conversion. This includes form fills, click to calls, applications, tour schedules and live chats. Engagement events such as time on site, pages per visit and “get directions” link clicks are also important metrics to track, as they are all positive indicators that a conversion is probable in the future.
We recommend allocating a very small portion of your overall paid search advertising budget to target your property name (branded keywords) for the following reasons – being able to switch information such as availability and specials in your listings, having a presence while your new website organically climbs the Google rankings and defending from competitor properties.
GRO has several clients running successful TikTok campaigns, but this answer varies depending on the location of your community and target university. TikTok has improved its targeting capabilities recently, but unfortunately, due to student housing falling under a special ads category, the minimum location targeting must be city and you cannot target users by age. In addition, TikTok’s minimum daily spend is $20, which is significantly higher than other social ad platforms. We recommend only investing in TikTok advertising if you have a healthy budget and are already investing in the other core digital tactics (paid search, SEO, Meta advertising, geofencing).
