Muse Flats lease up project

Rentsync delivers on versatile brand and lease-up strategy for UWCRC 2.0’s Muse Flats mixed-income community in Winnipeg

The Project

Create an expert-led brand and marketing strategy for UWCRC 2.0’s Muse Flats apartment community that provides a professional foundation for all marketing initiatives and delivers meaningful results.

The Property

Location: 290 Colony St. Winnipeg, MB

Mixed-Use: Residential & Commercial

Website: www.museflatswinnipeg.ca

100%

Affordable units rented in 3 months

3000+

Website visitors per month

$11

Average cost per lead (Google Ads)

100,000

People reached (Facebook Ads)

About Muse Flats

Muse Flats is a mixed-income, mixed-use rental building developed by the non-profit UWCRC 2.0 at 290 Colony St, Winnipeg, MB. The property is a short walk to the Winnipeg Art Gallery and just one block from the University of Winnipeg campus.

The accessible, sustainable, culturally inclusive Muse Flats building and its affordable, market, and premium units appeal to students, newcomers to Canada, and artists alike. Muse Flats was designed in consultation with the local arts community to create a unique and inspired living experience for its residents.

The non-profit UWCRC 2.0 develops wholly-owned and joint-venture real estate projects for the University of Winnipeg, other post-secondary institutions, non-profit organizations, and First Nations clients.

“Rentsync really understands UWCRC 2.0 and properties like Muse Flats… Working with a specialist like Rentsync was a pleasure!”

- Jeremy Read, CEO of UWCRC

Challenge 1

Creating effective messaging for multiple target demographics

The UWCRC 2.0’s decision to price units at affordable, market, and premium rates meant having to craft marketing messages that spoke to each demographic both distinctly and in a concise way.

It was critical that prospects understood the communal and diverse spaces available for resident use at the community, regardless of the cost of a particular rental unit. This message had to be effectively conveyed in all marketing initiatives.

“UWCRC 2.0 really is irregular and a kind of a weird fish, and based on the bids, it was obvious Rentsync was the only agency that understood,” says Jeremy Read, CEO of UWCRC.

The solution

Rentsync’s main goals were to position Muse Flats as fitting seamlessly into downtown Winnipeg, including its arts and student communities, and to be able to reach prospects from different walks of life.

“We had a vision for our brand, logo, and marketing and relied on Rentsync to finetune, execute and implement it for us,” says Read, “They had the skills, resources, and rental real estate marketing experience we didn’t have in-house.”

Rentsync’s first task was to create a logo and brand identity, which was ultimately inspired by the building’s unique architecture. The De Stijl style of abstract art that is based on a strict geometry of horizontals and verticals was a great inspiration for the brand. This brand was carried into each of the services Muse Flats used with Rentsync, which includes creative print assets, a single-community website, pay-per-click advertising through Google Ads and Facebook Ads, and Rental Listing Site advertising.

Muse Flats' website features distinct pages for each unit type, and these ultimately send prospects to the appropriate unit pages, depending on the price and size the prospect is looking for. The rest of the website is designed to allow prospects to easily visualize living there. This includes an expansive gallery featuring both static images and virtual tours.

In addition to other online and offline marketing initiatives, Rentsync relied particularly on Google Ads to attract prospects looking for each unit type and connect them with a tailored marketing message. The success of this campaign is based on using a variety of long-tail keywords and connecting key search terms with carefully crafted messages that simultaneously emphasize the variety of rental rates as well as the communal spaces that bring each demographic together within the community walls.

“Rentsync made sure our story was consistent with these key messages across every platform and all campaigns,” says Read.

Challenge 2

Eliminating the registration period & marketing for near immediate lease-up

In lease-up situations, many advertisers will start marketing many months before they begin leasing, giving themselves time to build a registration list of quality prospects that can be sent key messages as the lease-up progresses. Muse Flats began their marketing initiatives - including their brand development - just a few months before leasing began, which meant that there was no registration period and that timelines to plan and execute a marketing strategy were comparatively short.

“Rentsync was able to meet our timelines because they dedicated an entire team to Muse Flats,” says Read, “Their team’s project managers kept the designers, developers, and strategists on track and leveraged Rentsync’s processes and tools to make it happen for us.”

The solution

Rentsync worked closely with the UWCRC 2.0 team to move quickly through brand development without sacrificing quality or short-cutting the message and feeling the brand had to convey. Muse Flats adopted one of Rentsync’s theme websites, which was outfitted with the brand developed for Muse Flats. Content both on the website and on Google, Facebook & Instagram, and Rental Listing Sites, was carefully strategized and written to address an audience that was both encountering Muse Flats for the first time and able to begin the application process.

Rentsync also created a unique marketing strategy that eliminated messaging and strategies that would typically be used during registration, effectively fast-tracking the process in order to begin filling units at launch.

Challenge 3

Leasing up during a once-in-a lifetime pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed rental markets worldwide, and Winnipeg is no exception. For example, as local, national, and international University of Winnipeg students moved to online learning, demand for downtown rental units plummeted - especially those aimed at students.

“The number of rental listings quadrupled, rents were reduced and incentives ran the gamut from free parking to $500 grocery cards and even two months rent-free,” says Read.

The solution

Whereas Rentsync initially recommended virtual tours as an advertising bonus that would help Muse Flats stand out from its competition, this media type became a must-have during the pandemic’s initial waves. Muse Flats commissioned more than a dozen virtual tours so that prospects could virtually preview the units that interested them before visiting in person. Many Rental Listings Sites quickly caught onto this need and began allowing virtual tours to be used on their networks, with Muse Flats being among the first to showcase virtual tours on their listings. Muse Flats leveraged Rentsync’s Syndication tool to manage their listings across leading rental sites including PadMapper & Zumper, Rentals.ca, RentBoard, and RentCanada.

“Normally, those tours would matter the most to international students and immigrants getting ready to move from overseas – through the pandemic, they were a great starting point for all of our prospects,” says Read, “Rentsync let us know that virtual tours are the future”.

Advertising a lease-up property through a pandemic also means knowing how to effectively pivot in the use of various advertising channels. Muse Flats introduced social media marketing late into their advertising strategy in order to attract new audiences, increase brand awareness, and gain attention on the promotions being offered at various points and for different demographics. Promotions became especially important as rental supply vastly increased in the wake of COVID-19, and continue to be almost expected features of a successful lease-up campaign to this day.