Allegro Apartments Situation

Allegro Apartments needed to build awareness and traffic to propel it toward its grand opening. Merrick Towle Communications created a dynamic apartment website as the primary marketing vehicle since there wasn’t any product to see until opening.

The Target

Primary – 25-35 year old urban yuppies. Lawyers, lobbyists, politicos, movers and shakers.

Consumer Insight

“There’s more than one way to get ahead in this city. Working hard is important, but working the scene is what it’s all about. It’s way more fun to meet people at a club at 2am than to go to those boring networking events. And those work hard, play harder types are the ones that really make things happen. I want to live in a place that’s central to the scene. I don’t want to live in one of those stuffy downtown apartments. Give me a place that has a cool vibe to it. One that will not only be convenient to everything but that will up my image.”

Marketing Challenge

People feel that they shouldn’t be spending money on luxuries like expensive apartments. But they really, really want to. So we have to make the building so awesome that they want to spend money.

The Marketing Strategy

Utilize club marketing tactics to build buzz and community energy around Allegro Apartments. Make the target audience…

Think: Wow, that apartment looks like a club.
Feel: It’d make me look so cool to live in a community like Allegro.
Do: I am going to go and see this place for myself.

With the goal of getting our apartment’s promotional materials into the bars and clubs our audience frequents, we developed a drink mix promotion. Merrick Towle decided to partner with On Tap Magazine because of their extensive relationships with the very establishments we wanted to target. Click here for blog post outlining this partnership. We also worked with Sawmill Marketing Public Relations to get the word out to our target. Click here for blog post outlining Merrick Towle’s PR and Social media strategy.

See you at Desire

The ultimate apartment grand opening gala celebration sponsored by On Tap Magazine and Grey Goose Vodka (link to other blog post about the partnership).

• Outreach to the hottest restaurants and bars in DC
• Judging panel of local celebrities and socialites
• Reveal winning drink at Desire
• Winning “Allegrotini” served and promoted at local restaurants and bars
• The DJ: A longtime and prominent staple of the DC DJ community spun at Eighteenth Street Lounge and the Kennedy Center who performed with Thievery Corporation

The hype machine

• Over 3,000 coasters distributed to participating restaurants
• Social media engagement by On Tap and Allegro Apartments
• Limited print media in On Tap and rental publications
• Banner ads, listings and a custom-designed landing page

1,000 RSVPs can’t be wrong

• Traffic to apartment website increased by 75%
• DC power players, politicians and celebs attended the event
• PR coverage in over 200 media outlets

The power of numbers

• 20% of 297 units occupied one month after grand opening
• Coaster distribution results in over 350 website visitors (over 10% conversion)
• Community bloggers and industry greats such as NBC drive 35% of web traffic
• PR outreach leads to increased search rankings on Google – over 1,500 listings
• Website peaks at 1400 unique visitors per week then stabilizes at a constant 1,000

Art Director: John Sexton
Copywriter: Michael Getzlaff
Digital Art Director: Danny Bae
Account Team: Erin Riggins and Michael Hammerstrom
Media Director: Donna Hodge
Account Planner: Amy Weedon
Public Relations Partner: Sawmill Public Relations
Developer: Metro Properties Inc.
Management Company: Kettler