Aero on 24th Case Study

Aero on 24th sits over a mile and a half from the University of Florida in one of the most competitive student-housing markets in the country – 58 properties were chasing the same renters, and five of them were brand-new developments. With COVID-19 in full swing and fewer students physically on campus, the usual playbook for filling beds no longer worked. Aero needed a strategy that could reach students who were no longer where student marketing normally finds them and still pre-lease the property ahead of the 2019-2020 term.

With the pandemic in full swing, we focused the majority of Aero’s marketing on digital tactics and thought outside the box, attacking the Gainesville student market with five digital marketing tactics.

Because many students were no longer on campus, regular geofence advertising would not cut it. Our geofencing technology could target students who had visited certain locations in the past, so we set the parameters to students who entered geofences back in March 2020 – the last month students were on campus before COVID-19 sent them home. Anyone who had entered a classroom, student center, rec center, or competitor property that March became eligible to see an Aero ad. That retroactive geofencing, combined with the other tactics and early launch dates, gave Aero a significant advantage.

We took it one step further. Using the University of Florida student contact list, the team harvested home addresses and set hyper-geofences around students’ homes. By the end, more than 40,000 geofences were deployed, keeping Aero in front of students even while they were home with their parents.