Find out what students really want from their PBSA booking journey - with special guest Mariel Rubinstein from theEword

This week, Dan Smith and Deenie Lee are joined by a special co-host Mariel Rubinstein from theEword who brings insights from its latest report, looking into the digital journey students take when researching PBSA.

We cover:
- The latest trends in digital marketing.
- How to define and effectively target your audience.
- The importance of tracking performance and conversions to nurture long-term engagement.
- The balance between brand awareness and sales conversion – is there enough time and budget for both?
- The role of social media, flexible lease lengths, and amenities in shaping student choices.

Download theEword report here

We are excited to announce a new sponsor for this season, theEword - true experts in digital marketing specifically for the property sector.

We are also delighted that MyStudentHalls are continuing to sponsor the podcast, Mystudenthalls.com - Find your ideal student accommodation across the UK.

Each week, Sarah Canning, Deenie Lee of The Property Marketing Strategists and Daniel Smith of Student Housing Consultancy will be delving into a wide variety of subjects and asking the questions that aren't often asked. This podcast is for anyone who works in Student Accommodation, BTR, Co-living, Operational Real Estate or Shared Living.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are the personal views of the individual hosts.

Transcript

SPEAKER_04: 0:00

Hello and welcome to the second episode in the brand new season of How's the Shared Living podcast. I'm Deena Lee from the Property Marketing Strategists.

SPEAKER_01: 0:09

I'm Dan Smith from Resi Consultancy.

SPEAKER_04: 0:11

And today we have a very special episode as Sarah is off delivering justice at jury service this week. So in her place we're delighted to be welcoming Marielle Rubenstein from The E-Word. So welcome Marielle to the Housed podcast.

SPEAKER_03: 0:25

Hello, thank you for having me. I'm Marielle from The E-Word and The E-Word is a digital strategy property agency that focuses on putting people in your places. So for PBSA, filling beds or it could be selling homes for residential developments. That's a little bit about what we do.

SPEAKER_04: 0:43

Lovely, that's great. And it's really, really great to have you here today. And it's also great to have eWord as our brand new sponsors for this season. So first, a little snippet from

SPEAKER_02: 0:53

the eWord. This episode of Housed, the shared living podcast, is brought to you by the eWord, digital experts in driving leads and putting people in your places.

SPEAKER_04: 1:02

It's great to have the e-words to our little housed family to make sure you drop them in line if you need to put your digital plan into safe hands. We have also loved having Dan and the team at my student halls involved in house and we're delighted that they're also going to continue sponsoring this season so more from them later. So Marielle you are here for a special reason too as you've got a new report out which I think would be really interesting to many of our listeners and it's one that I'm particularly excited about. Do you want to tell us a little bit more about about it?

SPEAKER_03: 1:33

Yeah, of course. So we have just released our second edition of the What Do Students Want report. And I think, you know, we all know, and I'm sure people listening to this podcast know that keeping up with Gen Z and their ever-changing nature is really important to make sure that their strategies work. So we created the What Do Students Want report to give us the latest insights, specifically looking at the booking journey from their perspective this year. So we surveyed a thousand students aged 17 to 21 years old who are currently either living in the student accommodation or are applying to university to start in September 2025 and that's in the UK and within this 53% of the students live in PBSA or Plan 2 and 47% live in university provided halls or Plan 2 and then I guess the final piece of the report is we spoke to a number of different UK students through our Student Spark programme which is the eWords global network of students that we've been building over the last year which we use regularly to get feedback on our campaigns or add some messaging and feeding that into our client strategies so they were a big part of the report as well.

SPEAKER_04: 2:43

That's brilliant and Sarah and I came together to launch the property marketing strategies because we knew there wasn't enough people asking these questions to students and young people so it's great that you've got this report it's great that you've got that database and it and the booking journey is such a vital important to the sector that it's there's a lot of great data in here which you know we urge everyone to go and read because if you're not getting your booking journey right then what's the point of everything else so it's really important stuff you've been doing this report for a couple of years now i believe and what do you feel students want and have you seen kind of any overarching changes over the course of of those reports

SPEAKER_03: 3:20

yeah i guess a clear trend for me which i think is something that's that's not going to go away is obviously that the fact that booking their student accommodation isn't you know a quick off-the-cuff decision it's something that they spend a lot of time thinking about because it's where they're going to live for you know one or two or three years and I think more and more with like the cost of of living and questions about you know whether they should go to university to get their degree the value of that and I think for international students that the visa restrictions that booking decision is becoming more scrutinized than ever and that continues each year so students are taking their time to make that decision and they want that patience but I think from a marketing perspective they want that help helpful content and marketing campaigns to help them make that decision. And so I think one of the headlines from the report was that 46% of PBSA students begin to research accommodation five or six months before they move in, and a quarter of them start even earlier, so a year before they move in. So it really takes them that time to make that decision. And it's not something that operators can rush them through, I think. But in terms of changes, I think, again, those pressures around making the decision means that their priorities are shifting so you know how important amenities like cinema rooms anymore and are they looking at more how those amenities are going to serve them throughout those years and those studies because they want them to serve you know their professional and personal development rather than just have a good time I guess there's a lot more going into that decision than you know it did when I was at university I had much different priorities than I think the students today are considering and you know in our report 25% of students said they wanted quiet dedicated study spaces that would influence their decision or creative spaces 23% said that like content creation or podcast studios whereas you know cinema rooms things like that were a lot less less of a want compared to you know five or longer years ago.

SPEAKER_04: 5:15

And do you I think that's that is really really interesting and I think that process of research and and assessing and understanding what is on offer is is obviously really important but do you see that the sector is nuanced enough to deliver that are people thinking actually five months out they're in the start of this journey they're in this space of looking for stuff and actually when they get a bit closer you know four or five months down the line from that point is when they're looking to book do you see that kind of nuanced content from the sector in general and how I guess how do you help clients achieve that

SPEAKER_03: 5:52

I think this is something we'll probably dig into more and in the conversation today is I think I think there's always pressure to go live as quickly as possible with, you know, sales focused campaigns, because ultimately, what operators want and what their investors want is bookings, and that's their goal for the year. So that's always what leads the conversation. But I think, you know, as the data saying it, we really need to consider that journey that they're going through over a long period of time, you know, it's not like selling a dress on, you know, ASOS, where the decision is a lot quicker. It's, you know, months and months of them thinking and rethinking researching so campaigns do need to adapt and focus on much different things when it comes to when they're in that research phase where compared to you know they're comparing two options which one do I go for here you know that's going to be cost or location or things like that whereas in the awareness phase it's much more about like the lifestyle they're going to get and thinking at more aspirational content to be fair at the beginning so that's something we always try and talk about with our clients is making sure that we're running the right activity at the right time and we would look at data to back that up because i think it's always a question of convincing the value of the awareness activity and in order to do so looking at data so We look at Google Trends data. When are people actually searching student accommodation in Liverpool or Manchester? That's in certain months where the peak is higher. But in those off-peak seasons where it's lower volume, that's when they're using other sort of digital channels to get that research out there. So they're not just looking for the product at that time. It's more about the life that they will experience.

SPEAKER_01: 7:33

It's really interesting. I think one thing that operators would love is more certainty earlier in the market as to how many students are actually going to book with them and can they front load that booking cycle ultimately. Are you seeing trends that the booking cycle ultimately is becoming more focused on that peak season, or are we starting to see it spreading out a little bit more?

SPEAKER_03: 7:57

Good question. Yeah, I always say this. I think when I started working in PBSA, the summer months were crazy, very busy. But it feels like peak is slowly spreading throughout the rest of the year for us. And I think that is reflected in the data we see as well. So we would normally allocate our budget for direct paid media spend based on the search demand. And that would mean heavily it would be spent in the summer months. However, now we see it's a lot flatter across the year, actually. And so that more regular spending, kind of reaching out to the students and nurturing them is what's more important rather than, you know, quiet for nine months and then really reaching out to them in that, you know, three month window.

SPEAKER_04: 8:38

And I guess based on that is that I think traditionally people think let's just throw all our budget in the summer. But actually, are you finding that there is a better return on investment when you're actually taking that budget, spreading it out, aligning it with where people's thought processes are? And that's how you get more bang for your buck effectively if you've got your marketing budget.

SPEAKER_03: 8:58

Yeah, 100%. percent i think you know what we've seen is that students need that time to nurture make decisions research so it it helps us to make that contact earlier in the year get into their minds as a great option for them in terms of pbsa and then when they are ready to make that decision it means that the cost to convert them is actually lower than if we'd only target them for a small period of time but with more money because they've been thinking about if so long now they're ready and that final ad you know nudges them over the edge to make that decision whereas if you're just targeting in a smaller period of time with more money they still have to go through that decision process of understanding who you are, what you offer, whether you're right for them, and they need longer than that to make that decision. So it's more expensive to force them to do it in a smaller amount of time.

SPEAKER_04: 9:47

I just want to talk a bit about kind of targeting and segmentation. We've talked a lot about students as a, I guess, a target audience, but are all students students? Are they all created equally? Is there ways that we should be looking at this customer base in a more refined way?

SPEAKER_03: 10:02

Yeah, I think I mean, definitely not. Students obviously varied, you know, in different parts of the world and different parts of the UK. And for us, it's never a blanket approach in terms of targeting students. It's a balance between targeting a wide enough audience, because the narrower you go, your cost will increase. So having a big enough pool to go up initially, but then it's The second part is that segmentation. Once you've kind of targeted that first batch of students more broadly, working out who they are, what traits they have, and how then you can appeal to them in a more personalized way to take them down that funnel and nurture to them based on what decisions they want to make, what they're interested in. So, you know, what pages have they interacted with on your website? Are they interested in a certain room type or location, or are they browsing the blog with different topics? And that will give you insights into what they're interested in. And that means the messaging you can then retarget them with is much more personalised and will appeal much more to them. I

SPEAKER_01: 11:01

think that personalisation is key. You're starting to see some operators using that a little bit more. And I think that will become more and more prevalent as the internet becomes more personalised ultimately. How can you differentiate between students and parents? Because I don't think we target parents enough. I think there's a few articles that get put out onto a blog where it might talk about empty nest syndrome or something like that. But I think there's a huge opportunity in particular for international students but really across the board to really target those parents so you know is it possible to to find them and how do you do it?

SPEAKER_03: 11:34

Yeah it's a good question I think parents is it was always a massive topic in terms of targeting and it should be part of that targeting piece because you know a lot of the time they're the ones actually putting their card down and paying for it even if the student has done a lot of the research it obviously varies from family to family and market to market because I would say in Spain they're even more involved and it's a big family decision whereas the the uk it's less so but they're still there in the background in terms of targeting it can be fairly straightforward so on meta which is instagram and facebook ads you know you can actually target parents with adult children as an interest which does make it easier to reach the right people there are caveats to that based on certain restrictions with facebook housing categories but a lot of the time you can still use that interest to target them and that means you you can have your campaigns from the get-go appealing to them by talking about things like safety, well-being, the cost of the accommodation. When it comes to google search that's where it gets a bit more tricky because if we're targeting keywords like student accommodation in whatever city which is high intent a student could be searching that in google but equally a parent could be typing that in as well so from our perspective looking at the campaigns we can't make that differentiation in terms of who we're targeting so the ad can't be as tailored but we can see the sort of age groups in terms of who have clicks on that ad and i think what is more important in that context is then looking at the website and that you a journey so you know are there landing pages or an area on your website that is signpost clearly for parents and not like just a blog like you said on that section but like a clear part for parents to get the information that they need and they're probably going to look looking more at you know the billing side how do they finance it what does it mean for them and in terms of that type of thing and that's not always easy for them to find on the websites of operators

SPEAKER_04: 13:26

is there an argument with that that actually you know having a parent's page is obviously one way to to access it but actually is there an argument that when you're building websites that you should be thinking about how do all my visitors get what they need from this because actually a lot of that stuff that parents are after is also needed for students as well so should should there be ways that we should be looking at websites and thinking well actually if a parent came on here yes first and foremost we want to make it relevant to young people but are they getting what they want from it so the parents will understand that that actually yes this isn't a website designed for me but as long as i'm getting access to the information then that's going to give me more confidence in these as an operator

SPEAKER_03: 14:05

yeah definitely i think thinking of each page and what are the most popular pages and a lot of the time that will be you know the property pages or the city pages looking at that from the perspective of a parent and seeing are they getting what they need from this or if that's not the right place where you want them to go having clear signposts within that with calls to actions to hey if you're a parent then just come over to this page and you will get that information not hiding it away and making it difficult for them to find because definitely you're right they are going to be looking at all the pages that the students will be researching too so that's only going to give them the information they need more quickly.

SPEAKER_04: 14:40

Yeah and I think it's a really important point of how important your website is and I say this to many of our clients is that essentially your website is if you're going back to traditional retail your website is your shop window and you know people want to come there see what they need to get buy it and move on and I think that is a really important way to think about your website and actually it does need to be audited and checked and reviewed and looked at time and time again and I guess that leads me on to my next question around performance and tracking and one of my biggest bug bears in the sector is how difficult it is as a sector we find it to track track a booking from an advert being seen by someone through to going to the website, through and going to your booking portal. Are you seeing that shifting and changing? Are more and more operators able to track that conversion rate? Because if they can't track that conversion rate, how do they make sure, I guess, that their content is reaching the right people and achieving what it's aimed to achieve?

SPEAKER_03: 15:35

I think tracking is a notorious challenge in the PBSA industry. I think every client that I've worked with initially since being at the eWord has never come to us with full accurate tracking particularly in terms of tracking a booking they might be able to track some bits or they're tracking things but it's not necessary data we can believe in and be sure that it's completely accurate and you know that's not a criticism of the operators because they have complex user journeys they have different systems that they use and it's complicated it's complex and you know it can be costly to set up as well but without having that full picture of how people in interacting with your website just means that it's so much harder to identify you know where are those weak spots in the journey you might know that you've got them but it's much harder to pinpoint and then be able to put a plan of action in place that you can measure because you can't tell what difference it's going to have if you can't track the impact and I think You can be confident that you're having the right targeting when it comes to your initial campaigns. But when it comes to that bigger piece of retargeting and nurturing users, so if you're retargeting people who've been to your website with a different message, you might not be sure if they've already booked. So you might be wasting money. hitting people again who have already converted. So it is really important to have that visibility. I

SPEAKER_04: 16:59

am really hoping that 2025 is going to be the year that we sort this out. I might not hold my breath. It's certainly something that we absolutely need. And I think it's one of the issues around how do you, as a marketeer, how do you justify budget spend if you can't show the ROI? And it's really, really difficult to do. Do you find that marketeers are able to kind of justify their spend and their ROI and able to present that to a board to say, actually, this is why we need this investment and this is what that return is going to be.

SPEAKER_03: 17:31

I think it's definitely a challenge, but more particularly so for activity in the upper funnel. So we talked about that longer buying journey and the research phase and that's shone a light on how important that awareness activity is needed. And that isn't ever going to directly impact lead to sales or even necessarily leads. And I think that's the most challenging thing to get budget for. I think people can get budget for conversion activity, whether they can track it or not, because ultimately they want us to be doing things to get those bookings. But when it comes to that, that upper funnel activity, that's where it's much harder, but there needs to be a sort of shift there because we know with that longer longer period to make those decisions, that awareness activity is needed to make the conversion activity work harder for you effectively. So I think it's in terms of how we talk about those campaigns with the board, looking at what it's actually going to generate. So if you're doing an awareness campaign, you should be reporting back on things like impressions or traffic to your website, not trying to say it's going to deliver leads or bookings because it's not going to. I guess making for a case for that then is hard, but it's looking at Things like if you increase your awareness activity, how has your conversion rate increased on your conversion activity? Or the retargeting strategies that you then implement to reach people who have visited your website. What leads and bookings are those driving? And is that a higher conversion rate compared to your cold conversion campaigns? So you can put together a case of that activity impacting the bottom line. But it is much harder and you do need that data to be able to do so. Do

SPEAKER_01: 19:16

you think you're actually able to get enough of that data now? I mean, ROI is the absolute... It's the pivotal piece that I think is often missing from marketing pitches that I see and that investors typically send to me to say, what do you think about this? Can you approve it? I just want to be able to see more. I think there's, I mean, obviously Google Analytics, there's a huge amount that you can do within Google in particular. Is there anything else out there that is giving you that sort of ROI and that conversion data so that that can be shown and you can create that story of, right, You've got to do this. There's a certain amount that's brand awareness. Then you've got the performance side of things, and then this will deliver these results. So what are you seeing out there in terms of trends and innovation in the data analytics and the reporting side?

SPEAKER_03: 20:04

Yeah, I think to be fair on the reporting side, we always stand by using Google Analytics. And one of the things we're trying to focus on more is linking that up with the booking data that the operators get internally. So I know a lot of operators use things like Power BI to monitor their internal sales. And we are trying to start to marry those two up. So a lot of the time we are reporting on bookings just from what we see in the platform's data or on Google Analytics, but they report back on sales in a different way so it's the process of linking those two up so then we can see the full picture from digital channel to the final booking in their systems and that has been the missing piece for a number of years but i think we're getting a lot closer to that now

SPEAKER_01: 20:50

and that's working very closely with those property management systems as well now Some of those systems are, I would say, quite archaic. I think that there is a bit of a barrier that's in place with the booking journey in particular. To what extent do you feel that some of your clients or any operators in the sector are effectively being held back by some of these systems because they're beholden to that specific booking journey do you have any kind of thoughts on that

SPEAKER_03: 21:19

yeah you're right it varies from system to system i know i think we've used intrada a few times before which has has been one of the most tricky ones to to connect up but i think i think where it falls down for us is the management of leads that go into those systems we as a agency you know we're tasked with with driving those leads in those bookings and it can feel sometimes that once those leads are delivered and they go into you know rent savvy or whatever it's a bit of a black hole and we're not sure what what happens to them and i don't think that from what i hear from you know teams that are dealing with those systems that it is a smooth easy to use setup that can make sure that those leads are then nurtured and not left and forgotten and i think that's one of the key things that would dramatically improve, you know, conversion rates and things like that. Cause it's, There's only a certain extent of how much money you can put in at the top and drive more leads before you need to look at where are they going? How can we optimize that process to get more value from each lead that is put through?

SPEAKER_04: 22:25

That's great. I think let's take a short break and then we will come back. And it'd be great to delve into more of the detail that you discovered in the report.

SPEAKER_00: 22:33

Season three of Housed, sponsored by mystudenthalls.com. Let's find your place.

SPEAKER_04: 22:41

Thanks again so much to my student halls for supporting us for a second season. We are so happy the lovely listeners of Howes are getting their properties listed where it matters. So back to our chat with Marielle from the E-Word. I think it might be good to talk a little bit about brand awareness. We did have a question around AI and online chat, but I think we should come back to that. So let's stick with the brand awareness for now. Brand awareness is something that Sarah and I are always talking about with our clients. And I always blame kind of the increase of digital marketing has almost taken people away from brands because they think, well, I just spent this budget. into this and I'll get straight to my target audience and then we're forgetting that actually they don't know who you are they're probably not going to click on your link anyway so is the sector expecting too much too quickly in the way that they're approaching their marketing campaigns?

SPEAKER_03: 23:29

I think it's interesting the question on brand because I think you know working in the industry we know the brands of the different operators well but I think from a student's perspective they might not even know the different brands of operators out there and I think they know them at much more at a sort of building level so they might not be aware of the building names in the city that they're they're planning on staying in but less so the actual operators brand but i do think it's important i think particularly for mobilizing new new spaces particularly when we look at the market in spain when they mobilize there for their first year without that brand awareness it can negatively impact sales because people don't know who they are they don't have that reputation built up in the area and so there's a less trust there so like you say I think it is important for that and even when it comes to sales whereas you know when you mobilize a property sometimes it can happen in a mid-year so they haven't even got that full cycle to sell them so from investors perspective who just care about hitting targets and selling out they immediately want to go into that sales activity straight away because they think that's going to be the most effective to get to their targets but I agree I think that that level of brand awareness is really important to warm the them up to the students and get to know them. And I think As well, it can have a positive impact in terms of with PBSA that's more on the premium end, particularly, you know, students are buying into like the lifestyle that's on offer there. And I think brands are part of that in the same way that you might buy, you know, a Nike trainer, you're buying into the lifestyle that's going to give you. It's the same when it comes to where you're going to live, particularly at a higher price point. And I think that brand element is needed to justify, you know, along with all the amenities, why it's priced that way and what you're going to get from that lifestyle that it's essentially offering. And I think that can be the missing part of the puzzle is focusing so much on the sales because that's the goal. But we need to remember how to persuade students it's part of that brand offering.

SPEAKER_01: 25:36

Are you seeing that operators are giving enough budget to that brand awareness. I'm just thinking about a mobilization budget for a new property if a new operator has come in and taken over that. Are you seeing that there is enough budget allocated to that

SPEAKER_03: 25:51

i think it varies from property to property in my experience i think sometimes mobilization properties actually have much more healthy budgets compared to you know bau operational properties but it really depends and it's you know an investor by investor case and it's not something that we're necessarily part of those conversations you know so i think it varies i think there is a shift sometimes that people are allocated more and understand the importance of that brand awareness piece particularly a mobilization but in other instances the budget isn't there.

SPEAKER_04: 26:22

Yeah, it's definitely something that we see, that there is often a really good mobilisation budget, but people don't think about brand and realigning their brand and reintroducing their brand to the customer. And it's a really important aspect, I think, because especially depending on the reputation of the owner or operator before it got taken over, it's really important to kind of come out with a splash and say, hey, this is us, this is why we're different, this is what we are. And you do have... budget to do that with a mobilisation budget, which sometimes you don't have operationally. So it's definitely something that listeners should think about. It would be good just to talk about kind of when we're talking about investment and technology and technology is moving super fast. What is it you think are the key things that people should be investing when it comes to their brand and booking journey? You know, is it video tours? Is it AI to help people kind of through that customer service process of getting them into that booking? What's the things that you're seeing are the key things to spend money on?

SPEAKER_03: 27:19

Yeah, there's two parts of that. On this, I guess, on the video content side, one of the things that we're seeing is the need for not just video tours. So I'm not saying invest all your money in video. It's much more widespread than that. So I think when students were asked what would influence their booking decision in terms of online content, things like video tours, videos from influencers, online testimonials, all came out sort of an even spread in terms of what was important. And I think a few years ago, you might see that video tours and video in general is more important on the influence, but it was actually quite even, which makes me think that rather than investing in one area, it's making sure that you have content in multiple different things that all add value and are all going to help students make the decision. And obviously that's an investment because it takes time to create those bits of content or campaigns, but it's not necessarily... one thing that you should focus on is making sure you have that mix which i think is quite interesting in terms of trends there on the sort of ai side then i again i think this is an area that operators do need to focus on but i think that's more on the user journey and experience side so we we touched on before in terms of leads and residence teams following up on those leads and i think you know those staff and the buildings are already stretched day to day let alone in peak periods where there is more inquiries coming through and you know we see that Gen Z want to use tools like WhatsApp or instant messaging to get in touch and get the information that they need. But if they're then being forced to, you know, ring up a building and they're not getting a response or they're not getting a reply back on an email, that's just going to negatively impact their experience. And, you know, maybe put a seed of doubt in as if this is what it's like now, what will it be like living there? And I think that's where things like AI could really come into play, not just to save costs and save the team's time, but actually offer that better experience Yeah, that's

SPEAKER_01: 29:20

great to hear you talk about AI in that way. That's exactly the way I see it as well. You've got to meet the students where they are exactly when they want and, you know, in the right channel. And I think whether that's WeChat, WhatsApp or a live chat or over the phone, that's where AI can definitely come in and add value to any operation. And it's giving the student what they want. but it's also streamlining costs as well. So huge opportunities there in terms of AI. You've talked a little bit there about Gen Z. What about Gen Alpha? What are you thinking about there in terms of, in particular, the way that they will consume and do consume social media?

SPEAKER_03: 29:57

Yeah, so what's interesting with Gen Alpha, and it's somewhat reflected in our data in terms of if we look at the prospective students in our survey, who are obviously on the younger side of Gen Z, when we looked at the digital channels that they would use for research, they had much higher usage of YouTube. So 75% use YouTube and TikTok was 67%. Whereas for Gen Z, it was almost flipped. So video content is something that they're much more engaged with. And I think that's the trend that we'll see with Gen Alpha. So more of the longer form, shorter form as well but they want more engaging content and video is what they care about most so I do think although I've said before this that you know having a variety of different content is important and it is in order to cater for the different types of students but I think we'll see more of a shift to more video as we go through the generations.

SPEAKER_04: 30:46

And I'm still surprised to see that Facebook is there. Do you think that Facebook is going to continue to have a place or is it done?

SPEAKER_03: 30:54

I mean I still use it but Is it done? I think students are using it in a different way than we might think. So I think when we, you know, operators think of their organic social strategy, they'll think of just posting on Facebook. But actually what we found in our report was that 25% of students would use kind of online communities for their research. That included Facebook groups as one example, but also Reddit, WhatsApp groups during the research phase. So I think the reflection of Facebook being so high in terms of what they use is actually more for research and connecting with real students and I think that's the desire to get real information because we know in terms of social in general with Gen Z they like the more authentic messy real style of content and so they want real information and I think they find that just by scrolling through Facebook they're not getting that so it's more getting into those groups to speak to other students and really find out what it's going to be like and that's why it's so high. I

SPEAKER_04: 31:54

did find that really interesting that Facebook was still quite high and TikTok maybe not as high as I was expecting. So do you think that we're going to see, was TikTok just a fad or do you think it will continue to be a vital channel?

SPEAKER_03: 32:08

I think TikTok will continue. I think, yes, it's not as high, but it still plays its part. And we've seen the shift with TikTok anyway, that, you know, Gen Z are using that more as a search tool so rather than googling stuff there they're searching it in tiktok to find you know specific things maybe what's it like living as a student in this city or even for the accommodation that have videos out there what's it like living in this specific building that content does it exist and it gives them the answer but in a visual view which you know a lot of the time people will feel like it's more real than reading about something so i think there's definitely it's it's still got its place it's just not quite as high and like i said i think with gen alpha that will become more popular the video um form of content what was interesting though for me is that snapchat was the fourth top social media for the students which followed facebook instagram and youtube and i think that's interesting because I think it's a channel that is still untapped. You know, most operators will be on those other channels, but not many really branch out into Snapchat. And I think there's definitely an opportunity there to differentiate yourself in the market by using a channel where we know students are spending their time, but we're not necessarily reaching them in that way.

SPEAKER_01: 33:24

What do you think is working in terms of the way that that content that's produced? Because, you know, I know that you've had a lot of research on the amenities that are needed, but is it that sort of lifestyle concept? content that's proving popular or is it operators and property managers showcasing the amenities and what's actually in the property? I

SPEAKER_03: 33:45

think it's both. I think they want that each bit of content at different points in the journey and I think that's what the takeaway is in terms of that longer buying journey is they want different types of information and you know a tour of the building they will definitely want to look at closer to that decision but when they are much earlier in their research phase and they're thinking about you know what area am i going to live in they're going to be looking at you know content that shows them what it's like to live there like what's around the local area where would they go and hang out that type of thing so i think there's there's a place for both of those types of content. It just needs to be created in different ways and potentially published by different people, not necessarily just the operators, you know, looking at student micro-influencers who might want to share more about the area, but tying it into the operators brand at the same time.

SPEAKER_04: 34:36

I think it comes down to this. Everyone's got to be nuanced and thinking about where is the customer at this point in time? What channel are they going to be seeing enough of in the sector? So hopefully your report will kind of help them raise awareness of that. There is one thing I did want to touch on around kind of lease length. I think your data was clear around flexibility, but do you see a shift in the market to accommodate this at all?

SPEAKER_03: 34:58

Yeah, lease length is an interesting one. No, I don't see a shift in the market currently. I think obviously we saw it even with Ireland last year that they they were extending the minimum leases before that obviously all got reversed. So if anything, the shift is going to longer tendencies where they can do, which makes sense based on the security that that offers, you know, operators and investors, they know that that room has been booked for the year. I think the only flexibility we really see is in terms of things like cancellations. If they don't get the A-level results or visas, then, you know, there's no fee if you have to cancel, but not really anything more flexible than that. I would say what's interesting in the Australian market, semester laps are one of the most common because of the such international market there. They are almost forced to cater to them and they don't want to book for a full year when they've not arrived in the country and they don't know what it's going to be like. It would be interesting to see if that would change in the UK because we obviously know international students are a big part of the student base here as well.

SPEAKER_04: 36:00

Yeah, I think it'll be an interesting year because I think we've got the these things and this data and your data on Leaselinks just shows that actually I think the sector needs to go away and look at its product, look at how it's presenting its product so that they can really get ahead of all the other people that are in the marketplace that aren't necessarily dedicated student accommodation provider. So I think it's going to be a very interesting year. We are sadly running out of time with Marielle, but it's been a really great chat and I've definitely loved it. And it's really great to see this in-depth kind of marketing report out in the market. So thank you to you and everyone at E-Word for delivering it. Before we finish and to conclude, what would your top tip to accommodation providers marketing to students be?

SPEAKER_03: 36:43

That's a good question. I think, you know, we know that operators are under the most pressure that they have been to fill, you know, 100% occupancy of their buildings. So I would say that this year they really need to consider that longer buy-in journey. What do students want to hear at different times of the year? And map out what activity or content would align with what they want to hear to help make them make that decision. I think it's more about being helpful rather than being aggressive and trying to persuade them to book. It's making the decision decision easy for them in their mind because of everything that they've seen and consumed over a longer period of time. So I'd say that's my top tip is considering that strategy from a kind of wider perspective and a longer journey.

SPEAKER_04: 37:30

Yeah, that's great. And it's been brilliant to have, as I say, that great deep dive into the world of digital marketing. It will be super valuable to our audience. So thank you so much for joining us and discussing that today. Is the report out now?

SPEAKER_03: 37:44

It is out now. Yeah. you can download it on our website

SPEAKER_04: 37:48

cool that's great and the website is the e-word.co.uk so go to the website and get your copy of the report because it is really interesting reading and thank you once again to the e-word for being our headline sponsor for the season your support is hugely appreciated and means we can keep bringing insights and tips and news to our audience every single week so thank you and also thanks once again to our friends at my student halls for joining us as a sponsor once again please subscribe to how so you get the brand new episode every Friday and if you leave us a rating and a review that would be fantastic. Thank you all very much for listening and we will see you again next week.