Now that it’s time for your master-planned community’s campaign to go to market, it’s important to make sure your branding stays consistent at all touchpoints after launch. That means every branded element — including display ads, brochures, social videos, posts and more — needs to feel part of the same campaign in how it looks and what it’s conveying to your audience.
In parts one and two of our series, we covered How to Name Your Planned Community and Standout Community Brands Begin With Strategy. In this blog, we provide a few thoughts on how to ensure your brand shows up in the world consistently after launch.
Consistent messaging is key
When your brand is not consistently showing up in the same way in all encounters, it can be confusing to potential homebuyers. And confusion often leads to disinterest. Using the exact same logo treatments, colors and fonts no matter the channel helps to build trust and recognition with audiences, which leads to engagement and sales. A good way to ensure your marketing materials never go off-brand is to establish firm brand guidelines early, as a guiding light for your internal marketing team and collaborative partners to follow for correct usage, design, messaging and tone.
Stay on brand — even when you react
Let’s face it: sometimes, unanticipated wild card factors arise during the life of your campaign. A competitor could launch their campaign at the same time or react directly to yours. The housing market itself could shift in positive or negative ways. Monitoring your campaign could unexpectedly reveal a new, key insight about your audiences you weren’t aware of. No matter what, be sure you’re reacting in an on-brand way so you don’t confuse or throw off homebuyers, even if you need to add new messaging to the mix in response.
Globally popular language learning app Duolingo is known for its whimsical look and tone, using quirky practice phrases like “my cat is a lawyer” to engage with its users. However, one of the main barriers to learning a new language (and thus engaging with the brand) is lack of time. Through social media listening, they discovered an interesting insight; many of their users do their daily lessons while on the toilet. They put this knowledge to use in a clever yet very on-brand way by creating colorful limited edition toilet paper rolls featuring actual amusing phrases from their app on the rolls, so customers could “multi-task” their daily lessons. With a social influencer rollout, a pop-up bathroom install in WeWork locations and more, the promotion was a huge internet sensation and gained an 18% lift in new U.S. users. The lesson here? Reacting to unexpected, real-time insights or market shifts can be hugely successful if done in an on-brand, on-message way that aligns with your strategy.
Take the pulse of your campaign often
While it’s vital to keep your branding consistent to audiences, that doesn’t mean you can’t add to or modify your advertising as needed, based on the results you want to see. Are your community’s engagement or sales not gaining the kind of traction you want? Is your messaging strong and relevant? What is your media mix like and is it connecting with the right audiences? Don’t be afraid to evaluate every part of your brand to see where it might be coming up short — after all, your brand should be fluid, with enough flexibility to evolve and grow.
For example, if your advertising is mostly in social media channels, social listening, survey posts and clickthrough rates are great indicators of what isn’t working. Are potential homebuyers commenting that they are confused about some of your offerings? That might mean you need to pivot to add more video tours to clearly showcase your homes and community amenities. Monitoring your campaign often can help hone your messaging to exactly what your audience wants to hear on the platforms where they’re most engaged.
HelloFresh, a leader and pioneer in the meal kit category, is a best-in-class example of using customer feedback to effectively shift their messaging strategy during the pandemic in a very on-brand way. Not only did they bulk up their offerings to include more of what home cooks were demanding (diverse, more adventurous and sustainable recipes), they also increased their loyalty and win-back email blast regularity by showcasing those new recipes. And, they gave more prominence to their HelloFriends referral program with bigger discounts and offers. By taking customer feedback seriously at a time when home cooking demand skyrocketed, new signups and order rates surged past pre-pandemic levels because of their strategic shift in menu diversity and customer engagement. The key takeaway? They didn’t change their branding or tone — only their messaging and frequency. If you find homebuyer demand (or lack thereof) requires a shift in how much or little you engage with customers, make sure your basic tone and branding stays the same.
Keeping your branding consistent is key to homebuyer interest and engagement — it establishes trust in your brand. However, that sometimes means shifting your messaging if you’re not achieving the kind of results you want. Stay flexible enough to engage with potential homebuyers in creative, on-brand ways to get the most out of your campaign and ultimately, drive bigger sales.
Need help creating and launching an on-brand community campaign? Let’s chat. Reach out to Barbara at barbara@wickmarketing.com or (512) 479-9834.
