Print This Article			Print All Articles			Email the Editor

Show Your Prospects (and Their Guests) That They Have Arrived

Start With the Entrance

How do you create this sense of arrival in your community? Start with the entrance. When prospects approach a community, they immediately form distinct, lasting impressions. So entry monuments, towers and other architectural details should reflect the architectural style of the community.

All builders and developers want to draw prospects in and inspire them to explore their communities. Landscaping details are crucial and add warmth to the entrance. These details can be as simple as planting vines along a tower to soften walls or seasonally changing the types and colors of plants that border the entrance.

A gated entrance with a guard is a guaranteed way to encourage a sense of arrival. As prospects approach, being greeted by a guard gives them a glimpse of daily life in the community. Active adult buyers respond to this. What’s more, a simple salute from the guard tells them they will be respected and welcomed. The guarded gate makes a lasting visual impact that will remain with them long after they leave the grounds.

Wide main streets with landscaped medians offer beauty and reinforce that sense of arrival. They also generate a feeling among residents and prospects that that the community is open and easy to navigate. Don’t forget the small details like custom stop signs or more substantial features like tree-lined streets. These set a community apart from the competition.

Create a Marketing Trail

A marketing trail — the path prospects take through the community to the sales center and its amenities — is critical to a community’s success.

When developing the site plan, locate the amenities and sales center logically in relation to the entrance. It’s a smart practice to step back and look at it through the eyes of your prospects. They will want to see the best parts of the community, whether it’s the parks, walking or jogging trails, golf course or other amenities.

Directional signage is an important component of the marketing trail. Signage should be straightforward and consistent and easily direct prospects to the sales center and model park. Remember, many prospects will not be familiar with your community and might feel anxious about visiting. Reassure them by making it easy to get to the sales center. Also, test the effectiveness of your signage by asking friends and associates to visit the community and give you feedback.

Keep the marketing trail immaculate at all times — trees trimmed, landscaping maintained, roads repaired, grass mowed, trash picked up and flags kept in perfect condition. Keep your eyes open for minute details every time you drive the trail. You can be sure prospects will notice.

Make Your Sales Center a Focal Point

Make the sales center and model park a focal point. Look at the site map and determine the best spot for your sales center. Keep your Unique Selling Point (USP) in mind when you choose a location that shows off at least one of those propositions.

• If you have a golf-oriented community, put the sales center on the course.
• If you intend to promote walking trails, locate the sales center in a park-like setting.

Putting your sales center in a location that highlights your community’s uniqueness will leave your prospects with a memorable experience.

If you are using a sales trailer, attach a façade to it that matches the community’s architecture and ties into its other aspects. If your prospects were drawn into your community by an impressive entrance and an effective marketing trail, don’t plant seeds of doubt with a poorly designed sales center. Rather, reassure them by visually demonstrating the quality they will receive upon buying a home in your community.

Drive-in appeal doesn’t end when the prospects enter the sales center. Draw them back outside with picture windows displaying magnificent views. If the prospect doesn’t have time to tour your community’s amenities, be sure to have a high quality, three-dimensional topographical map, and a sales associate who can “walk” them through the community using that topo.

How Do You Generate Appeal When There’s Only Dirt to Work With?

In the very early stages of a community when there is very little to show, create a sense of arrival and appeal by using imaginative story-telling skills. Your sales brochure — the copy and photography — must establish an emotional connection with prospects and provide a vision of your community. After all, your community is as much a feeling as it is a place.

This vision needs to be reinforced continuously through renderings, architectural displays and a stellar sales team that, collectively, can paint the picture for your prospects. Advertising and direct mail campaigns also should strive to emotionally connect prospects to the community.

Many active adults who buy early in the development process already have a vision and are excited about starting something new. Those without that vision require regular follow-ups and updates about community progress. A newsletter is the perfect way to present the community as it evolves — both physically (amenity starts and completions) and emotionally (residents at community events). Encourage your prospects to drop by the community at a later date and invite them to openings.

Create and display large signs that depict the amenities that are still being planned or under construction. Use renderings of the amenities and place the signs where the amenities will be located. This not only assures prospects that the amenity will be built, it also shows them the amenity’s architectural style.

Before unveiling an amenity to the community, make sure signage is in place that announces the start or completion dates. This will generate extra excitement among current residents and future prospects.

Creating a memorable sense of arrival projects a community’s quality and warmth and gives prospects a preview of what awaits them in the sales center. When done effectively, it encourages them to explore the possibility of being a part of your community.

This article appeared in the Winter 2004 issue of Seniors’ Housing News, a quarterly publication by the NAHB Seniors Housing Council. Julie Knepp is vice president of marketing for Sunrise Colony Company, a nationally recognized developer of master-planned communities that cater to upscale mature families, empty nesters, pre-retirees, retirees and established business professionals. Knepp is responsible for marketing Sunrise’s communities and golf clubs at Siena and Red Rock Country Club in Las Vegas, and Toscana Country Club in Indian Wells, CA. She also is an active member of the NAHB Seniors Housing Council and a scheduled speaker at Building for Boomers & Beyond: Seniors Housing Symposium 2004. She can be reached at 760-772-7227 or via e-mail.

go to top