Our first year with Creative Services has come to a close, and we had an amazing year working with our builder partners. We processed over 934 projects, managed 35,000 creative assets, and designed for over 50 builders. Let’s dive into the trends we saw in 2023.
- Collateral Refresh - As builders stepped back to assess their marketing materials, many identified a large gap between themselves, how they wanted to be perceived, and their competition. When considering a collateral refresh, it’s important to conduct an audit and locate a common thread. To do this, think of each touchpoint and put everything on a page from digital to print, website to flyers. Finding the art direction that resonates with your brand and your audience is the next battle. From there, it’s crucial to implement templates and brand rules that work for your internal team. I always urge builders to gather feedback from anyone who uses the collateral. For example, does the sales team have any friction points from your flyers that may render them useless, or have they received any feedback for opportunities for improvement? You want to be able to easily use your collateral, while also effortlessly maintaining them.
- Signage Program - A total refresh sometimes stems from a problem with signage. Creating consistency through signage is a great start to a full collateral refresh. The visual aspect of being on-brand (i.e. consistent use of colors, logo, and styling) is important, but you should also consider its functionality. Is it readable from the roadside? Does it have the correct information? What problem are you trying to solve with your signage? And most importantly, does the program fit your current staffing, capabilities, and budget? How is the customer experience, and is the data on your signage up-to-date? We want to eliminate as much friction as possible. We do that by being able to create a system that both stays on-brand and is easily updated.
- Sales Offices - The most surprising trend was the number of sales office displays we both redesigned and created from scratch. Some builders were even able to template-ize their sales offices to keep costs low and easily installable from office to office. That included the creation of beautiful location and site maps. If you’re updating your website, collateral, and signage, why would you neglect your maps? For the builders that chose to push their visual brand even further, we worked with them on redesigning a new style that fit them best.
- Educational Materials - Many builders are realizing we need to create content to educate prospective buyers, our realtor partners, and others who come in contact with our brand. We want information to be easily digestible from video to text. Communicating an often complicated process visually is crucial. Again, we are aiming to reduce friction for our prospective buyers. Are the materials we have the best representation of the data? Is it easy to understand or does it appear overwhelming and overcomplicated?
- Brand Building for Masterplans - “Brand” was the word of the year. It’s both ubiquitous and often difficult to grasp. This past year, one of the larger and more in-depth projects we tackled was the Brand and Messaging Framework. A common problem with marketing a master plan community is the sheer lift required to launch a community successfully from concept to execution. We worked with our brand strategist, the creative team, and our marketing coach to create a framework and assets for success. While it’s nice to present a beautiful community, defining your brand pillars, messaging framework, positioning, and action plan is far more beneficial for your success.
