The suburbs redefined.
Urban living is taking root in unlikely places—like San Carlos, a bedroom community located south of San Francisco. Our challenge was to present high-density, transit oriented living as a desirable lifestyle to an audience with a suburban sensibility—against a background of unprecedented economic bad news. In short: urban without the edge and against the odds.
Objective:
To develop a robust interest list of first-time buyers and empty nesters prior to project opening that would establish immediate and strong sales momentum.
Solution:
Launch a comprehensive project web site that informs completely and establishes a sophisticated urban image. The site served as a virtual information center to educate visitors on the vision for 1001 Laurel and the newly re-energized downtown San Carlos: a classic placemaking function. It also served as a vehicle to establish and build up our interest list.
Twitter was integrated on the home page to expand reach and visibility of social networking space. This allowed us to create a sense of community before there was a real physical community.
The web site was promoted on multiple online channels in order to take advantage of the target audience’s affinity and preference for the Internet as a research tool. The plan included mobile sponsorship of SFGate.com, a popular web site with target audiences.
Text messaging registration was introduced to allow people to join the interest list quickly through their mobile devices.
Result:
More than 1,000 registrations were collected in 8 months.
More than 1,000 online visits per week (most “new” visits) were logged over 32 weeks.
33 Twitter followers were engaged in 8 months.
A Grand Opening event attracted more than 500 well-qualified people with 7 sales—an extraordinary opening for the worst real estate market since the 1930s.
