Web Design & Marketing for Retriement Community - Portfolio

Marketing Objective

The primary distinguishing feature of active adult communities is the lifestyle they offer its residents. Unlike assisted living and memory care senior communities which are based on a need to move, active adult communities (and to a large extent independent living communities) focus on someone choosing a lifestyle rather than having to move.

The popularity of active adult communities in the last 15 years has created a very competitive real estate environment with developers having to market themselves more creatively than ever to stand apart from their competition.

The 254 acres on which Southport is developed, provided a perfect setting on Cape Cod, one hour south of Boston, to create a lifestyle community unlike any other in New England. From the 24-hour manned guardhouse at the main entry to the nine-hole private golf course and 32,000 square foot Village Center clubhouse, Southport became a destination community for baby boomers and retirees alike.

Southport needed a comprehensive branding campaign and marketing materials that created an emotional and engaging experience from the brochure and website to the TV, radio and print advertising.

Creative Marketing Solution

We designed an interactive and emotionally engaging website that was easy to use and created strong interest in the community. The user could take a virtual tour of just about everything Southport had to offer from the comfort of their own home, familiarizing themselves with the community before ever visiting in person. This dramatically helped decrease the time from initial visit to purchase.

Website Design

Home Page

We used a mix of photos of Cape Cod scenes, the homes and lifestyle photography to immediately grab the visitor’s attention and set the tone. We also used specific calls to action to draw the visitor to the most important parts of the website.

Navigation

We built a custom drop down navigation that was very user friendly and easy to find what the visitor was interested in. We also included visuals and calls to action in the drop downs, again drawing them into the most important parts of the site.

Interactive Site Plan

The interactive site plan allowed the user to get an overall view of homes that were already developed, are currently being developed and ones that were planned for future development. They could see which ones have already been reserved and sold and which home sites were available. If a home was already built and the floor plan was set then they could view the interactive floor plan of that home right inside the site plan without having to leave the interactive site plan.

Interactive Floor Plans

The interactive floor plans allowed users to take a complete virtual tour of each plan with video walk throughs and photos so they could experience each plan from the comfort of their home.

Sales Center

To ensure there was a “seamless transition” from a prospective buyer’s experience online on the Southport website to their experience on location at the Sales Center and model homes, many of the same lifestyle photos and scenes of the on-site amenities are incorporated into the Sales Center design.

Advertising Campaigns

Television

The natural beauty of the community plus the expansive on-site recreational amenities and national award-wining models made TV a perfect medium to promote Southport. Working with award-winning media personalities, we produced highly effective and entertaining one-minute and 30-second ads that produced immediate results in terms of sales.

TV Campaign

Radio

A mix of live reads by highly recognized radio personalities and recorded ads by these media icons produced a combination of ads that, like TV, produced immediate results in terms of on-site visits and sales.

Print

Due to the success of broadcast media, print advertising was used strategically as part of the media mix, focusing on special spring and fall “House Hunt” editions in regional newspapers and any special sections focusing on boomers and lifestyle communities.

Digital

We ran a very competitive PPC and organic keyword campaigns that were geo-located to reach appropriate audiences. We also used a variety of videos to market the Southport community.

Susan Wornick at Beach with Residents

Aerial Video Tour of The Peninsula

Collateral

Using many of the same photos from the website and key copy points, the printed marketing materials provided a comprehensive package that told the Southport story and what made this national award-winning community so special. A large colored illustrated site plan of the community included a custom aerial photo that further enhanced the community’s ideal location near shopping and recreational attractions.

Public Relations

The national and regional awards that Southport has won over the years provided a stream of PR, some of which has resulted in sales directly related to the stories being read in the newspapers by prospective buyers. These awards, and the subsequent PR, further added to the positioning of Southport as a community that was widely recognized by such national media as Where to Retire Magazine, twice naming Southport one of the “Top 100 Master Planned Communities in America.”

Direct Mail

This medium was used strategically to very targeted homeowners living in specific towns with homes valued at a high number to ensure their qualifications to live at Southport.

Marketing Campaign Results

The highly interactive and engaging Southport website, combined with emotional testimonials and professional media personality endorsements to come and see the great value and lifestyle at Southport, produced impressive results. Prior to the new website being launched several years ago, the average visitor to the community would take anywhere from six to 18 months to decide if they wanted to move to Southport. Today, 50% of the people buying in the community decide to do so within eight weeks of their initial visit to the community.

Southport on Cape Cod