Create good publicity for your home building company

Windemere — a 2,300-acre, 5,200-home master-planned community in San Ramon, Calif. — has been open for about five years and had about 400 homes left to sell when its marketing firm, Danville, Calif.-based EMC Creative, rented a helicopter and took some Bay Area reporters up for a bird's eye view of the community.

An aerial view of Windmere. An overview of amenities such as the new $150 million Dougherty Valley High School (upper right) can draw potential home buyers.

The timing was right, because during this final phase of build out, most amenities — including a $150 million dollar high school, four other schools, hundreds of acres of open space and more than 20 parks — were complete and primed for viewing.

Not only was a vivid picture planted in reporters' minds, it was reinforced by photography taken by a professional aerial photographer and provided to the media afterward to be published or broadcast at their respective outlets.

You are more likely to get news coverage if the story lends itself to great photography. A big block of text in print or a talking head on screen isn't that compelling without something interesting to see. You want to “see” the story; even the best radio coverage has to paint a picture with words. Think about what images can come from your story or event that will look good and make a statement. “We might have a really neat person giving a lecture, but what is our picture going to be? A whole lot of backs of heads looking up at a podium?” says Janis Ehlers, principal and partner of Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based The Ehlers Group, a strategic marketing, sales and communications company. “You come back to, 'Is there really a picture here and is it really worth getting the media out?'”

Marketing and creating buzz is about creating a positive perception of your company or brand. But it matters how this perception is created. Strategically planting customers who are coached and possibly paid to say good things about your company is not only ethically questionable, but if found out could create a public relations nightmare. The bad buzz may spread exponentially. 

Rochelle Barcelona, president and creative director of Barcellona Inc.

Q. Does a builder need a publicity campaign if it's already providing great customer service and builds great homes? Shouldn't the fact that a company is doing great work motivate people to say good things about it?

A. I look at providing good costumer service and a great product as the cost of doing business. That's why when so many home builders say, “We stand for quality,” I say, “Well, I'd hope so.” Everyone should be providing quality.

You need to toot your own horn so that people can get to know who you are. These days people are making buying decision based not just on want and need but on corporate values. You'll find that especially with the millennial generation. They check [companies] out to see if people are giving back to the community: Are their values in line with what they say? Are they ethical? When you consider that these kids make food choices just based upon that, for something as important as a home, they are going to make that choice as well.

Q. How do you come up with a strategy for a publicity campaign that will create buzz?

A. We always look for some really specific goals in terms of how many homes they need to move per month. Then you take a look at all the tactics within that [goal]. There might be graphic design tactics (logos and branding), advertising tactics and PR tactics. And within PR it's broken down even further. There's a whole social marketing component of it, the more traditional PR in terms of print and broadcast coverage, and then event-type PR. And you want to take a look at target audience. Just within the Internet itself, the technology today really lets you geo target, even down to specific zip codes.

Q. What are some key things a builder ought to address before launching a buzz marketing campaign?

A. Know what type of reputation you have. Is there some deficit you need to overcome? Have you had terrible homeowner surveys because of your warranty follow-up? Get that in shape beforehand, because you don't want to go out there saying you're the best, and all of a sudden you've got some loud mouth, grumpy homeowner saying they are going to picket you.

Q. Can you give some examples of ways to shape public opinion through the social networking tactic?

A. I think by having blogs from the builder's point of view ... a blog about the real-estate industry, green and sustainability, or whatever is important or passionate to that builder — just being an informational, thought-provoking source. The blog posts can be simple: “Oh, I read this article, and it said this. Isn't it interesting?” And you link to it. People start to look to this blog as a reliable source of information. It's also having Facebook pages and MySpace pages.

I recommend that every couple of weeks you Google yourself as a builder and see what comes up. You may find on a blog that someone has said something nasty. … You can contact that person and say, “I had no idea that you were having this issue. How can we make this up to you?” You can diffuse the situation.

Q. I would imagine getting a builder to host a blog or set up a Facebook page might be a hard sell.

A. This is where having a good marketing partner comes in handy. They can be the ones doing that dirty work, so to speak. Anything that's posted would have to run through the client to be approved. Or if the client says, “Hey, I really want to say something on this and these are my ideas,” it can be crafted into language that would be appropriate for a blog.

Lennar has a contest going on here where they want people to videotape what they feel is representative of their life in their Lennar home, become a fan on their Facebook page and post the video. It's simple. It costs absolutely zero to set up a Facebook page or post things on You Tube.