Do You Need a Home Builder Brochure?

Earlier this year, there was a lull in the real estate industry for one simple reason: a shortage of houses. In late April and early May, master planned communities picked up the pace and saw an uptick in sales ranging from 30-80%. 

Americans are on the hunt for the perfect master planned community to call home and the competition is thick. How can you make sure that your homes or community stands out from the pack?

Believe it or not, including a home builder brochure or master planned community brochure in your value creation marketing is a great way to show off your properties and boost sales. 

So, do you need a home builder brochure? How can brochures benefit your marketing strategies? Read on to find out.

What Is a Home Builder Brochure?

At its core, a home builder brochure is a simple marketing tool. It's an informative, well-designed document that can take the form of a leaflet, booklet, and usually, a digital PDF as well.

These brochures give home builders and master community developers the opportunity to showcase beautiful images of their properties, relevant information, and engaging, branded design and copywriting.

Together, these elements give viewers a sense of the brand or community's character and value. As with any branding work, you want your home builder brochure to evoke positive emotion and desire—allowing viewers to develop a sense of home before they've even stepped foot in your community. Today, that's more important than ever.

In the Digital Age, Do Brochures Still Matter?

For the past twenty or so years, marketing firms and experts have stressed the importance of digital marketing. Of course, we know people spend quite a bit of their time surfing the web—whether from their computers or their smartphones. For that reason, it is incredibly important to have a strong social media presence as well as a gorgeous, navigable website, among other things.

Yet, what some marketing experts have overlooked is the lingering importance of tangible print marketing in the 21st century. The truth is, everyone has invested so heavily in digital marketing that consumers are starting to look past it. Some have built folders in their email for anything resembling an advertisement, and tune out the ads that pop up on their social media feed.

What about physical advertising? Unlike emails, which can come in by the dozens on a daily basis, people tend to get far less physical mail delivered to their mailbox. Consumers may scroll past digital advertisements but still pick up the brochures stacked on the counter at their favorite bakery.

In other words, brochures stand out in ways digital materials can't always compete with. Brochures are also more likely to be seen by every decision-maker in a given household than any other ad or piece of collateral. Plus, studies have found that when we are able to touch things, we are more likely to remember them.

So should brochures replace your digital marketing strategy in the 21st century? Of course not! 

Should brochures supplement your digital marketing strategy in the 21st century? Absolutely. Home builder brochures and master planned community brochures are an important way to increase the overall effectiveness of your value creation marketing.

What Impact Do Home Builder Brochures Have?

Home builder brochures are a great way to attract the attention of potential homebuyers. If your master planned community is new or growing, it is important to get that information out to anyone who lives in the area or has expressed interest in moving to the area.

Home builder brochures create an opportunity for you to hone your brand identity. As people in the local area and beyond begin seeing your brochures, they begin to build up brand awareness. In other words, they start to recognize the name, logo, and imagery associated with your community. Perhaps most importantly, they begin to understand what makes you different.

For potential home buyers, having that recognition vastly increases the chance that your community will be part of their search. This is your opportunity to tell your story, showcase your brand imagery, and speak to your viewers on an emotional level. The more information you can convey with your imagery, statistics, and copy, the more likely it becomes they won't search much farther than your brand!

Is it Worth the Cost?

We all know that investing in marketing materials is no small feat. Incorporating a new form of marketing into your budget isn't a decision to be made lightly.

But the reality is that your print marketing investment is not the place to cut corners. Cheap materials will not have the same impact as premium design and printing. They are more likely to end up in the recycling bin before anyone has even given them a second glance. 

Without digital tracking and attribution tools, how do you make sure that your high-quality brochures have a suitably high return on investment? How do you know what happens to your printed materials after they're sent out into the community and beyond?

Believe it or not, there is a way to track the ROI on your printed materials, including brochures. In fact, it's not unlike tracking the ROI on your digital marketing materials.

The best way to track the ROI on your printed materials is to include a specific call to action in them. For example, your brochure may include pages that direct readers to your available listings or to your contact page. If the call to action in your brochure is unique to the rest of your marketing strategy, you can use your analytic tools to track how many people navigated to that specific page from the time your brochures went public.

But whether you track your results or not, home builder and community brochures are worth the cost. They're tangible, memorable, and detailed.

And as a physical representation of the efforts you've put into your brand, they're guaranteed to stand out from the rest of your marketing materials.

What Makes a Good Brochure?

At Milesbrand, we don't just make run of the mill home builder brochures. We produce gorgeous, thoughtful booklets that are chock-full of custom imagery and character. Take a look at our portfolio and see for yourself!

The first objective is to identify the heart of your master planned community. What amenities do you provide that can create the initial draw? How does the wider landscape connect to each individual property?

The second objective is to look at any existing marketing materials you may have. What color scheme tends to pop up in your marketing and what does your logo look like? How can this brochure continue and enhance what you've already built so your brochures will grow your brand recognition?

Finally, it's time to decide what to include in the brochure. Remember, brochures are informational and shouldn't leave your reader with more questions than they started with. However, it's important to get creative with how you present that information.

Are there key statistics that tend to impress and can they be broken into vignettes paired with eye-catching graphics? Is there a memorable catchphrase you can incorporate into your brochure that elicits positive emotions? Do you have professional photography capturing the most iconic and scenic parts of your community?

Whether or not you have all of these prepared, that's where we come in. Milesbrand can help you narrow in on your brand and come up with marketing materials that consistently reflect the message you want to share.

Do You Need a Home Builder Brochure?

So, do you need a home builder brochure? We're thinking yes!

Whether your master planned community is brand new or you're expanding your properties, a home builder brochure is a great way to get off on the right foot with potential buyers. Take your identity and image into your own hands and show potential buyers exactly what they can expect and enjoy if they choose to live in your community.

It may seem like an unusual marketing strategy in the digital age, but we assure you that it isn't. Nothing is quite as memorable as a beautiful brochure highlighting every perk and vista in your community.

Where to Find Custom Home Builder Brochures

Are you ready to expand your marketing strategy to include a well-designed home builder brochure? Do you want to blow the competition away?

Forget templates and low-quality DIY design websites. Milesbrand has the insight, the experience, and the optimization to create a custom home builder brochure that will win the hearts and minds of your potential home buyers. 

To find out more about our services and pricing, contact us today. We want to help you take your home builder brand or master planned community to its full potential.