Naming Your Master-Planned Community: 3 Keys to Success

How do you spark interest in your master-planned community? It all begins with the name. Before starting the process of immersive storytelling and creating a captivating design, a master-planned community needs a compelling name to inspire these elements and resonate with potential homebuyers.

Purchasing a home is a major decision, which means how you choose to market your master-planned community should be too. As one of the most important decisions a person makes in their lifetime, homebuyers explore multiple options to determine which community and home best meets their needs, preferences and desired lifestyle.

In the housing market, consumers don't have the luxury of trying before they buy. As a result, solid first impressions and memorable branding are crucial in gaining market share. It takes house hunters 0.05 seconds to judge your website and just 10 seconds to evaluate your logo. Missing the mark with the customer during the first round, means it could be years — or even decades — before they're looking for a home again. A new home is a huge investment, a celebrated milestone, and a choice that shapes a family for years to come. Consumers take homebuying decisions seriously, and real estate marketers compete for their dollars and trust. Homebuyer-directed communication strategies rely on a memorable community name to be successful. That's why master-planned community marketers turn to Milesbrand to assist with the entire process — delivering branding and marketing campaigns that are creative, memorable, consistent and compelling. Consider the value of a name and our three keys to successfully naming your master-planned community.

Master-Planned Communities: What's in a Name? 

Shakespeare is revered for writing, "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet." While believing that products and services offer equal quality regardless of branding is a nice thought, the housing market was less competitive in the 1500s during Shakespeare’s lifetime. The tremendous value of a memorable master-planned community brand name that resonates with the target market is often overlooked. Even consumers are rarely privy to how much marketing influences them. The truth is that naming your community is the first step to creating a foundation for its brand identity. The process for determining a fitting name for a development should consider the community’s unique Brand DNA, the audience it’s meant to attract, the homes, location, offered lifestyle, amenities and more.

Attaching a unique name to your community — and backing it with promises of quality and lifestyle — helps to differentiate the development from other options. Strong community names are distinct, strategic and alluring. The process of choosing a name should be based on a process, rooted in strategy and pay homage to the land in some way. A great name offers inspiration for memorable marketing and branding ideas, generates leads and adds intrinsic value to the development. However, a poorly chosen one may fail to capture attention and deter homebuyers from looking further into the community. Choosing a good name means your community's title is memorable. When your brand delivers sentiments of hope, comfort and home, you'll get free advertising every time you're brought up in conversation.

Builds Awareness

Master-planned communities with effective, appealing names are more easily and immediately recognized. The greater awareness homebuyers have of the community; the easier it is to build credibility and sell homes.

Elevates Appeal

Creating a master-planned community name is the first step to creating meaningful value for consumers. Buying a new home is just as much an emotional decision as a practical one. A name offers a way for homebuyers to begin forming a connection to the community and seeing it as a place they can call home.

Enhances Competitive Value

One goal of master-planned community branding is to significantly differentiate the development from its competitors. Naming the community starts the process of building a strong brand identity that effectively sets it apart and helps it stand out to homebuyers.

Are you sold on the value of brand names? Here are three tips to ensure that the community’s name helps to sell homes..

1. Evoke Emotion at Every Touchpoint 

We’ve all heard the saying that the home is where the heart is. Home offers a place of emotional refuge and comfort, unlike anywhere else. Often, our deepest affection, love and cherished memories are strongly tied to the places where we live. To win over homebuyers, you must demonstrate that your master-planned community can provide homeowners with a sense of comfort. Master-planned community branding should always evoke an emotional response from homebuyers to help them form a memorable, appealing impression of the brand. Your name should characterize the community's space and what a future within the development looks like. When consumers emotionally engage with your brand in this way, loyalty will increase. 

It's also important to recognize the undeniable value of community and the feeling of belonging. Master-planned community names are powerful because they provide sentiments of membership and familiarity. A great name makes residents proud to be part of an inviting community and forge a connection with their neighbors. Delivering a compelling name allows homebuyers to identify as members of an exclusive, like-minded group seeking a similar lifestyle. The stronger the connection residents feel to the community, the more they view it as home.

Milesbrand once partnered with a community located on the edge of 8,000 acres of wide-open land. The setting immediately promised wildlife and exciting exploration, and we wanted to let customers know all about it! Thus, BackCountry was born — a one-of-a-kind Colorado community that makes every day an adventure. 

2. Set Consumer Expectations with Creative Branding

The value of creativity is undoubtedly powerful, but sparking it is often easier said than done. However, in the case of master-planned community marketing, stunning homes, high-end amenities and a beautiful community environment serve as your muses.

It’s not necessary to devise a trendy name –it’s likely to become outdated and overplayed within just a few years. But you should also go beyond the basics of XYZ Ranch.

The words chosen for your master-planned community name have connotations that form instant impressions for homebuyers. It’s critical to carefully consider the story you want to tell about your master-planned community and homes to determine whether that impression is favorable or negative.

Consider the target audience you’re anticipating enticing with your community. Are you aiming to attract affluent homebuyers? Be sure to select a name that suggests prestige and an elevated lifestyle. If your community title is too common, homebuyers may overlook it simply based on assumptions about your homes. However, if your community isn’t a luxury-styled development, avoid using words that make it appear too expensive. Including words such as “estates” or “manor” may dissuade homebuyers seeking affordable homes.

Celebrate your community’s unique location and utilize this connection within your branding concepts. Be authentic to the placement of the community and use inspiration from location’s differentiators to your advantage. By placing the community in its location, what can homeowners gain by living here? Highlight one of the key benefits of your master-planned community. Then, use additional marketing tactics to ensure prospective buyers want to call that highlight home. 

Having a beach in your backyard may seem like a far-fetched dream, but that’s precisely what one Milesbrand client offered. It felt natural to call it Water Valley — a simple name that conveys a resort-like experience and idyllic lifestyle. The name made marketing a breeze! By focusing photography efforts on the sparkling water and laughs enjoyed on the beach, every shot looked as if it was from a vacation. With just two words and compelling images, Water Valley delivered an appealing brand promise: a more joyful, vibrant life. 

3. Consistency Makes Your Work... Work for You

This last tip is perhaps the most crucial. Fortunately, it's also one of the easiest! Once you’ve settled on a name you love, use it a lot. Brand consistency lies at the root of how well you communicate your master planned-community identity. Implementing a consistent brand presence is essential for increasing visibility, building a reputation and gaining prospects. It’s also important to recognize the undeniable value of community and the feeling of belonging. Companies that prioritize brand consistency across channels have been found to achieve an average growth rate of 33%. 

As you expand your marketing strategy to include visual elements like graphics, taglines and slogans, carefully align each aspect with the community name. The color scheme, fonts, development logos, and imagery should be unified across all marketing and promotional materials to be recognizable to homebuyers. Make stylistic design choices that aptly reflect and match the master-planned community name. Consistent branding and cohesive messaging make the community more memorable and credible to homebuyers. Contradictory messaging erodes the confidence consumers want to feel as they are considering a major purchase. 

Tasked with naming a Denver, Colorado community, we first looked to ensure its branding aligned with the surrounding area. We drew inspiration from the iconic Denver International Airport, titling the community Avion. When developing a tagline, we stayed loyal to the high-flying theme: "Where life takes off." 

All of these brand elements worked together to create a cohesive message. Avion promises the start of something new — it's all uphill from here. 

Set Your Master-Planned Community Marketing Apart with a Notable Name

You know the strengths and qualities of your brand. Milesbrand is here to help you convey it.

We are the leading marketing team for real estate and master-planned communities. Through every partnership, we are determined not to just claim this title, but to prove it with our award-winning strategies and awe-inspiring creative solutions. When you trust us with your neighborhood, we also welcome you into ours.

Our team of creative experts will work closely with your company's heads of marketing and revenue. From our very first meeting to the final launch date, we will hone your vision, honor your timeline and respect your budget. We aim to make you feel at home so that you can make your consumers feel the same way within your master-planned community. 

Contact us today to begin a transformative partnership that takes your community From Land to Brand. Before you know it, your brand will be properly positioned and perfectly planned.