Holistic Home Sales

If developers are going to succeed in today’s competitive market, says Abode2 luxury property magazine – they’ll need to get up close and personal with buyers

Buying somewhere to live is an emotional business, yet so often property developers settle for branding and marketing strategies that operate on a two-dimensional level. Content marketing is all well and good - brochures, websites, attractive photography, but it doesn’t give potential buyers any insight into what it would really feel like to live in a particular place.

The challenges are compounded at the super-luxury end of the market. When you’re talking to target residents who have everything, people for whom the best of the best is every day, reaching in and making an emotional connection is even more important.

Across multiple sectors, the vast majority of brands and marketing strategies rely on sight, leaving out taste, scent, touch and sound. But the best emotional connections are made when all five senses are engaged. Creating multisensory touchpoints has the power to bring developments to life (especially important when factoring in pandemic-induced travel restrictions and overseas markets).

Sights and sounds take you on an emotional journey; they make you feel something. Presenting people with the straight facts – fixtures and fittings, square metres and locations, connects with the language-processing and comprehension parts of the brain. But when we’re engaged in a multifaceted way, our grey matter lights up and neural activity increases fivefold, pulling in our emotion- and image-processing centres, too.

According to research carried out by the Journal of Consumer Marketing, media that appeal to more than three senses increase brand impact and engagement substantially. So how can property developers harness the power of all five senses and make a stronger impression?

Right now, London leads the world in luxury and super-luxury residential developments and sales. Knight Frank recently reported that 201 super-prime homes – collectively worth more than £2.7bn – were bought in London last year, easily knocking rival Hong Kong into second place with 169 sales.

In a buoyant market it’s especially important to blast out a USP and convey messaging in a way that makes as deep a connection as possible. What is it about the property that sets it apart from others, how do buyers gain an understanding of what it’s like to live in the capital and experience living in a given development community are all key influencers in today’s ‘new norm’ investment climate.