Best of the Nationals: Special Occasions Demand Special Promotions
Of course, the objective for any master planned community’s (MPC) promotional efforts is to drive sales traffic and sell homes. But pulling together a successful strategy includes understanding the brand and philosophy of the company and the community.
Gold Award: Grand Opening Rodeo
At Kresston, a 1,400-acre MPC north of Houston, its grand opening called for something beyond a ribbon-cutting that better reflected its identity. In this case, a full-on rodeo.
Kresston’s brand leans hard into a “True Texas, Western” feel, says Marketing Director Natalie Rosser, so the team built an event with a nod to Houston’s rodeo culture with live music, carnival games, tastings, and a festival atmosphere (livestock not included).
Timing mattered. Kresston’s event was held the Saturday after Houston’s Livestock Show and Rodeo wrapped, a deliberate move to avoid competing with one of the city’s biggest annual events.
Targeting the right audience was similarly strategic. The day before the public opening, the developer hosted a real estate agent-only preview capped at 500 attendees.
“They aren’t just sales partners; they’re influencers, educators, and often who buyers trust most,” says Rosser. “Giving them a first look helps turn them into advocates.”
The public push was broader and included some “old-school” methods, including billboards, direct mail, and print, as well as social media and support from the marketing teams of the home builders operating in the master plan.
Not everything went smoothly. Rain turned a planned dirtfield parking lot into a muddy mess, forcing a last-minute scramble for buses and golf carts to ferry fairgoers. But even that hiccup
became part of the lesson. “An event feels successful when attendees leave asking, ‘When is the next one?’” Rosser says.
That surely happened here, as more than 2,000 rodeo attendees eventually translated into 14 home sales worth more than $3.5 million.
Grand Opening Rodeo
Location: Kresston, Magnolia, Texas
Entrant/Developer: Johnson Development Corp., Houston
Photography: Will Walker/Tall View Productions
Silver Award: Welcome to the Agrihood
By the time Freehold Capital Management partnered with Lennar and acquired the 12-year-old Carnes Crossroads in 2021, the community had “lost a little of its momentum,” says Andrea Salafia, Freehold’s VP of marketing.
Approximately 25 miles north of Charleston, S.C., Carnes Crossroads primarily attracted an older demographic and faced competition from nearby communities targeting the same cohort.
“Our challenge was to reinvigorate it, redefine its identity, attract a more diverse resident base, and differentiate it,” Salafia says.
The answer was an agrihood, a farm- and garden-centric amenity that Freehold had incorporated successfully at other MPCs. “Every [master-planned community] has a nice pool,” she adds. “A living, working farm at the heart of the community makes us different.”
The concept features an 11-acre, professionally managed farm and farm store, and includes community programming embedded directly into the homeowner’s association (HOA) structure.
The grand (re-)opening celebration included a VIP night for key stakeholders and two days for residents and prospective buyers.
More than 3,000 attendees visited the farmers market and other local vendors. Legacy residents also could redeem “farm bucks” issued by the HOA for produce grown at the farm.
Moving thousands of people through the event took a tremendous amount of coordination and organization, Salafia says, including parking and trolleys to shuttle people to the event. A map and QR code helped visitors take a self-guided tour.
In the five months after the event, Carnes Crossroads sold 251 new homes, setting a new record for the community and outpacing the largest market competitor for several months in a row.
Welcome to the Agrihood Grand Opening
Location: Carnes Crossroads, Goose Creek, S.C.
Entrant/Developer: Freehold Capital Management, Boston
Photography: Courtesy Freehold Communities
Silver Award: Building Memories
Technically “promoting dirt, or homes under construction,” as Kim Croley, SVP at Signorelli puts it, the strategy for the Building Memories sales promotion campaign needed a tight and creative approach.
The award-winning result focused on establishing an emotional connection with homebuyers across new master-planned communities in Houston, San Antonio, and Dallas by First America Homes, a Signorelli Company, a developer-builder based in The Woodlands, near Houston.
The campaign showcased how homeownership is more than a purchase; it’s the start of making a lifetime of memories.
“We wanted to take the fear, or formality, out of buying a home and focus instead on what a home means,” Croley says. “Once we had the idea, everything just clicked.”
With a focus on life inside those future homes, the digital campaign targeted first-time buyers with images such as a child blowing out birthday candles in the dining room and kids stargazing from a tent pitched in the backyard or doing homework at the kitchen table.
The strategy leveraged Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn, as well as print advertising and occasional leadership podcast interviews, a tactic that “reliably boosted website trac,” Croley says, while Instagram delivered the strongest engagement because of relatable visual storytelling and emotional imagery.
The digital campaign included clickable links leading to a dedicated landing page where prospects could learn more about the promotion, register their interest, and connect directly with an online sales representative to schedule community visits.
Sales teams across the geographic locations reported that the “memories” theme helped deepen conversations with prospective buyers, shifting their questions away from bed and bath counts and square footage to their motivations and lifestyle goals.
“It fits perfectly with our philosophy of understanding why someone is looking to buy and not just what they want to buy,” Croley says.
The campaign successfully exceeded performance goals, generating 628 leads, over 116,000 impressions, and 27 sales.
Building Memories
Location: Multiple Communities in Texas
Entrant/Developer/Builder: First America Homes, a Signorelli Company, The Woodlands, Texas
Photography: Courtesy First America Homes, a Signorelli Company
Silver Award: Home on the Grange
The strategy for the grand opening campaign at Grange, a 1,130-acre MPC in Katy, Texas, was pretty simple: “We wanted people to feel what life in the Grange is like, not just hear about it,” says director of marketing Amanda Burke.
To that end, Burke and her team created a way for people to step into the community and get a sense of the lifestyle. “Something welcoming, relaxed, and a little elevated, but still very approachable,” she says.
Grange, with a plan for 2,400 homes, wove its way into the rich history of its location by creating what amounts to a small town—not just a sprawl of houses—and will soon begin building on 20 acres in the heart of the master plan with a mix of residential amenities and commercial experiences, including a central green and walking paths.
The grand opening campaign, called “Home on the Grange,” included a VIP party with bourbon tastings and bluegrass music for local officials; an exclusive event for real estate agents featuring live music and model home scavenger hunts; and a public grand opening where 1,500 would-be buyers wandered through an interactive downtown mock-up with large-scale booths resembling a flower shop, a five-and-dime, a soda shop, a coffee shop, a lemonade stand, and a popsicle shop.
To attract the young families and move-up buyers sought by the developer, the event’s marketing plan included a billboard along the nearest interstate, targeted paid and internal email campaigns, print advertising, chamber of commerce partnerships, social media campaigns, and collaborations with local influencers.
The “modest” $6,700 spend on digital advertising, Burke says, saw significant reach and engagement that yielded more than 176,000 paid social impressions, 7,200 website sessions, and hundreds of new and influenced contacts.
The campaign not only drove awareness but got people to take that next step and engage. Since the opening, Burke says, Grange has closed 177 new home sales, exceeding projected goals.
Grand Opening at the Grange
Location: Grange, Katy, Texas
Entrant/Developer: Johnson Development Corp., Houston
Photography: Courtesy Johnson Development Corp.
About the Author
Stacey Freed
Stacey Freed, a freelance writer based in Rochester, N.Y., covers design and building.