Client: Hot Springs Village
SITUATION
Hot Springs Village is the largest gated community in the United States and was developed in 1970 as an active lifestyle community catering primarily to retirees. It encompasses more than 26,000 acres and features 9 golf courses, 11 recreational lakes, 30 miles of hiking and biking trails, a performing arts center and more.
Sells Agency was hired in early 2020 to partner with the POA in developing and executing an integrated marketing plan to drive growth in new residents and amenities revenue. The marketing budget for 2020 would remain the same as previous years, but we were tasked with improving results.
GOALS
Our 2020 goals were:
- Increase the number of prospective homeowners to their website
- Increase the number of new homes being built, as measured by building permits issues
- Increase the number of “Discovery Packages” sold to prospective residents
- Increase non-resident golf revenues
PLAN
To achieve these goals, there were several key elements of our marketing plan, including:
- Rebuild the website which was underperforming in attracting search traffic for retirement and active lifestyle communities and which was not generating enough leads
- Transition what had been a traditional media approach (75% of advertising dollars had been dedicated to print publications) and move to a digital-first approach, recognizing that the majority of retirement relocation prospects began their search online, and
- Develop and market regionally a “Stay & Play” golf package
RESULTS (Sells Agency hired in early 2020)
- Website Visitors
- The new site, launched in June 2019, more than doubled organic traffic through effective SEO
- Building Permits
- 2015-2019: 54 average permits per year
- 2020: 90 permits
- 2021: 132 permits
- Discovery Packages
- 2018: 37
- 2019: 81
- 2020: 133
- 2021: 182
- Non-Resident Golf Revenue
- 2019: $418k
- 2020: $434k (despite 6 months of COVID-19 lockdown)
- 2021: $783k
https://www.sellsagency.com/work/live-your-best-life#sigProIdf099b5b806