Real estate and housing are on the minds and lips of every Canadian, and though everyone has their own opinions on when interest rates will drop further, why the outlook is so grave, and who’s to blame – the one thing everyone has in common is understanding that we need more housing.
Because so many parties are pointing fingers at each other and playing the blame game, with the development industry often taking the brunt of the criticism, it’s no wonder the general public is often weary and untrusting of developers.
Trust is earned, not freely given. Developers need to do the work to tell their stories and build authentic relationships with the greater masses and hyper local communities they’re building in to help shed light on the darkness of the unknowns and misinformation, so that trust can be formed.
Most of the market ownership pre-construction industry is on hold with budgets paused while developers wait for a positive signal to start moving projects forward. While individual projects remain paused, now is the time for companies to be investing in brand reputation, building relationships and earning trust.
Why? Because the short-term investor will no longer be the target purchaser once projects begin to move forward. Instead, there will be a re-focus on end users and long-term investors which means buyers will be more selective in where they purchase. With a bottleneck of units continuing to build up, buyers will have plenty of options to choose from and will be doing their research to ensure a sound investment.
The next 3-6 months will be incredibly interesting as the industry (hopefully) moves towards more and more activity, a multi-layered proactive communications strategy to help support brand recognition and trust should be a priority for companies that are doing unique work, have stories to tell, and genuinely want to stand out from the rest.
Beyond the development industry, the below list of considerations can apply to any brands in any space that want to authentically engage and build trust and awareness with target audiences:
- Ensure all executives and spokespeople are media trained
- Identify target audiences
- Build a strategic communications strategy for each audience
- Participate in proactive media relations and build relationships with media
- Authentically engage with communities and local dignitaries through every channel available
- Have a crisis communications strategy ready to go in case it’s ever needed
At the end of the day, it’s easy for a company to say why they think they’re great – but it’s better if others are saying it on their behalf and know it to be true. PR support is often brought in too late and only when there’s a crisis to deal with, or when a project is too far along to have any real impact. With the current lull in the market, now is the time for brands to prioritize proactive communications strategies so that when the market picks up, they’re well positioned for success.