Placemaking: How to embed your scheme into its new city

placemaking

Congratulations, you received planning permission, developed your scheme and now you’re officially a brand new member of the city. Hurrah! We’re sorry to break it to you though, as your work is definitely not over.

Now it’s time to convince everyone that you deserve your place in the neighbourhood.

In this blog, we’ll be looking at ways to truly embed your scheme into its new city, ensuring that when people think of your city, they’ll think of you.

Social partnerships

At Roland Dransfield, we can’t stress the importance enough of using an online social presence to build your brand’s name.

Whoever your target audience is, whether its business types for your commercial scheme or young professionals for your residential scheme, you’ll find them online – so utilise social platforms.

By building an online presence and teaming up with popular local establishments, you’ll put yourself in front of an otherwise unattainable audience.

For example, if your scheme is residential, team up with a local restaurant or gym and offer your residents discounts. This will drive more traffic to these establishments, benefitting them, and will generate more interest in your scheme, benefitting you.

It’s an inexpensive and fool-proof way to reward your tenants and embed your scheme into its new city.

Launch event

Just because you know you’re officially open doesn’t mean that everyone else does. A lot of work went into creating your scheme so make a big deal of it.

Depending on the scale of your scheme and its purpose, you could really generate a lot of interest here.

Pushing out whatever USP you have – maybe you’re the tallest commercial property in the city, the only pet-friendly residential property or you have a stunning roof garden that will entice interest – invite journalists, council members and any popular names from the area with an incentive to “be the first to see” your scheme.

If you’re new to the city and don’t have any contacts, utilise a local PR company. They’re likely to be fully embedded into the city and will have an unending list of contacts that will help the success of your launch.

For more of a helping hand, check out our recent blog about five things to consider when organising an event.

Sponsor local events

Let’s take Manchester as an example here – from MIPIM and Manchester’s International Festival to Manchester Day and Manchester’s Food & Drink Festival, there are a huge number of events that your scheme could sponsor to ensure your name becomes synonymous with your city.

Sponsorship deals can vary depending on your budget, but being a part of these huge events and receiving mentions on their official websites and offline branding will go a long way in embedding your scheme in the city!

And that’s it!

Those are just a few tips and tricks to ensure your scheme is viewed as a much-loved member of your new city. It would be remiss to finish your development and not continue its hype for long after, so hopefully these ideas will help you hold favour with your new neighbourhood.

If you want to explore this a little bit further, get in touch with us at Roland Dransfield to find out how we can help you. Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter and Instagram to stay up-to-date on all things PR and marketing.

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