Huia Capital
Huia Capital, a boutique property investment and development company based in New Zealand’s largest city, worked with award-winning architects Monk Mackenzie to create 16 light-filled townhouses in Point Chevalier.
We provided
- Campaign creative
- Paid social
- Campaign management
Credits
- The Author team
Honest, enduring materials and a genuine sense of craft were a driving force behind these ground-breaking homes, and that’s evident in every detail of their design.
Results
270
Inquiries over a 12-week campaign
$17
Cost per inquiry in the final four weeks, down from $31
3 of 3
Townhouses sold
10x
The inquiries of conventional web listings
The challenge
Huia suffered a few defaults when calling for settlement, and as a result the developer had to sell the properties privately. While that avoided agent commissions, the developer needed buyers for a product at 1.5 times the median Auckland house price, at a time when interest rates had more than doubled.
What they wanted
Our brief was to originate and manage the marketing campaign that would attract pre-qualified buyers for the remaining three townhouses, allowing the developer to take their money out of the project.
How we approached it
Creatively, we leveraged one of the development’s biggest assets, its integrity, to create a campaign comparing the original renders with the finished homes.
This authentic delivery resonated with the market, building genuine trust in the quality of what buyers were getting: something that would stand the test of time longer than a floating interest rate.
Our media approach was to test audiences, creative, messages and customer acquisition paths until we found a winning formula.
Early results were mixed, as is typical of paid social. With our fifth campaign we found a combination that flooded Huia Capital’s inbox with buying interest: 42 inquiries and two sales in the ninth week of advertising.
As we optimised the campaign, the cost per inquiry fell from $31 in the first four weeks to $17 in the final four. Most importantly, the leads were the quality that delivered a result.
As a rule of thumb, only two in every ten campaigns work (and by work we mean make money), so this was normal, and we’re grateful Huia had the confidence to keep adjusting, optimising and, most importantly, spending.
What we delivered
A range of static and cinematic creative using both the renders and the photography, with music and typography.
270 inquiries over a 12-week campaign. Most importantly, Huia Capital sold all three townhouses as a result of the campaign we ran together.
Huia Capital’s main objective was speed: clearing the remaining stock to move on to new projects. We delivered 10 times the inquiries of conventional web listings at a fraction of the cost, so the results came significantly faster than they otherwise would have.
“We wanted a digital campaign that did more than post a render, a price, the number of bedrooms and a ‘for sale’ banner. My social feeds get flooded with property ads, and it’s a gripe of mine that they often lack creativity.
Author gave me a handful of different campaigns which broke the conventional mould, met with me regularly to weigh up the market’s response, and kept tweaking their approach until eventually enquiry came in faster than I could handle.
If you’ve got property to sell, you should use them.”
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