Riverfront Everett is the first multifamily community in a new neighborhood along the Snohomish River, east of Downtown Everett and Interstate 5. Developer Shelter Holdings hired Red Propeller to complete full brand, marketing, and sales assessment aimed at boosting lead generation, brand reputation, and sales.

Key to this effort was understanding the distinctive character and opportunities of the location. The project’s competitors are concentrated in Downtown Everett, starting 1.5 miles away, and at Everett Marina, 3.5 miles away, along Puget Sound. Both locations are more established, with walkable retail, which did not yet exist around Riverfront Everett. This underscored the need to understand the potential audience for the community and develop a compelling local story that clearly defined Riverfront Everett’s position in the market and distinguished it from the competition.

Extensive recommendations

Red Propeller conducted extensive research into market and immediate area, demographics, current residents, the competitive set, prospect objections, reviews, the brand, the on-site experience, and marketing tools and performance.

Our recommendations started with a detailed target-audience profile, including four audience segments, plus commonalities across segments. This is key to Red Propeller’s goal of making a community as close to perfect as possible for a defined audience, rather than just OK for everyone.

Next, we recommended enhancements to marketing collateral, Internet-listing-service profiles, social-media, advertising, outreach to preferred employers/employees, resident referrals, the on-site brand presence, the tour path, and community features.

Finally, we developed a new consumer-facing brand story designed to convey the community’s value proposition and points of difference, plus recommendations for integrating this story into marketing materials, the built environment, and the tour path.

The result is a community that offers a distinctive lifestyle clearly differentiated from the competition, with this story integrated consistently across marketing efforts and the on-site experience.

Clear results

Evidence points to clear results. The six-month period after implementation of Red Propeller’s recommendations brought surges in active user engagement (up 129% year over year), new users (up 126%), and returning users (107%).

Paid search traffic grew thanks to optimization of campaigns based on strategic insights. There were also notable gains to direct traffic, reflecting stronger brand recognition, and organic search, reinforcing the impact of improved SEO strategies.

With enhanced tracking capabilities in place, we gained a clearer understanding of user engagement and lead generation. These newly added metrics indicate a high level of engagement and the effectiveness of our marketing optimizations in driving meaningful interactions.

Overall, Riverfront Everett continues to outperform its previous benchmarks, demonstrating the impact of a strong strategic foundation.