Carrington Holding Companies, a national real estate and mortgage company, tapped my agency's PR know-how to transform its business model in order to reach an underserved market of buyers–first-time homebuyers. With a $500,000 budget, I was the strategic PR and marketing lead responsible for spearheading Carrington's brand transformation over two years.

I co-directed an extensive market research initiative to glean insights into the target customer’s buying journey in order to successfully brand and position Carrington in this market. The research showed that homebuyers felt a significant disconnect between the real estate process and the mortgage process. As a result of these research insights, we leveraged Carrington's unique ability to work with homebuyers throughout the entire real estate journey and broadened their Internet storefront to meet the needs of this new customer, which included an instant prequalification feature and engaging digital communications for homebuying insights and advice. We named the new consumer-facing entity “Carrington Connects” with the tagline: "Homeownership Made Simple." 

I then managed the team to help Carrington claim market leadership through external communications, including an owned and earned media strategy. I was managing editor of the content marketing program and led the development of Carrington's blog to showcase articles from every step in a homebuyer's real estate journey: getting a loan, buying a home and owning a home. To create stickiness, I provided design guidance to turn the blog into a magazine-style hub and I developed story ideas, made story assignments, wrote and edited articles. 

To raise Carrington's profile for this new brand platform and reach potential customers, I managed a media relations campaign focused on educating potential homebuyers about homebuying in the current economy. As part of that outreach, my team secured several stories, including in the Washington Post and The Street. We also developed an infographic that honed in on trends affecting the real estate and mortgage markets. 

Following this multi-media campaign, first-time homebuyers perceived Carrington as a high-value resource to help them buy a home and get a loan seamlessly.