Helping people take that next big step

L&Q - Staircasing

As residential property prices soared in the last decade, Shared Ownership has grown as a popular option for people wanting to get onto the property ladder. As the deposit required and mortgage value is far lower than for private sale, buying a home through has become much more accessible to many. However, L&Q identified that once the initial share has been bought, many of their Shared Ownership leaseholders were unaware that they could buy the balance of the property shares when the time was right for them, by a process called ‘Staircasing’.

Bell created a direct marketing-led awareness campaign promoting the benefits of Staircasing to their Shared Ownership leaseholders. It addressed both types of Staircasing – ‘progressive’ (a name we developed to replace the industry-standard term ‘interim’), when further shares are bought in stages, and ‘final’, when the balance of the property is bought outright. We developed the clear proposition “Own more of your home… up to 100%” upon which to anchor the campaign.

Our awareness campaign comprised of printed and electronic DM, and was supported by a landing page, with an animated information video, to help demystify the complexity of the process. The campaign was rolled out progressively across different London boroughs, the first being Greenwich. Due to the magnitude of the decision to buy further shares in a home, we intentionally avoided the hard sell. Benefits blended seamlessly with testimonials, the process and advice on who to speak to at what stage.