Do you want to learn how to improve your home builder strategic online marketing? It turns out that you don’t need to go far. Some of the best lessons for reaching online buyers come from your very own new home sales teams.
Whether you are on the front lines selling or driving traffic from the marketing department (or both!), here’s four key components of home builder marketing online and lessons that we can learn from sales:
Split Testing
If your sales presentation continually fails to convert shoppers to buyers, do you keep on reciting the same uninspired script, day after day? Top Producing New Home Sales Agents are continually refining their sales presentation based on buyer objections, market conditions, current availability (standing inventory or pre-sale?), and more to find what produces the highest and most consistent conversion to contract over time.
All online marketing requires the same commitment to ongoing improvement. Is your home builder website converting fewer than 3% of your visitors to leads? Test different messages, photos, and conversion points. Is your email marketing producing a 13% open rate? Try testing different subject headers. Is traffic from your online advertising producing a 70% bounce rate? Create different ads (message, format, visual) and landing pages. Conversion (whether Sales or Marketing) is part art and part science. Rapidly changing real estate markets mean we are never done testing.
Multi-Tiered Website Conversion
During a sales presentation, how many times do you ask for the sale? The most effective sales presentations include several qualifying questions, trial closes, and a variety of final closing techniques (assumptive, etc). Your home builder website is your online sales presentation for the 90% of home buyers who start their search on the web. The goal is to convert home builder website visitors to leads regardless of where they are in the sales cycle. Ask for the opt-in more than once. This can include a newsletter sign up for buyers at the top of the sales funnel and a limited time incentive for buyers who are closer to a buying decision (or anywhere in between).
Vertical Email Marketing
When you are working with a prospect in your sales office do you tailor your presentation based on their plan preference, timeframe, price range, prospect rating, lifestyle needs, and other specific requirements? The most effective sales presentations are ones that create a personal connection with a buyer’s needs and wants. And yet, many of us use our email marketing to send the exact same message to every prospect regardless of a buyer’s individual needs. This leads to ineffective eBlast campaigns that leave prospects feeling a sense of “So what?” Use your CRM to divide your database into groups and establish goals for each. Your email campaign is not likely to move a “D” prospect to an “A” overnight, but it might generate a referral. Meet buyers where they are.
Adwords Remarketing
If a prospect leaves your sales office without buying, do you continue to follow up to schedule a return visit? Consistent follow up is a cornerstone of sales success. But if a buyer comes to your website and does not opt-in, what opportunity do you have to follow up? Is the opportunity lost forever? Fortunately, no. Imagine that you could follow that prospect around the web for days afterward, continually asking for a return visit. Google Adwords Remarketing offers just that, allowing home builder marketing teams a second (and third, and fourth) chance to bring website visitors back to the website to convert.
Got a burning home builder online marketing question? Leave it in the comments below (or simply ask a salesperson!)
