Showhome traffic is imperative to a successful home builder business; if you’re not getting the traffic you’re not selling homes. And despite your efforts, campaign after campaign, promo after promo, dollar after dollar, you’re finding minimal spikes in your showhome visitors at best.
It’s time for you to work with a home builder marketing agency.
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We understand, the idea of working with an agency can make even the most experienced home builder marketing team a little uneasy. Especially if you’ve worked with one in the past where the results were less than optimal.
But a specialized agency, one that is 100% dedicated to helping home builders just like you, is a different story. That’s because a good home builder marketing agency will not only help you get prospects into your showhomes faster, they’ll ensure those who do visit are ready to buy when they get there.
Embracing the Inbound Methodology
Any agency worth its salt will prove an innate understanding that the way people buy homes has changed and, for that reason, traditional marketing methods just don’t work. Sure an agency can say you need to be online to reach your prospects, tell you to produce content or publish social media messages - but without a solid digital marketing strategy to back your efforts, you’ll fail to stand out and generate the showhome traffic you’ve been working so hard to increase.
As opposed to bombarding people with outbound marketing messages, a good home builder agency will instead develop a strategy with targeted tactics designed to speak to your ideal prospects where and when they want to be reached - online - at every point in their home buying journey.
What’s more, they’ll track and measure your results - allowing you to pivot and adjust your efforts to improve your approach and become a leader in your market.
Content Creation
Like we mentioned, instead of outdated marketing methods like billboards and print ads, inbound marketing focuses on approaching a prospect where they’re at in their buyer's journey. Instead of scatter-gunning outbound messages and hoping for the best, you create quality content that draws prospects in.
Did you know home builders who use a solid content marketing strategy generate 67% more leads than those who don’t?
By providing great content your target audience is looking for, exactly where they’re looking for it, you'll establish yourself as a helpful resource. And, by helping to answer their questions at whatever stage they're in, you set yourself up as an authority, creating trust and naturally attracting them into your inbound marketing funnel. In short, good content is essential to attracting leads.
Lifecycle Marketing
People go through different stages as they prepare to buy a home and each stage requires different marketing actions in order to be effective. For example, someone who has filled out a form and downloaded their first piece of content from your site (an Information Qualified Lead) is not yet ready to be contacted by a salesperson (a Sales Qualified Lead). They’re still gathering information - and too much pressure in the early stages will turn them off. For example:
Subscribers
Someone who has expressed initial interest in hearing from you and signed up via email to receive blog updates or newsletters.
Information Qualified Leads
One step deeper into your funnel than a subscriber, these contacts will have filled out a form, offering more information than just an email. Information Qualified Leads are more open to receiving top-of-the-funnel type offers that can help them move along their journey.
Marketing Qualified Leads
These are leads that have shown a further vested interest in your homes. They may have downloaded more content and are ready to receive a few promotional offers but are not quite ready to talk to sales.
Sales Qualified Leads
People whom have shown a keen interest in your product and are deemed ready for a Sales follow up.
Opportunities
After becoming sales qualified leads, these are the contacts who have been vetted by Sales, are interested in purchasing a house from you, and walking through your sales process.
Customers
Excellent! The contract is signed and sealed and you have a new paying customer.
Evangelists
While they typically tend to be a smaller group, Evangelists are happy customers who love to promote your home builder brand. Keep them happy and they’re likely to recommend you to friends and family.
By nurturing your leads at the right time and in the right way, you’ll begin to establish rapport and trust with your prospects - so when it comes time to visit a showhome, you’re the first stop on their list.
Personalization
You don’t sell the same homes as your competitors - so why would you opt for the same type of marketing messages? Working with an experienced home builder marketing agency means you’ll be able to stand out from the crowd with a personalized inbound marketing strategy.
Marketing Assessments
A good agency will start by assessing your website and current marketing efforts and help you with areas needing improvement.
Strategy Development
After the assessment, they’ll get to work developing a detailed plan as to which marketing tactics to use moving forward and how.
Marketing Machine Development
Once a plan is in place, your home builder marketing agency will build your inbound marketing machine.
And don’t forget the custom-tailored content!
Multi-Channel Methods
As we’ve mentioned (again and again) the key to a successful marketing strategy is approaching your prospects where they’re at online. This means sending your marketing messages out across multiple channels (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc) where your prospects will want to interact with you.
Reaching your buyer personas with targeted content on the right channel will fill your inbound marketing funnel with quality leads. From there, you can guide them through their home buyers journey and directly through the doors of your showhomes.
An Integrated Approach
Remember the marketing machine we mentioned? Here’s where you’ll really start to see results when working with a home builder marketing agency. Using publishing and analytics tools, your agency will continually test, measure and optimize every part of your inbound marketing process. In fact, a good agency will even provide you with a monthly report to show you your results!
We can’t stress how important this is. In today’s competitive home building industry, you need to be able to measure your marketing efforts. What’s working? What isn’t? Without the ability to measure, you can’t improve. And if you can’t improve, how can you expect to see more showhome traffic?
Sales and Marketing Alignment
It’s Marketing’s responsibility to deliver qualified leads for Sales to work with. And working with an agency who enables your Sales and Marketing teams to work together, is an agency that will help you shorten your sales-cycles.
By nurturing prospects through your inbound marketing funnel, you will deliver high-quality leads directly into the hands of your Sales team - meaning more showhome visits and more homes sold. What’s more, your agency will continually work with you to improve upon this process, guaranteeing Sales and Marketing remain in constant alignment.
Would you like to learn more about how a home builder marketing agency can deliver qualified leads to your showhomes? It all starts with a conversation. Get in touch with us today and find out how the right marketing program will help you deliver amazing results and stand out as the obvious leader in your market.
