“Velocity really understands the shift in consumer home buying patterns and has been instrumental in helping our company see the shift as well. We would not have been as successful without their help.”
– Brent Bommes, President, Sterling Homes
When we first met with Sterling Homes in 2016, they were eager to grow their business and become one of the top builders in their market. At the time, they were relying on more traditional advertising like radio, billboards, print and signage. They were using some digital tactics but they had no digital marketing plan.
Sterling had started a blog but it wasn’t being updated consistently. The content wasn’t very relevant or helpful to their target audience and they didn’t have an SEO plan to help them climb the search rankings. They did have some social media presence but they weren’t consistent and they didn’t have a social media plan.
They were using a variety of different software and programs to manage their marketing, sales and service systems. This meant their data was spread out and they didn’t have a single source of truth to track and measure their data.
In short, they were asking for our help to get their digital house in order and put together a plan to help them hit their aggressive sales targets and stake their claim in the Edmonton market.
The Marketing Plan
Working with Sterling’s Marketing, Sales, and Management teams, we discussed their growth goals and identified the gap between where they were and where they wanted to get to. We then determined what key performance indicators (KPIs) we would measure to track progress towards their goals:
- Website Sessions
- Leads Generated
- Homes Sold
- Total Reach
These KPIs would give us insight into how well their Marketing and Sales systems were functioning. The next step was establishing processes to help collect and benchmark the data that would be used to measure these KPIs.
The core objective was to design a marketing plan and set up systems and processes to build a Marketing Engine that would produce compounding results year over year. With this plan, we were able to achieve a wide variety of goals and objectives.
This plan included:
Buyer Persona Research and Mapping Their Customer Journey
This was essential in creating a well-planned content strategy that was tailored to a specific, relevant audience.
Email Marketing Tactics
This included a monthly newsletter, additional promotional content, and contact/list segmentation and management.
Daily Posting to Social Media
This included promoting new articles and premium content offers with a paid ad budget.
Implementation and Customization of HubSpot Marketing Automation Software
Implementing Hubspot software allowed us to automate much of Sterling’s marketing efforts, and offered a single point of truth to measure their marketing progress and KPIs.
Creating And Implementing a Traffic and Lead Generation Strategy
We introduced and implemented the use of a flywheel marketing system to attract, retain, and generate more (and higher-quality) leads and traffic.
An Aggressive Content Plan and Blogging Schedule
The content plan includes weekly blog articles, premium content, pillar pages, and regular updates to ensure content is always relevant and fresh.
The Results
Website Traffic
To help increase website traffic, we started with an aggressive blog schedule to create content specifically targeted to Sterling’s buyer personas and supplemented with social and other paid ads.
From there, we decreased the amount of new content and focused on longer pieces and historical updates on articles with high SEO rankings. We also created pillar pages and supporting content, and applied SEO tactics to help increase rankings on key web pages.
This led to a 426% increase in website traffic, from 102,913 visits in 2017 to 541,450 in 2020.
Lead Generation
Utilizing the content we were creating - both blog articles and web pages - we were able to segment Sterling’s database to send out targeted ads and email marketing campaigns designed to reach specific demographics and segments of their target audience.
The result of this was a 471% increase in leads from 2017 to 2020, from 1,571 to 8,991.
Customer Acquisition
By creating systematization within HubSpot, we were able to streamline the customer service process for Sterling Homes and create a unified database they could use across their company. This allowed for better communication between departments and with their clients, increasing customer satisfaction.
Customer acquisition rose from 205 to 576 - an increase of more than 180%.
Total Reach
Through a variety of tactics including SEO, targeted advertising, creating additional social media accounts, and email marketing, we have been able to increase the broadcast power of Sterling Homes by 429%, from 7,078 to 37,451.
Email Contacts
Using advanced and strategic lead generation tactics, we were able to increase the number of prospects Sterling Homes was able to market directly to using email marketing by over 1,100%.
We have become an essential part of Sterling Homes’ operations - a natural extension of their Marketing, Sales and Management teams. As a strategic growth partner, we work together under a shared goal of hitting their annual sales targets and helping them grow.
We’re ready to do the same for you. Schedule a call with us today and let’s find out how we can help you reach your growth goals, just like we did with Sterling Homes!
Originally posted Aug 4, 2022
