New home marketers never seem to have enough time to do everything they need to do. As you bounce from task to task trying to get everything done and meet your deadlines, inevitably things will fall through the cracks or get missed. In this article, you'll discover 4 (and a half) tips to maximize the efficiency of your new home marketing team and get more done.
Reading time: 6 minutes
Level: Intermediate
Key Takeaways:
- how collaboration and project management tools make a major difference
- what automating repetitive tasks can do for productivity
- how measuring and tracking your performance stats can affect efficiency
- how re-evaluating and trying again keeps your team ahead of the game
If you'd like to read a summary of this post, simply click here.
The definition of efficiency is to accomplish something with the least amount of resources wasted. So, for a home builder marketing team, efficiency is marketing with a minimum expenditure of time, effort and expense for maximum gains.
As a marketing master, you already know efficiency is the key to your team’s success. But with limited resources in terms of time, staff, and budget, it can be hard to transform your team into the marketing machine you’ve been striving to build.
If this sounds all too familiar, we have a few ideas for you. Read on to discover our top tips for improving your home marketing team’s efficiency.
1. Collaborate
Regardless of whether you’re overseeing a team of two or twenty, your marketing team members need to be on the same page, at all times. Working together is key for any company, but if a marketing department hopes to be efficient, a streamlined workflow is absolutely essential.
If you haven’t already implemented any online collaboration tools, it's time to get started! Not only do they make organizing tasks and meetings much easier, they'll help you share ideas, documents, and information. Best of all, it’s all in one place!
Online collaboration tools such as Workplace by Facebook (what we use in-house) or Slack will help your team communicate quicker and more efficiently. They bring all of your communication together into a shared workspace where your conversations are organized and easily accessible to your whole team. They eliminate a TON of back-and-forth email and streamline your communication.
Project management tools like Teamwork or Basecamp can help you assign tasks, communicate and track progress all in one place. You can even use them to give your customers a simple way to check the status and progress of seasonal or warranty items.
Poor communication and time mismanagement are costly not just in hours, but in productivity and sales. Collaborative processes where team members can communicate internally and find the information they need quickly are key to the success of any marketing team.
Check out this list of the best project management softwares for further ideas and insights.
2. Automate
Now that you’ve streamlined your processes with some great project management software, it’s time to look for other ways you can increase efficiency. Think about the tasks you do every day, such as assigning web leads to reps, reporting on marketing metrics, sending emails, and creating and sharing digital content.
Can you imagine how much time (and money!) you could save, and how much your productivity would increase if you had an automation software with easy-to-navigate workflows that did many of these tasks for you?
Marketing automation is extremely important when it comes to customer conversion, as well. If you’re currently operating in manual mode, you’re not in a good position to engage leads. If you’re unable to instantly respond to a lead on their terms, you’re likely to lose them altogether. Poor automation = lost opportunities = lost sales.
The best marketing automation tools are the ones that allow you to scale your growth and spend less time doing repetitive tasks. HubSpot, for example, provides inbound marketing and sales software that not only enables you to manage content, social media marketing, and SEO, but also gives you the tools you need to automate and track your processes (more on tracking in a second).
If you’re looking to increase your team’s efficiency, automating your processes wherever possible is a must. In fact, with 78% of marketers saying automation increases revenue in under 12 months, can you really afford not to?
3. Measure
Track and measure everything. From workflows and website visits to campaign performance to content. You can’t improve something if you can’t measure it and if you’re not improving, you’re not increasing your efficiency.
Sales and marketing analytics tools are essential to helping you test to see what works and what doesn’t. Think of how effective you could be if you could determine what your prospects are looking for and what entices them to buy a home.
Here again, an inbound marketing platform such as Hubspot will provide you with many digital marketing tools, including analytics, to help you measure, review, establish new goals and try again.
That brings us to our fourth and final point...
4. Reassess and Try Again
While tracking and measuring your performance is imperative for improvement and efficiency… it only works if you do something with the data you’ve collected.
If a particular piece of content is doing well, update it for relevance and promote it again. If your conversion rates are low, adjust and test your landing pages. If you’re working with an agency, review and understand the metrics they provide you so you know what’s working and what isn’t (if your agency doesn’t do this, it’s time to rethink who you’re working with).
The same rules apply to everything you do internally, as a team. If the project management software you’re using isn’t tracking the tasks, hours, projects and due dates you need to be efficient, then find a better program. Your marketing efforts are only as good as your team - so be sure they have the tools they need to do their job well.
4.5 Get Some Extra Hands
It’s important to recognize that to be more efficient, you may need some extra help. As a busy marketer, it’s understandable that working to improve efficiency can take a back seat in favour of getting everything else done in a day. If that's the case, it may be time to consider working alongside a specialized home builder marketing agency. Not only will they work with your team to streamline your marketing efforts by doing a lot of the heavy-lifting for you, they’ll help you track, measure and improve your ROI by driving more qualified leads to your show homes - efficiency and more sales!
For more information, download our free eBook, In-House or Third Party? When to Consult a Home Builder Marketing Agency by clicking the button below.
Summary
As a busy marketing team, increasing efficiency is crucial if you want to stay ahead of the game. So, if you're looking for ways to boost your team's productivity, save time and money, attract more qualified leads and sell more homes, here are a few key efficiency-boosting tips you need consider:
Collaboration - Efficient marketing starts with an efficient team. Online collaboration tools and/ or project management software are imperative for keeping your tasks organized, sharing information, communicating with clients and much more. A collaborative team is a productive team, and a productive team saves time and money.
Automation - Imagine how much you could get done in a day if you didn't have to spend time on menial tasks that could easily be taking care of themselves. For things like assigning web leads to reps, reporting on marketing metrics, and sending emails, automation is the cornerstone of any effective marketing strategy.
Measuring - You can’t improve something if you can’t measure it and if you’re not improving, you’re not increasing your efficiency. Track and measure everything! Performance and marketing analytics tools will help you zero-in on what's working and what isn't.
Reassessing and Trying Again - Use the performance and analytics data you've collected, adjust your tactics accordingly. If something you're doing isn't working, fix it. Remember, if you're working with an agency, they should be giving you concrete, performance-driven data to help you improve.
Get Help - A specialized home builder marketing agency can help you accomplish more by doing a lot of the consistent efforts required to successfully execute a digital marketing strategy. A great agency will provide you with monthly reporting that's easy to understand and that you can use to report your department's performance to management and executives.
