ASTRALCOM, LLC, Lakewood, Calif., on Tuesday published a reference guide for home builders and home marketers that it claims will “help ensure that builders have all of their customer touch points covered for home-buying season and beyond.”
Entitled “12 Home Builder Must-Do’s for Increased New Home Sales this Season,” the publication is ostensibly a checklist.
“There’s a lot to remember when it comes to home builder marketing,” said Richard Bergér, vp of E-Business at ASTRALCOM Integrated Media Services. “Add to that all of the extra stuff that home builders need to get done just to prepare for home-buying season and it’s easy to forget or to overlook a critical tactic,” he added.
“And this year, everyone is smarter. Home buyers are smarter in how they choose home builders. Home builders are smarter in how they connect with home buyers. And many builders will be courting the same buyers. It’s going to be a lot more competitive, this year,” said Bergér.
Here’s what builders need to create, per the checklist:
1. Inspiring community, property and floor plan descriptions. Descriptions of the floor plan options, the property area and the neighborhood help create an overall community idea for potential buyers.
2. Attractive interior and exterior pictures and videos. A picture is worth a thousand words and professional photos and videos go a long way in creating a story for potential home buyers.
3. Accurate list of community and area attributes. By leveraging community and local attributes, individual properties and whole new communities appear more connected, centralized and attractive to buyers.
4. Clearly defined competitive differentiator messages. Whether a builder has a unique building process, integrates energy-efficient options, or includes personalization, these competitive differentiators should be brought forward.
5. Optimized conversion pages and effective call’s-to-action. Most home builders convert web leads between the 1% – 5% range. By integrating more engaging and educational content, buyers create a deeper affinity with builders and convert more frequently.
6. Regional and local SEO keywords and supporting content. Because searches from mobile devices are at an all-time high and to prepare for forthcoming search changes at Google, builders should ensure that they are well represented in local search results, especially from mobile devices.
7. Recent, engaging posts and content in social media. Old posts and stale content in blogs and social sites should be updated with new floor plan, pics, videos, buyer testimonials and any other engaging and informative content that prospective buyers would be interested in.
8. Paid advertising and re-marketing in search, display and social. Home buyers use many ways to search for homes and to investigate the builders they are interested in. Paid keyword ads in Google and Bing, targeted display ads and re-marketing are critical tactics in reaching potential buyers sooner.
9. Promotional, incentive and way-finding materials. Make it easy for home buyers to find your communities with signage and other way-finding tactics and help move home buyers off the proverbial fence with promotions and incentives.
10. Email marketing campaign setup. With the best return on marketing investment, email is one of the most important tools home builders can use to help cultivate engagement, trust and assurance with potential buyers, which ultimately leads to a purchase decision.
11. Syndicated press releases and content marketing. Content marketing and press release publishing are an excellent way to get fresh, relevant content in front of potential home buyers and help with search engine optimization.
12. Clear goal measurement and key performance indicator metrics. With good data and clear metrics, marketing efforts can be honed-in for surgical preciseness and optimized for maximum conversions.
Bergér said those home builders who ensure that their customer touch points, website content and channel messaging are in alignment will lift the chances of their brand being considered earlier in the sales process by homebuyers. “By delivering good content, builders increase the net engagement affect and they elevate buyers’ understanding of the value of new homes,” he said. “All of this amounts to increased buyer interest, higher conversion rates and ultimately more sales of new homes.”
A printable copy of the checklist can be downloaded here.
