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Use Cases: Effective Digital Marketing for Home Builders

June 13, 2024
4 minute read
Blog / Uncategorized

Builders can attract more qualified leads by leveraging specific digital marketing strategies tailored to the home-building industry. These strategies can engage potential buyers and ultimately close more sales. Here are some effective digital marketing tactics for home builders, focusing on specific use cases.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for Local Visibility

Use Case: Targeting Local Home Buyers

Local SEO is essential for home builders who want to attract buyers in their specific geographic area. Optimize your website for local search by including your location in keywords, such as “new homes in Austin” or “custom home builders in Denver.”

  • Example: John’s Custom Homes optimized their website with local keywords and saw a 50% increase in local traffic within three months. They included phrases like “affordable custom homes in Austin” on their homepage and service pages.
  • Tip: Create a Google My Business profile and encourage satisfied clients to leave reviews. Positive reviews can significantly boost your local search rankings.

Read about an SEO audit for new home builder websites here >>

Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising for Immediate Leads

Use Case: Quick Lead Generation for New Developments

PPC advertising on platforms like Google Ads allows home builders to target potential buyers who are actively searching for new homes. By bidding on relevant keywords, your ads appear at the top of search results, driving immediate traffic to your website.

  • Example: Greenfield Builders launched a PPC campaign targeting “new homes for sale in Phoenix.” They created compelling ad copy and a landing page with a contact form, resulting in a 30% increase in lead inquiries within the first month.
  • Tip: Use geo-targeting to show your ads to users in your specific market area.

Read about PPC campaigns for new home construction companies here >>

Content Marketing to Educate and Engage

Use Case: Building Trust with Potential Buyers

Content marketing is an excellent way to establish authority and build trust with potential buyers. Create valuable content that addresses common questions and concerns about home building.

  • Example: Smith & Sons Builders started a blog featuring articles like “Top 10 Tips for Designing Your Custom Home” and “What to Expect During the Home Building Process.” These posts attracted traffic and kept visitors on the site longer, improving their engagement metrics.
  • Tip: Incorporate visual content such as infographics and videos. A virtual tour of a model home can significantly enhance engagement.

Email Marketing for Lead Nurturing

Use Case: Keeping Prospective Buyers Engaged

Email marketing helps home builders nurture leads by providing regular updates and valuable information. Email campaigns inform prospects about new developments, special offers, and upcoming open houses.

  • Example: Johnson Builders created an email drip campaign for leads who had visited their model homes but hadn’t yet decided. They sent personalized emails with testimonials, project updates, and invitations to exclusive events, resulting in a 20% increase in conversion rates.
  • Tip: Segment your email list based on prospects’ stages of the buying process to send more targeted and relevant content.

Social Media Marketing for Brand Awareness

Use Case: Showcasing Completed Projects

Social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook are perfect for showcasing your completed projects and building brand awareness. Share high-quality images and stories about your home-building process, and engage with your audience through comments and messages.

  • Example: Elite Homes used Instagram to post daily updates of their latest projects, including behind-the-scenes videos and client testimonials. This strategy helped them build a loyal following and generated more inquiries from potential buyers.
  • Tip: Use targeted ads on social media to reach specific demographics interested in homebuilding.

Home builders can effectively reach and engage their target audience by implementing these specific digital marketing strategies, driving more qualified leads and increasing sales. These use cases highlight how tailored approaches can yield significant results, demonstrating the power of digital marketing in the home building industry.

New Home Builder Digital Marketing Strategies: Basics and 2024 Trends

June 13, 2024
4 minute read
Blog / Uncategorized

Effective digital marketing strategies can drive traffic, generate quality leads, and convert those leads into homebuyers. This article explores the basics of digital marketing for new home builders and some of the latest trends in 2024 that can help you stay ahead of the curve.

Tried and True Digital Marketing Strategies

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

SEO remains a cornerstone of digital marketing. For new home builders, SEO involves optimizing your website and content to rank higher in search engine results. Key elements include:

  1. On-Page SEO: Optimizes individual web pages with relevant keywords, high-quality content, and proper meta tags to improve search engine visibility.
  2. Off-Page SEO: Building high-quality backlinks from reputable sites enhances your site’s authority and search rankings.
  3. Local SEO: Optimizing your Google My Business profile and ensuring consistent NAP (Name, Address, Phone Number) information across directories helps attract local homebuyers.
  4. Technical SEO: Ensuring your website is mobile-friendly, fast-loading, and easy to navigate are critical components.

Learn more about an SEO audit for new home construction websites here >>

Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising

PPC advertising, particularly through Google Ads, allows you to target potential homebuyers searching for specific keywords related to new home construction. Benefits include:

  1. Immediate Visibility: Unlike SEO, which takes time, PPC ads can give you immediate visibility on search engines.
  2. Targeted Ads: You can target ads based on location, demographics, and user behavior, ensuring your ads reach the right audience.
  3. Budget Control: PPC allows you to control your budget and measure the ROI of your campaigns effectively.

Learn more about Google PPC advertising for new home builders here >>

Content Marketing

Content marketing is about creating and sharing valuable content to attract and engage your audience. For new home builders, this could include:

  1. Blog Posts: Articles about home building tips, design trends, and community news can attract potential buyers and establish your authority in the industry.
  2. Videos: Virtual tours of homes, customer testimonials, and behind-the-scenes videos can engage and convert prospects.
  3. Infographics: Visual content explaining the home building process or highlighting key features of your homes can be very effective.

Email Marketing

Email marketing remains one of the most cost-effective ways to nurture leads. Strategies include:

  1. Automated Drip Campaigns: Sending automated emails to prospects can guide them through the buyer’s journey.
  2. Personalized Content: Tailoring emails to the recipient’s interests and stage in the buying process increases engagement.
  3. Performance Analytics: Tracking open rates, click-through rates, and conversions helps refine your strategy.

Voice Search Optimization

With the rise of smart speakers and voice-activated assistants, optimizing your content for voice search is crucial. This means focusing on natural language and conversational keywords. For instance, instead of “new homes in Austin,” you might optimize for “Where can I find new homes in Austin?”

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

AI and machine learning transform digital marketing by providing deeper insights and automating tasks. Applications include:

  1. Chatbots: Implementing AI-powered chatbots on your website can instantly respond to potential buyers’ queries, enhancing user experience and lead generation.
  2. Predictive Analytics: AI can analyze data to predict future trends and buyer behavior, helping you tailor your marketing strategies more effectively.
  3. Personalization: AI can help deliver highly personalized content and recommendations, increasing engagement and conversion rates.

Social Media Stories and Reels

Platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and now LinkedIn emphasize short, engaging content in the form of stories and reels. For new home builders, this means:

  1. Behind-the-Scenes Content: Sharing short clips of the home-building process can humanize your brand and engage viewers.
  2. Customer Testimonials: Quick video testimonials from satisfied homeowners can build trust and credibility.
  3. Virtual Tours: Short virtual tour snippets can give potential buyers a taste of your offer.

Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR)

AR and VR technologies are becoming more accessible and can provide immersive experiences for potential buyers. Applications include:

  1. Virtual Home Tours: Allowing prospects to explore homes virtually can significantly enhance their buying experience.
  2. AR for Interior Design: Apps that let users visualize different design elements in their future homes can make decision-making easier.

Sustainability and Green Marketing

With increasing awareness of environmental issues, highlighting your commitment to sustainable and green building practices can attract eco-conscious buyers. This involves:

  1. Content on Sustainability: Creating blog posts, videos, and infographics about your green building practices and materials.
  2. Certifications and Awards: Showcasing any green building certifications or sustainability awards you’ve received.

While tried and true digital marketing strategies remain essential, staying abreast of newer trends can give you a competitive edge. By combining foundational techniques with innovative approaches, new home builders can effectively reach and engage their target audience, driving growth and success in 2024.

Voice Search and Your Digital Marketing Strategy

December 1, 2020
6 minute read
Blog / Uncategorized

Alexa. Siri. OK Google. Voice search is a technology most of us have been utilizing for quite a while now, but really only from the perspective of a consumer.

What’s the weather like in Los Angeles? What time is Aquaman playing at the Cineplex? Who won Super Bowl XLIV? Where’s Smokey John’s Bar-B-Que?

Stuff like that.

But from a digital marketing point of view, it’s not something that’s typically integrated into your average company’s strategic umbrella.

Should it be?

When does it make sense? Does it make sense it all?

This was the topic of conversation my colleague Dustin and I covered on our most recent Digital. Done Right. Podcast – and it’s not a question with a straightforward answer.

It’s Complicated

As a technology in general, voice is something that’s both absolutely here but not quite there. It’s cool and cutting edge, but it doesn’t always work like you’d like it to. Devices don’t always integrate without lots of finagling and they often struggle to accurately understand our commands. As for the responses we get back from voice search, it’s 50/50 whether your question was adequately answered. It’s equal parts super cool and super frustrating, which is usually the case when rolling out new tech.

That doesn’t mean voice as a marketing tool ought to be ignored. Not at all. It just means it’s complicated.

On the podcast we cover a lot of different topics surrounding the obstacles and the opportunities voice presents:

  • The adoption curve for the technology
  • The most common queries for voice searches and whether they’re relevant in a business context
  • Voice chatbot
  • The challenge of compelling users to choose voice when the previous method is faster or easier to use
  • Complexities related to applying an old communication style through a new medium where it doesn’t quite work
  • Integration with AR and VR

You can listen to the full episode here, but for this piece I mostly want to focus on an R &D type project we did for a major client, building out an Alexa Skill in the home building industry. I think this real-world case study really drives home the reality of reality of working towards marketing with voice right now.

A Pitch the Explore the Possibility

A couple of years ago we pitched the idea of building an Alexa Skill for a national homebuilder – and the board loved it. With the hardware becoming more prevalent in the home and Alexa adoption on the rise, it seemed like a great opportunity to explore a channel where competitors weren’t yet present.

Functionality was relatively simple, with the primary utility being that you could schedule an appointment to tour new homes using voice.

So, “Hey Alexa, I’m interested in a house in Phoenix, Arizona.” You set your price point, and then the assistant gives you back some options about different communities and different homes offering this many bedrooms and whatnot. And then you’re able to schedule an appointment using voice through the skill.

Challenges and Successes

We made it work, which was cool. We integrated some first-party data to help with the search and filtering criteria and the skill’s still there. Customers can download it and use it, right now.

But for this client, the application didn’t wind up being relevant. From an R & D or proof of concept perspective, it was a big success – but there were just too many barriers to compel customers to fully adopt the medium.

For one thing, you look at Google, and you can imagine the incredible sums of money they’re investing to figure voice out. There are infinite variable involved and infinite permutations of queries and then all sorts of things that can throw a wrench in the work, something as simple as your kids walking in to ask you a question or someone turning the TV on in the background.

We were very proud of what we built, but from an investment point of view we were certainly more limited than the major players moving voice forward.

Other barriers were that in order to use the skill, a customer would have to download the skill to their device and learn the commands. By the time you do that, you might as well just head to the company’s website and book your appointment online or call from your phone.

It meant that there was one more thing that needed to be marketed – and if customers who were intrigued with the channel encountered a snag, boom, they’re gone. The benefits of figuring out how to navigate the voice commands just weren’t big enough, when the end result was something you could quickly achieve through a different medium.

A Unique Search Environment

To wrap up here and cover the initial question, “Should voice have a role your digital marketing strategy?” The answer is yes, but not a prominent one.

One thing that stands out when thinking about targeting voice search with SEO on your website is the unique type of real estate we’re looking at.

Unlike a traditional search, where queries return a full page of results to choose from, with ads prominently shown at the top – with voice search, there’s just one answer.

One slot.

And so, it’s easy to imagine how valuable that space can be if you’re able to rank for it. It’s absolutely worth considering when structuring your on-page content.

But it’s such a longshot to win, you’d be hard pressed to make an argument for putting too many resources into a singular voice search SEO strategy.

Similar to our previous conversation about “Zero-Click Searches”, optimizing your page for voice search is better thought of as a subset of your overall SEO strategy but not as a standalone campaign focusing on that one channel. Just like no click search, a heavy focus on FAQ style content will best structure your page to potentially have snippets land on voice search answers.

In the end, I’m both skeptical and excited about the future of voice. It’s one of those things that someone’s going to figure out how to utilize in a way we’ve yet to imagine and make an absolute fortune. So, it’s absolutely something worth exploring and keeping in your back pocket.

Putting some money towards testing how voice could augment your business’s customer experience is worthwhile. It’s an investment into something that will only become more prevalent as time goes on. How prevalent and when? Those are million-dollar questions!

What To Do: Zero-Click Searches

November 12, 2020
5 minute read
Blog / Uncategorized

Half of all Google searches end without a click.

This factoid might sound troublesome for the search engine giant that earns most of its revenue selling clicks, but the reality is quite the opposite.

No-click searches (or zero-click) are by design, and they’re here to stay. It’s the newest iteration in how Google makes scouring the web for answers faster, easier and more user-friendly for searchers – and most users probably didn’t even notice it was happening.

In a recent episode of Digital. Done Right. we discussed no-click searches and talked about how whether businesses need to change their SEO strategy to compete for the zero-click space.

Here are the highlights from that conversation.

What is a No-Click Search?

If you haven’t noticed the rise in no-click searches, it’s only because they’re just that effective and just that efficient. The way it works is simple, Google has figured out a number of query types that can be quickly and easily answered right there at the top of the search results. So, when you ask one of these questions, you’ll often get your answer without having to visit a single website. Sometimes the answer is generated by a Google application. Other times content is pulled from another website and displayed in an easily digested format. And other times still, what gets displayed is an aggregate of information collected from multiple pages.

But the result is the same. The user gets their answer and not a single website sees a visitor.

It’s great for consumers – with a distinct set of pros and cons for online businesses.

Types of No-Click Searches

There six primary categories of no-click search:

  • Instant Answers – Quick answers provided by the search engine, usually displayed to the right
  • Knowledge Panel – Informational boxes that display information from the Knowledge Graph database (usually relates to people, places, things and organizations)
  • Calculators – Not just simple calculators but metric conversions, mortgage calculators, you name it
  • Definitions – What does this word mean? How do you say “Where’s the bathroom?” in German?
  • Maps – Self-explanatory, you ask Google where something is located and boom, there’s a map
  • Featured Snippets – This is when Google pulls the portion of content off a web page that answers the user’s question – snippets can be text, images or video

OK. Got it. But how does this affect my business and my web traffic?

Monetization of No-Click Searches

At some point it would only make sense that Google will try to monetize this zero-click space. At present, doing so comes with complications, primarily figuring out a value for each ad unit, or put more accurately, each unit of content.

Tracking and valuing clicks is easy. It’s even easier when advertisers bid the price automatically so that Google doesn’t have to – but how much is an eyeball worth? Especially an eyeball that may not even bother clicking on your link.

Why would they? They’ve already got the answer they’re looking for!

It’s not that simple, of course. Digital marketing never is.

The Real Value of Ranking for Zero-Click

On some level, having your snippet or video showcased as a no-click answer will give you a bit of brand awareness – but realistically, the benefits are more nuanced than that.

You know you need visitors to land on your page if you’re going to generate a transaction that drives revenue – or at the very least gather the data you need to retarget and aim for a transaction further down the line.

But what if being showcased as no-click content drives fewer organic clicks but more targeted ones?

That’s exactly what we might expect.

If a user was truly only looking for an answer and never had any intention of making a purchase, then the fact that they bounce off before you collect their data might be no big deal. In fact, it might wind up saving you money as you won’t bother paying to retarget a lead that isn’t a lead at all.

However, if a user gets the answer they’re looking for and still chooses to click through, this means they recognize you as an expert and they want to learn more. Which is exactly the ideal sort of visitor you’d love to find their way organically to your page.

As an added bonus, having your snippet featured can put your business above the big-name aggregator sites like Yelp. Big companies you typically can’t afford to out advertise and that even the biggest players usually fail to outrank.

What’s the Strategy?

Adding no-click results to the mix makes investing in SEO strategy more important than ever, particularly if we presume that Google will continue to expand on the no-click model, which would mean fewer and fewer organic clicks from search results moving forward.

It’s a slow process but one that’s worthwhile in the long run.

But the thing is, most of the strategies you should employ to improve you ranking for no-click is the same sort of stuff you should be doing for SEO already:

  • Content development, written in normal language but optimized for search engine performance
  • Optimize titles, headlines and meta descriptions
  • Rethink how content is organized on your page

And flesh out your FAQs!

Robust FAQs are ideal for no-click SEO because the content is already set up in the same question and answer format Google is looking to use for featured snippets.

More than anything, you’ve absolutely got to include no-click in the thought process that goes you’re your total SEO umbrella. You don’t need a separate strategy but an integrated one.

Go with the Grain

Making Google happy isn’t always as complicated as it seems. They typically reward the pages that go with the grain. If Google feels people are wanting no-click results, it only makes sense to provide content that’s congruent with this end goal.