The sentiment at IBS this year was overwhelmingly positive. In fact, the word on the street is some builders have experienced record traffic, online and off, for the month of January. And with sales and marketing’s newfound love for accountability (one of the positive side effects of a tough market), many home builders are now perfectly poised to take advantage of this much-anticipated market rebound. As builders from around the world convened this year in Orlando, they were more than happy to share their most successful marketing tools & strategies for increasing home sales.  So what are the digital tools they talked about most?

Live Chat and Online Sales Counselors are setting more appointments than ever.

We’ve been hearing a lot about the importance of having a person dedicated solely to online lead generation/cultivation, and now it seems to be the consensus that every builder should have one. Now it’s not so much a matter of “whether” as it is “how” to do this successfully. Educational session-leaders continued to tout the merits of an Online Sales Consultant/Counselor (OSC), and now have success stories galore to back them up. Which leaves the builders that don’t currently have the staff or resources to hire one frantically trying to figure out how to make it happen.

One of the greatest benefits to having a person dedicated to online traffic is that it makes Live Chat (or Click-to-Chat) an invaluable tool for lead generation as well as appointment-setting (not to mention improved customer service). As prospects engage in a chat with a non-salesperson (again, the OSC’s role is not to sell a home, but to set an appointment) they tend to instantly open up and engage in honest dialogue, often asking the OSC if they can just buy directly from her – no joke.

Of course for those that don’t have the budget to hire an OSC (yet), there’s a Managed-Service version of the Live Chat for new home sales that’s very affordable. They have sales teams that do the prospecting for builders, again with the goal of qualifying the traffic, obtaining leads, and setting appointments. Very exciting.

Email Marketing as a top sales tool for builders?

London Bay Homes email

You bet. In fact, email marketing can be one of the most powerful tools for nurturing prospects where they are. It’s personalized,  one-to-many, mobile, cost-effective, and best of all – it waits for you. And with a sales cycle as long as the home searching/ buying process, this is key in keeping leads warm, or microwaving those that have chilled. In fact, Neal Communities, a top builder in Florida set 10 appointments from one email, and sold as many homes in the first 30 days of starting a new email marketing campaign. With this initial success, they increased their email budget to include campaigns targeting 10 different new home communities. As a result, email became their highest source of targeted traffic to their web site, and they had their biggest month of sales since 2004. If you want to know how they did it – just ask Paula Huggett. London Bay Homes, another Florida builder hopes to achieve similar results with a new email campaign they’ve just launched (see inset).

Analytics isn’t just for statisticians anymore.

With so many different ways to find home builders’ web sites, it’s more important than ever to A) be using the most cost-effective channels and B) know how to balance and optimize the mix so your traffic stays fresh. Enter analytics. Not just web site analytics like Google or Omniture (although those are essential to monitoring your web site traffic). But we’re talking the sort of analytics that gives you insight about your prospects before they even visit your site. Take email for example (since we just talked about it). It’s now possible to send an email campaign and watch in real time on a map which users are opening your email, reading it, then clicking on a specific link to your web site. Smart and relevant.

Whatever the tool – it has to work.

Of course, to get the most out of all the different types of analytics reports (i.e. pay-per-click, social media, banner ads, phone call tracking, 3rd-party logins, directory listings, live chats, etc.) you may need to look to the experts for guidance. But the important thing is that you know the power that comes with knowing which digital tools work, and which are a waste of your money.

Where Are You On The Web?

By now, we are well beyond knowing for certain that the vast majority of new home buyers begin their search online. Whether it is the National Association of Home Builders, the National Association of REALTORS^®, or any other real estate organization, between 84 and 92 percent of new home purchasers who are surveyed cite the Internet as their number one choice for information about homes.

Yet despite this clear preference for the Internet by home searchers, a Harris Interactive study revealed that there continues to be a disparity between where home builders are currently advertising versus where consumers are looking for new home information.  While online consumers spend half of their time using online media, builders allocate less than one-fifth of their budgets to Internet-based media.

Where would you place your company?

Let’s look at some of the benchmarks along our continuum to help clarify where you are, and where you might want to be.

1. Zero web presence is easy to identify, and as it turns out, not automatically a bad place to be.  This is because it is worse to have a substandard web presence than no web presence at all. More on this later.
2. From zero to 50 gets you in the game, providing your Web site attracts visitors and provides them with a positive experience.
3. 50 toward 100+ covers a lot of ground and brands your company as a serious player.  Robust lead management and tracking, Online Sales Counselors, Search Engine Optimization, Search Engine Marketing, Blogs, RSS feeds, and Interactive Floor plans are some of the elements found within this section of the continuum.

From Canned to Custom, Web Site Options Abound

Ideally, the firm you select to build your Web site can grow with you as your Internet marketing succeeds, since it is counterproductive to repeatedly recreate your Web site.  Firms that specialize in the home building industry understand the nuances of the business and provide modules, functionality and features that must be custom-created with other web site companies.

Whether you need to redesign your existing Web site or start from scratch, make sure that price is not the only consideration.  Low initial bids can lead to expensive and time-consuming changes if the Web developer you choose does not deliver what you, or your potential buyers, are expecting. This approach is like cutting corners on the foundation – it can come back to haunt you in the long run.

Online Home Buyers Look For Quality In Web Sites Too

The most important thing to remember about your Web site is that online buyers will likely decide if they want to consider your homes based on how they perceive your online presence — making a good initial impression is essential. This point cannot be overemphasized — poor representation on the Internet can cause potential buyers to eliminate your company from further consideration.  If you are serious about Internet marketing, build your web presence as you would one of your homes:  with careful planning and quality construction.

Does Your Web Site Sell Homes?

Let’s face it, one of the main challenges builders face is converting online visitors into real buyers.  Converting interest into income requires a system that effectively and efficiently tracks the site behavior of Web site visitors.  When Web site navigation and functionality are designed properly, interested buyers can submit queries easily and receive prompt responses, with continuous builder follow-up.

By way of review, here are some questions for determining where you are on the Web, and where you might want to be.

1. Is our Web site designed to suit our personal taste or is it strategically crafted to capture buyer interest?
2. Do we have practices in place to ensure the accuracy of our Web site content?
3. Do we have a system in place to generate, capture and follow up with sales leads?
4. How do we know our Web site is working?

After assessing the answers to these questions, you will have a better idea of where you are on the Web. From there, it is best to consult with an Internet marketing expert that works specifically with home builders to explore the available web site options as you pursue the goal of successfully marketing your homes and communities online.

While the majority of home builders will look back on the current economic downturn with a sigh, there are some who are not just surviving, but flourishing. Hard times bring hidden opportunities in the form of challenges and there are some essential tools builders can use to pinpoint what buyers want, how to get their attention, and what it takes to convert them to clients.

Discovering what works these days means holding all marketing methods up to the light of scrutiny. Gone are line item expenditures for advertising that can’t account for its performance. The days of loose strategies and reliance on referrals are behind us.

The good news is there are some best practices today producing outstanding results that are exceptional by any measure.

Top Tools: Web Site & E-Mail Marketing

Reset your thinking about online marketing and imitate the successful builders of today – plan, create and maintain a functional, user-centric web site. Sounds like old news but it is surprising how many companies take a casual view of this powerful medium. Don’t entrust this to your nephew – online buyers are judging the quality of your homes by the quality of your web site…don’t eliminate your homes from consideration because of a sub-standard web presence.

This is job one – all of your models, options, available inventory, galleries and company information need to be online in an easy-to-read format that will keep viewers coming back to learn more. Seek out a web design company with home builder experience to avoid re-inventing the wheel. Web analytics will tell you what people are seeking, how long they are on your site and what you can do to fine tune your pages. Build it well and keep it fresh – commit to having the best web site possible, even if you aren’t knowledgeable or excited about the Internet or online marketing. When your web site foundation is solid, it’s time start framing with the next power tool in the builder’s toolbox: email marketing.

Once you’ve given your perspective buyers a web site that excites them, email marketing can begin.

Caution: Sending out email campaigns to real estate agents and prospective buyers without having an excellent web site to support them is like inviting friends over for a feast and then serving them stale chips and salsa. You never get a second chance to make a great first impression.

Where Buyers Look…

The obvious goal of your online marketing is to produce leads, from which sales will be realized if handled properly. Critical to the process is the participation of onsite sales staff – their attitude about online marketing is the key to a builder’s success…or the reason for failure often times. Prior to spending time and money on your email campaign strategy, it is imperative that the wagons are circled and hands are stacked on the importance of online marketing.

• The new home buying process today unquestionably starts online -
• the goal is to get visitors from online to onsite.
• About 1-2% of online visitors submit information requests
• 20-25% schedule appointments, with proper follow up criteria.
• 30-35% of those appointments will write a contract with proper handling and follow up.
• Immediate response within 3 minutes is mandatory…quick follow-up is the first step toward customer loyalty

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is often discussed among builders – here’s why.

Today’s New Home Buyer:

Strategic email marketing can help nurture relationships with potential buyers but it will be the quality of your follow-up that determines your conversion ratio. Have a clear understanding and plan for how each sales lead is handled, whether from your web site, email campaign, display ad, etc.

Counterintuitive: Home Builders Thriving Today

Web site statistics from a western state home builder – May 2011:

• 11,306 Web site visits
• 226 Leads obtained and appointments set
• 71 Appointments kept
• 18 Sales Made = 25% of appointments kept

Numbers like these are impresssive, and attainable. As professional online marketing managers for builders, team members at the Bokka Group regularly see such success.

Take this midwest builder as an example (kept anonymous for privacy reasons):

• Posted 3 straight months of record-setting appointments by their online sales counselors.
• July 2011 was the highest month recorded for appointments set.
• Experienced top months for unique web site visitors and lead conversion.
• Current lead to appointment conversion is over 60% (industry average is 35%).
• Web site visitor to lead conversion is almost 5% (industry average is 1%-2%).
• The recorded online numbers for visitors, leads and appointments set are the highest they’ve been since 2008.
• In 2011, this builder has also recorded one of its top sales months since 2008.

More dramatic results from successful builders using online marketing the right way

Neal Communities

In Southwest Florida, two home builders are strategically targeting buyers through online marketing, with dramatic results. Neal Communities‘ onsite sales counselor set 10 appointments from a single email campaign and has sold 10 homes in the first 30-days of Bokka Group’s email marketing initiatives. According to Paula Huggett, VP/Client Services Director at Bokka, “Their web site visitors are the highest this year (and above previous years’ totals as well) and we are having to stagger their email deployments so their onsite sales counselor can adequately manage the amount of traffic and interest the email campaigns drive.”

London Bay Homes

Upscale Florida builder London Bay Homes has embarked on a Realtor nurturing campaign and in their first 2 email campaigns, these initiatives have been the second highest driver of total traffic to their web sites. These campaigns were specifically targeted at Realtors and brought hundreds of new Realtors to their site each time. Results have exceeded industry averages and a comprehensive campaign is being developed for continuing monthly communications through 2012.

Now is the time to reorient all your marketing to a web-centric configuration. In this economy, no company can afford to speculate about where buyers might come from. By concentrating on email marketing while making your web site the center of all your efforts, you will be able to target the buyers you want, and accurately fine tune your efforts from powerful data reporting and web analytics. For builders who take advantage of the tools available to them, these are truly good times to be in business.

Banning Lewis Ranch website redesign introduces new levels of functionality that parallel the growth of the 21,000 acre master planned community. Results included:

• Streamlined user experience and registration path gets 23% increase in lead conversion in 6 months
• New CMS greatly reduced staff and resources needed for sales lead management
• Lead automation system nurtures prospects & increases client satisfaction
• Email marketing strategy segments users to create targeted messaging, improving open, click-through and unsubscribe rates

By concentrating on sales leads and follow up, the percentage of Wayne Homes’ sales attributable to their website increased 38% within 30 days. Results included:

• In one month, over 300% increase in sales leads
• Online registration completions have increased 65%
• Instant chat from online sales consultant improves response time & lead quality
• Call tracking provides key information for assessing caller and sales personnel behavior
• Industry-leading analytics tracks website data for precise measurement of ad campaigns

Results included:

• In the first campaign month, over 583% increase in email opens
• Over a 2,750% increase in email click-throughs – driving more visitors online
• Click through rate as high as 75%
• 10 new home sales generated from emails in the first 30 days