Background
With a history spanning four decades, award-winning Neal Communities is one of the most respected home builders in Southwest Florida, ranking 94th in closings nationally by BUILDER magazine and one of America’s Best Builders in 2012. Through boom and bust cycles, the Neal family has guided the company with wisdom and skill, adapting to the preferences of homebuyers along the way. Understanding that the most effective marketing is now Internet-based, Neal has embraced online media to reach today’s savvy buyers
Challenge
Though Neal Communities was engaged in aggressive email marketing tactics, they suspected that their response rates were lower than they should be. They deployed emails in high frequency with a single focus of “buy now” appeals as part of their home builder marketing. Turning to the Bokka Group, Neal Communities was able to accurately see their current results against industry standards and receive expert guidance for increasing the effectiveness of their email marketing.
Solution
Neal’s substandard email response rates were a result of a flawed email strategy. Messaging, design, execution, and delivery were all reimagined & a new, strategically-focused multi-media email campaign strategy was unveiled.
- Target buyers through better segmentation
- Produce community specific campaigns and utilize video technology
- Create multi-topic messages that engage home shoppers, in all stages of the buying cycle
- Focus on nurturing prospects and, over time, converting prospects into buyers
- Utilize Neal’s Online Sales Counselor as the single point of contact to ensure that each inquiry is responded to with prompt, professional and personal attention
Results
- 10 home sales generated from emails in the first 30 days of the campaign
- Click-throughs increased 2,750%
- Lead segmentation improved targeting
- Email opens increased 583%
- Click through rates were as high as 74%
Postscript
After Bokka Group began to manage the online marketing for Neal Communities, email response rates soared, increasing open rates by over 500% from their previous campaigns and click-through rates increases of over 2000%.
Instead of frequent, single focus “buy now” appeals, the new messaging brought rich combinations of content, photos, videos and most importantly, information that matched the recipient’s community of interest. In the first 30-days of implementation of their new multi-community campaign strategy, Neal saw website traffic more than triple on days the email was deployed. This was prospect traffic re-engaging with the home builder, their community, and their product. More traffic produces more interest, which impacts sales. The dedicated Online Sales Counselor associated 10 of their online new home sales to the email campaigns within the first 30-days.
The Neal Communities web site serves as the hub for all the company’s marketing and information. Bokka has created various pathways, which lead prospects to the all-important Online Sales Counselor. The continued use of robust web analytics and A-B testing produce unbiased reporting about what is working, and what is not. As Neal’s trusted partner, Bokka manages the email communications strategies for all of Neal’s active communities, including multi-topic monthly messages for 9 different communities, plus invitation-only/VIP and grand openings events.
This outstanding homebuilder continues to achieve top performance from their email marketing campaigns each month.