Best Practices

What is working? Who’s doing it right? Our best practices will help ensure you’re on top of your game.

Just a few short years ago, setting up and maintaining a basic website was a substantial drain on the resources of most home builders.  There are so many items to consider; design, hosting, maintenance, support, platform updates and the list continues on and on. However, for those builders who are implementing a website using Software as a Service (SAAS), many of these concerns are alleviated.

So What Is SaaS?

SaaS applications are web-based, otherwise known as on-demand or hosted software. Chances are you already work with many of these applications, including Basecamp, Google Docs, and the online version of Microsoft Office every day without even realizing it!

How Does SaaS Benefit Builders?

SaaS is the perfect solution for many builders. There are no servers or software to buy, install, update, or maintain. SaaS allows you to access your website content management system and more from anywhere on the internet.

BDX is the leading SaaS provider for the home building industry. The websites we build, Custom Technology Projects, Sales Center Displays, and Envision design center are all SaaS based.

You can access and manage content easily via web browsers, with no complicated software to learn. The applications run on secure BDX servers, and we manage their performance, security, and availability, so builders can focus on building their business.

The BDX SaaS Solution

For most builders, there is just not enough time in the day to build homes, keep up with attracting new clients, and at the same time manage and make sure  a website CMS is boasting all the latest updates and website best practices. With a decade of experience as the industry’s digital technology provider, we are built to stretch your marketing dollars further.

Check out the look, feel, and functionality of our client sites including:

BDX low monthly SaaS fees include hosting, regular platform updates, and automatic access to new features. There is never anything for you to install or download, which dramatically reduces your IT and management resources for hardware, software, personnel, and time. Not to mention your frustration with the distraction from what you do best—building homes.

Isn’t it time for you to get SaaS-y?

Responsive web design “responds” to the needs of the user by identifying the device type and screen size. The result is readability and navigability optimized specifically for a smartphone, tablet, laptop, or desktop and a consistency of experience across devices. Home buyers can surf responsive sites from home or on the road.

How is Responsive Design Different?

Unlike a pre-2013 “fixed” website structured in pixels, responsive sites are designed with fluid grids. Instead of creating specific-size elements, a web designer specifies the sizes of elements relative to other elements. In terms of structure, it’s about proportionality.

Responsive design supports a variety of technological developments that have arisen with multi-platform internet access. It’s versatile enough to accommodate navigation through a mouse, a keyboard, or a touch-screen. It’s flexible enough to load graphics quickly, regardless of download speed, and to support different font sizes, line heights, and photo sizes (as needed for each user). And it’s powerful enough to use in place of mobile apps, so you don’t need to invest in an app for every type of device.

User Statistics

User statistics make a compelling case for making responsive website design priority #1 for all home builders who haven’t yet made the necessary transition. Consider the facts:

  • In 2015, mobile users began to outnumber desktop users, and the numbers continue to diverge (Morgan Stanley Research)
  • For 2017, the number of mobile phone users is projected to reach 4.77 billion (Statista)
  • Mobile devices now drive 56 percent of web traffic (Similarweb)
  • Users spend 2.8 hours a day with digital media on mobile devices (eMarketer)

Clearly, accommodating mobile users is being responsive to the demands of the market. But how does responsive design meet the needs of individual consumers and your business?

Responsive Design is Google-Recommended

Google’s algorithms constantly change, but Google’s intent remains the same—to direct consumers to websites offering the best possible user experience. Because more than 60 percent of searches come from mobile devices, a good user experience must include no horizontal scrolling, easily readable text, and all of the additional features of responsive design, in addition to relevant content. So an investment in responsive design is also an investment in search engine optimization (SEO).

Better Sites Capture More Leads

Which experience generates more leads? A compromised, bland experience or one that is individualized and dynamic, that gets users engaged and interested in exploring. Of course, it’s the latter—the one that proves your company values exceeding customer expectations. Responsive design supports all of the elements the best home builders use to generate leads and convert them to sales: video, high quality images, virtual tours, and connectivity with social media.

ROI Increases as Content Management Needs Decrease

If you’re managing a main site and a mobile version, your staff is spending twice the necessary time on content management. Hours of time that could be spent on other business critical projects are continually wasted. With a responsive site, your business has one site to manage and an efficient process for uploading content to one enterprise content management system.

The BDX Solution

Content converts browsers to buyers on builders’ sites, so the solution cannot be to maintain different sites for desktops, tablets, and smartphones. This was a stopgap solution used by some builders to address the surge in mobile access. It was implemented at the expense of wasted man hours and poor user experiences.

The solution is one interface that adapts to all devices, platforms, screen ratios, and browsers, to reach more home buyers. BDX develops responsive sites for builders, optimized to cleanly display the information buyers want to see. Thumb-friendly navigation buttons enable easy browsing on touch screens, click-through functionality eliminates the need to type, and images are scaled to the size of the viewing device. Optimized content delivers informed and enthusiastic visitors to your communities, who are primed to buy.

Think of a BDX responsive website as one that anticipates your prospects every need as well as your best-trained salespeople. The result is a seamless handoff from your site to sales.

With the help of virtual technology, consumers are empowered to make more informed choices about the cars they drive, the universities they attend, and the homes they choose.

For several years now, car buyers have been able to experience sitting at the wheel simply by logging on to the manufacturers’ websites and viewing the interior 360 views. Students can now explore college campuses as if they were there, travelers can “walk through” hotels, and business proprietors can tour office spaces. Other virtual experiences are proliferating across a variety of industries, from clothing and makeup to plastic surgery and pet adoptions.

 

The stakes are higher for home buyers.

Given the importance of choosing the right home to live, play, entertain, and raise families, the stakes may be much higher in the home building industry. There are simply more criteria for consumers on which to evaluate and compare homes: architecture, design concept, construction quality, livability, floor plans, flow, versatility, and options. With the rise in transplanted workers, an increasing number of buyers will only engage with builders that offer virtual tours.

To add even more weight to the decision, consumers also have to think of homes as assets. Homes are often the single largest investments buyers will make in their lifetimes. If investment option A comes with twice the level of detail and assurance as option B, option A will likely get the nod.

 

As buying experiences improve, expectations rise.

The rules have changed. Today’s buyers don’t respond to sales tactics as much as they engage with and build trust in brands. That occurs through information and education, and through social sharing and validation from people they trust. Homes aren’t sold just by salespeople anymore; they’re sold by the totality of a buying experience which appeals to both rational and emotional reasons for choosing homes.

If your existing customers aren’t raving about the best home buying experience they have ever had on social media, this is a key indicator that your buying experience must be upgraded.

 

The decision to implement virtual technology now is pivotal.

For these reasons, virtual technology is well on its way to near-complete market penetration in just a few short years. That inevitability is putting pressure on builders and remodelers now to demonstrate their homes online to local and national buyers, and to real estate investors. Every week, we hear from builders that consumers have seen their competitors’ virtual tours and are no longer interested in conventional floor plan printouts, option lists, and in-person tours of just one or two models. One or two competitors in a local market can quickly and decisively change the competitive landscape when they implement this technology.

Once a buyer experiences being able to interact with and compare models, as well as her options for elevations, floor plans, flooring, finishes, and fixtures in vivid 3-D, along with multiple views, she will likely narrow her list of builders to those that provide this “theater of the mind.” And once a builder sees the increased time buyers spend online engaging with their homes, the quicker decision-making, the higher sales rates, and the increased upgrade sales, the decision is validated.

Virtual tours are the tip of the marketing iceberg for builders. In addition to online model walk-throughs, you can also offer videos, custom home showcases, cutaway homes with hotspots, 3D matterport tours, and guided tours that call out important details about build quality, options, or anything else you choose to feature. The options are wide open and can work within any budget and builder objective.

And the power doesn’t stop once the contract is signed. Online design centers and design center tours can further enhance your experience with a virtual design center and design center tours to prepare your buyer for the design center visit and maximize potential upgrades.

With these immersive experiences and so many more to come, you won’t simply engage buyers’ minds. You’ll engage their hearts.

Want to learn more about the latest virtual technologies and how they can work for your business? Email us at info@thebdx.com.

If you use a smartphone to control your home security system, a smartwatch to program your thermostat, or an Amazon Echo speaker to dim your lights, you’re an armchair revolutionary.

What Is IoT?

The “Internet of Things,” or IoT describes the embedded connectivity of devices that can send and receive data from sensors, from the internet, and from one another. Companies are working on designs and software for “gateways,” which will connect control circuits with devices. The possibilities for the homebuilding industry – and for simplifying the lives of everyone who wants to relax at home – are astounding.

Tap Your Inner Inventor and Imagine the Possibilities

To envision the possibilities for homebuilders, just imagine that every device and appliance in your own home has a brain, a voice, eyes, and a keen interest in you. Every device listens, talks, receives, and sends information. Your thermostat could respond to your garage door opening by adjusting the temperature when you come home from work. Your lights could dim when you turn on the TV (even dimmer if it’s a Netflix movie). Your shower could turn on two minutes after your alarm clock goes off. An IoT home would be enough to make George Jetson envious. [Tweet This]

IoT devices can not only communicate with one another; they can also use a combination of sensors and web data. Think of a refrigerator compiling a grocery list as it empties, scanning its own contents and taking information from your Food Channel, Epicurious, or Whole Foods profile. It can then place an order for home delivery, completely eliminating every grocery task you do right now, except unpacking. The longer you own your refrigerator, the more it learns what you and your family want and when you want it. It’s even possible that a Pandora type app could give you recommendations based on the foods you currently enjoy.

An interconnected system of windows can close before a storm, heeding an automatic Weather Channel storm warning. Those same weather feeds could prevent your sprinkler from wasting water in the rain. Imagine that! Air quality sensors in your HVAC could tell you when it’s time to change filters, and sensors on your floor could tell you when it’s time to vacuum – or unleash the Roomba robot. That stovetop you accidentally left on could shut off when your front door sensor tells it you’ve gone to work. Or perhaps the sensor in Fido’s collar could do the same when he barks goodbye at the window. Poor Rosie the robot won’t have a job in the homes we’re about to inhabit.

Homebuilders may soon be able to offer many of these features, integrated into HVAC systems, kitchen and bathroom appliances, flooring, and more. We’ll also have advantages over the sellers of individual products and systems in that we can innovate centralized controls to manage all of these processes even more efficiently.

IoT will also change the way we think about communities. Monitoring systems could bring cost efficiency to neighborhood lighting and power systems, supplying power where and when it’s needed, to reduce HOA costs for homeowners.

Tap the Brakes When the Possibilities Become Strange

As easy as it is to visualize improved convenience, cost savings, efficiency, and safety, it’s just as easy to imagine this trend leading to overzealous innovation. Who needs toilets that study our bathroom behaviors or “track lighting” that follows us through the house, lighting our way as we go? The creepy factor will be a reason many such bad ideas never make it to market. Hopefully.

No doubt IoT will also trigger a perceived loss of privacy. Will the Internet of Everything lead to Privacy for No One (let’s name this PfN), with homes that feed corporations and the government data about citizens through appliances? Will insurance companies be able to learn about our diets from our refrigerators, or our workouts from our home fitness equipment? Homebuilders will need to balance the promises of technology against some of the risks. But first movers may enjoy great advantages, especially with tech savvy Millenials.

According to Intel, the number of IoT devices will grow from approximately 15 billion in 2015 to 200 billion just five years later in 2020. [Tweet This] If this exponential growth rate for smart, embedded devices proves true, we as homebuilders will have an opportunity to provide our customers new levels of comfort, convenience, and security. We just have to foresee all of the possibilities, good and bad.

Later this year, the most ideally suited job candidate to ever interview for a marketing position in our industry may sit across your desk. Tabitha has the clairvoyance to “see” prospects driving in and around your communities. She has the precognition to know what they want and she has the telepathy to entice them into your model homes. Yet despite all her uncanny extrasensory talents, you would be a fool to hire her.

Why pass on a home marketing savant? Because now you can have a digital version of “Tabitha” in every community, at your entrance gates, in your sales center, and in every room of your model homes. Location-based marketing (LBM) or geo marketing technology has matured, and is ready for deployment by home builders. It’s ironic, but LBM for mobile devices is becoming one of the most effective ways to sell immobile homes.[Tweet This]

To appreciate the possibilities of LBM, consider how the platform is being adopted:

  • Almost 2/3 of Americans will own a smartphone by 2017. – Statista [Tweet This]
  • 61% of application users prefer a brand when it offers a good mobile experience. – Cisco
  • Smartphones are becoming the center of the users’ universe, managing transactions, banking, fitness (Fitbit), gaming, health, transportation, and more.

Smartphone marketing is becoming more targeted, contextual, connected, and pervasive. Integrated location-based marketing technology is leading the way, connecting data points to educate users about the things and places they don’t know about as they roam.

  • Facebook’s check-in feature and login integrations with other applications has enabled marketers to identify where checked-in Facebook users are, wherever they go.
  • Foursquare, the most popular LBM social platform, now has more than 10 million users, whose recommendations guide other uses to discover new places. [Tweet This]
  • Google Places, Yelp, Snapchat, and a growing list of other applications are popularizing the use of LBM.

Behind the Apps: The Technologies for Homebuilders

Location-based marketing perfectly complements the real estate industry. You’ll understand how by understanding the technologies behind the applications.

GPS: Satellites circle the earth in a very precise orbit and transmit signal information to us. GPS receivers take this information and use triangulation to calculate the user’s exact location.

Geofencing: This virtual technology uses GPS to define an invisible perimeter and draw an “electronic fence” that surrounds the space. When a prospect with a location-based app enters the space, he gets an alert on his phone with information “pushed” to his device.

Beacons: Consider these devices the local, mini version of a satellite in orbit. Typically the size of a fist, they work through Bluetooth Low-Energy (BLE) technology. Beacons send out short-range signals to people within proximity using location-based apps. Marketing alerts are issued once the phone comes within range, and the possibilities are endless.

Drive In Leads with Alluring Alerts

Welcome to the Community: When “checked-in” smartphone users drive near your communities, automated welcome messages invite them to drop in to your event or promotion and discover your homes.

Visit the Sales Center: “Checked-in” smartphone users within proximity can learn about your promotion for less than the cost of printing a banner (which gets seen by a fraction of the digital audience). Beacons in the sales center can also help buyers discover models, lots, and options that meet their needs.

Tour this Home: Automated invitations prompt nearby drivers and pedestrians to tour your model homes and spec homes throughout your communities. Make it fun by telling people to follow their noses to the scent of baking cookies. As people near the properties, you can provide information on elevations, floor plans, as well as phone numbers to reach your salespeople.

Discover the Highlights: Tabitha could use her ESP to tell your buyers about the benefits they are drawn to, promote unique features, and allow them to learn about other available options. But LBM technology does it more reliably (and doesn’t take sick days or need health insurance).

Explore Our Amenities: As a community builder, you’ve invested heavily in a greenbelt, walking trail, playgrounds, and pools. Beacons turn them all into salespeople, encouraging buyers to experience the full value of buying a home in your community.

Would you like to learn more about the most time and cost-effective ways of implementing location-based marketing? Tell us telepathically if you can. Otherwise contact your BDX consultant today at info@thebdx.com. We look forward to demonstrating the possibilities for driving sales in your next community.