Builder Success

Hear it straight from the builder’s themselves – who’s having success and why.

In order to connect with today’s home buyer, it is important to always keep your website and marketing materials up to date with the latest information and facts. But where do you find fresh and engaging content? Many builders are turning to our “Start Fresh. Buy New.” initiative and taking advantage of the campaign’s resources.

In case you haven’t heard, this year, BDX launched an initiative to promote new home advantages. The “Start Fresh. Buy New.” campaign is designed to educate and inspire home shoppers and encourage them to consider purchasing a new home (read more here). The campaign centers around the website: www.startfreshbuynew.com.

Including “Start Fresh. Buy New.” messages in your marketing can keep your buyers engaged and coming back for more. Here are some ways you can use “Start Fresh. Buy New.” in your next marketing campaign:

  • Include a new home statistic in your weekly/monthly newsletters. The “Start Fresh. Buy New.” site is packed with useful information, so you will have plenty to choose from!
  • Feature a link to the “Start Fresh. Buy New.” site on your homepage—it will not only drive the benefits of a new home, but also shows your commitment to your buyers to arm them with the most powerful information. Logos and other graphic elements are available in the Builder Toolkit that is available to all BDX clients from within our BDXLive client portal.
  • Connect with “Start Fresh. Buy New.” through your social media, and comment too! “Start Fresh. Buy New.” is an active participant in the social scene and frequently posts compelling content for you to share with your own followers. Click here for our facebook page to get started.
  • Download the “Start Fresh. Buy New.” videos via the BDX client Builder Toolkit and have them playing on a loop in your model home lobby. The videos are informative, humorous and most of all eye opening as they act as a great ice breaker for dialogue.
  • Implement a scavenger hunt game through your social media with incentives—featuring questions involving the real cost of a “used” home versus a new one; and have them search the “Start Fresh. Buy New.” site for the answers!

Nothing makes us happier than seeing these positive new home messages spread throughout your newsletters, websites and sales centers. How are you leveraging “Start Fresh. Buy New.”? Email us and let us know how you are using the Start Fresh. Buy New. campaign in your marketing — we can’t wait to hear from you.

If you are a builder and want to get involved in the campaign, your best resource is our Builder Toolkit created exclusively for BDX clients to leverage the campaign marketing resources and research. This toolkit can be found within BDXLive, our client portal. If you’re not a BDX client and are interested in finding out how we can help your business succeed, email us to learn more.

At BDX, we are always looking for new ways to connect with home buyers and show off our builders’ design talents and communities. That’s why NewHomeSource.com has recently launched a new email marketing campaign to help inspire subscribers to begin the search for their dream home.

Each week, we select a “Home of the Week” from active communities listed on NewHomeSource. Why “Home of the Week”? When we recently surveyed visitors to NewHomeSource.com about the type of new home content they would like to read, this idea was a clear winner!  The “Home of the Week” email is being promoted on every page in the New Home Source Resource Center, with the subscription list growing each day!

In order to deliver the richest content to subscribers, the weekly email is designed around three components. First, we include a spectacular photo of the featured home with a link to a detailed blog post about the community and plan.  Next, we provide a link to the specific plan’s listing on NewHomeSource.com so the reader can immediately start their new home search. And lastly, we include tid-bits from our “Start Fresh. Buy New.” campaign to highlight new home advantages. What more can you ask for?

We know there are builders off all different sizes across the nation, so we vary the price point of the featured homes each week. Remember, we’re seeking truly exceptional homes, designs and photos in order to create inspiring content that represents new homes at their best.

This week’s email highlights Ryland Homes and their truly stunning Prescott Plan in Woodbury, Minnesota. Ryland Homes’ awe-inspiring renderings and community features earned it a spot in our “Home of The Week” feature. (Check out the featured home here.)

So how do we choose the next “Home of The Week”? If you think one of your homes has what it takes, be sure that your NewHomeSource.com listing is up to date with photos of exceptional quality.  Not only will it help you to be considered for the next email, but also will help drive engage traffic on your listing. If you would like to be considered for Home of the Week and put the spotlight on your homes, contact us today.

From Mike Blake of The Mike Blake Group

I think we can all agree that the use of the Internet to access information has not only changed how we acquire and consume products, but also changed the way we conduct our daily lives.

A traditional “view of economic behavior is that the two most important activities are producing and consuming.”  However today, a new economic behavior of connecting to people, creating and distributing information has emerged. I characterize access to information, interacting with others and distribution of information as the “connectivity age”.

Today, how consumers use information and multiple forms of communication to express themselves is a driving force behind changes in consumer buying behavior. The question is how do we adapt to the challenges of marketing and selling homes in this new age of connectivity?

First we must understand that the connectivity age has gained momentum with the proliferate use of smart devices. According to most technology experts, the use of connected devices like desktop computers will become obsolete in the next 10 years. Handheld smart devices are redefining business to consumer sales and in fact destroyed some aspects of traditional selling.  Consumers are using access to volumes of information found on the Internet to collect information, conduct research, compare options, refine a solution and in some cases bypass salespeople all together.

In fact, historic access to information has created an “information equilibrium” not previously seen before in history!  When buyers and sellers have equal access to information the dynamics of the sales processes changes.

In more complex sales environments such as home sales, equal access to information creates a sales environment which requires a more sophisticated set of selling and marketing skills to engage and influence buyer decision-making.

Equal access to information changed the home sales environment in three significant areas.

  1. Buyers can wait until they are further down the buying cycle before making contact with a builder representative.
  2. The sales cycle has become longer.
  3. On site salespeople are at a significant disadvantage when prospects do finally connect with a builder representative.

A key aspect to thrive in this new environment is finding ways to reach, connect and dialogue with potential customers earlier in the buying cycle.  This process is best achieved through the Internet. Companies that understand this challenge and develop activities to reach these prospects will thrive in our new “connectivity age”.


Mike Blake

The Mike Blake Group

www.mikeblakegroup.com

“Inspiring Top Performers”

mikeblake@ultimatesalesdriver.com

To help you better navigate your way through the “connectivity age” be sure to contact The BDX at info@thebdx.com

Come hear Mike Blake and BDX’s Chad Bria speak at the SEBC show in July when they present: “Buyers Vs. Sellers – Are You Ready?”. Click here for details: http://www.sebcshow.com

By BDX Guest Blogger, Carol Morgan, mRELEVANCE

How many fans does your Facebook page have? 100? 500? 1,000? 10,000? Now, how many of those “fans” are actually engaging with your company? More likely than not, not as many as you’d like. While gaining new fans on any social media site these days can be done through social media advertising, actually getting them to like, comment, retweet, share, etc. is something that must be done organically. And, according to Hubspot, photos are a great way to engage fans and solve this challenge. In fact, Facebook posts that include photos receive 53 percent more likes and 104 percent more comments than the average post.

Sounds impressive? It is. However, Facebook isn’t the only place marketers are seeing picture engagement. The rise of Pinterest and Instagram over the past year has also played an important role in determining that pictures really are worth more than one thousand words.

By posting more photos on Facebook, you’re not only increasing engagement, but also increasing EdgeRank, which is Facebook’s visibility algorithm based on user interaction. The higher your EdgeRank, the more likely it is your content is showing up in your followers’ newsfeeds.

Does this mean that your page should strictly start posting photos? No. Variety is still essential. Just like no one wants to see a Facebook page filled with just text statuses, they also don’t want to see just photos. However, you can spice up your links by posting a photo from your post as the main status with the link URL in the description or comments section. In fact, by posting a photo with a link, you are increasing your odds of getting a click through by 84 percent.

So, what’s the main takeaway? Photos are important. Make sure you are taking lots of them and sharing them everywhere you can in order to get the most bang for your buck in terms of social media.

If you’re company is looking to visually engage customers in order to increase your ROI, contact Marketing RELEVANCE.

 

By Jamie Lintner, Advertising Accounts Manager, BDX 

Only a few months ago, Facebook unveiled its advertising solution that would allow global markets to bid in real time for placements across the single largest source of inventory on the web, the online Facebook Exchange (FBX).  Our BeBack Advertisers have already started leveraging this platform and performance of these ads has been excellent, typically over 100% greater than that of traditional Facebook market place ads. What’s more impressive than the Click-thru rate (CTR) is the significant backend conversion.  We’re seeing some of the lowest bounces and greatest time on site with FBX retargeting than with other channels and a significant lift compared to direct Facebook marketplace ads.

In the past two weeks, the Facebook Exchange began beta testing its most recent advertising innovation, running retargeted ads across users’ Facebook News Feed.  For the first time ever this update will assure advertisers that not only will their messages retarget a user, but the message itself will actively be seen several times a day in a location that users can’t and won’t ignore.

Today’s Facebook market place ads have strict limits on image size and character count and only allow 25 characters for a headline and 90 characters for the body of the ad to drive users back to your site. With News Feed ads, the character count within the body jumps from 90 characters to 500, and there is additional space to link back to your site alongside the image as well as within the body itself.  The image size is about the same, but the image will now be located in the news feed that a user checks dozens of times per day; this makes me think that performance will jump exponentially. Early findings from Facebook reveal Retargeted News Feed ads garner 20-40x higher CTR than typical FBX ads. Even if these metrics don’t hold at these astronomical levels, News Feed ads can and might be a game-changer.

BDX is currently testing the new format to ensure it delivers all the hype and if successful, will begin integrating existing BeBack advertisers into the new format. As always, our goal is to help our clients stay abreast of new product updates and to ensure we’re delivering value. More details on our findings to come.  Stay tuned!

Jamie Lintner is the BDX Advertising Accounts Manager and is responsible for monitoring all campaigns through BDX advertising channels.