Best Practices

Mike-Blake-Internet-LeadsFrom Mike Blake, The Mike Blake Group

We know that nearly every home buyer is using the Internet in their buying process and in 2013, “best in class” builder organizations will attribute 25-30% of their net sales to direct Internet leads.

Best-in class performers realize that to be successful requires a paradigm shift.  Previously, the purpose of building organization marketing departments was to drive leads to model sales centers.

This made sense because builders controlled the information prospects needed to buy a home, which also allowed salespeople to maintain control of the sales process.  The basic paradigm was “I’ll give you the home information you need in exchange for your buying criteria”.

Today’s best-in class builders realize that they no longer have exclusive control of the information.  In fact, almost all information like, community, school, tax, planning and zoning, home design, home features, etc. is now easily accessible on the Internet.

This shift in information control gives prospects greater control of the sales process.  Potential homebuyers are exercising that control by moving further down the buying cycle before ever reaching out and contacting an onsite salesperson.  As a consequence, salespeople are left in the dark many times up until the point the prospect is ready to purchase.  The end result is on-site salespeople have less leverage to obtain the buying criteria and are in a weakened position to negotiate a purchase.

Best-in class builders now realize that in order to regain influence they need to reach prospective customers earlier in the buying process, while they are still in the “research” phase of the buying cycle.

They are quickly learning that to be successful requires becoming as “prospect focused” as they are “customer focused”. Best-in class builders understand that Internet leads regardless of the source are the lifeblood of the company.

These builders soon recognize that onsite salespeople are not the best suited to manage Internet leads.  They rightly have come to the conclusion that the face-to-face selling process is significantly different from the process required to convert Internet leads.  In essence, it is a difference in mentality.  On-site sales people are “hunters” versus online sales people are “farmers”.

In conclusion, to be one of the best at converting Internet leads, become hyper prospect focused and hire dedicated and highly trained Internet sales staff.  Lastly, develop efficient processes to effectively perform these four basic functions; lead generation, lead capture, lead dialogue and lead management.

To hear more from Mike about managing Internet leads, join him for a webinar on March 28th. Click here to register.

 

Mike Blake

The Mike Blake Group

www.mikeblakegroup.com

“Inspiring Top Performers”

mikeblake@ultimatesalesdriver.com

By Eleanor Bowman, Director of Marketing, BDX

BDX recently completed a study of over 1,000 potential home buyers and one of the most surprising data points was the timeframe for home purchase. Almost two-thirds of those surveyed were unsure about when they would purchase or expect to take at least 9 months to make a decision.

Now compare this to the conversations we are having with many of our builders who work leads for 30 days and then consider them to be cold. Think about the impact this can have on your marketing campaigns? It means that if you’re throwing out leads because they haven’t converted in 30 days, you’re probably missing out on sales.

Putting these leads into a nurturing campaign can pay off months down the road when the buyer is ready to make a buying decision.

What is lead nurturing and how can home builders run successful campaigns?

Lead nurturing simply means creating a series of communications to stay in touch with those prospective buyers. These may not be the leads that your sales team is working aggressively, but it is important to keep your brand and your selling points top of mind. According to a recent report from Forrester Research, companies that excel at lead nurturing generate 50% more sales-ready leads, at 33% lower cost per lead.

Some ways builders can nurture leads through the sales cycle:

  • Create a weekly or monthly email newsletter.
  • Use marketing automation software that will automatically trigger communications at specific points in the process.
  • Use advertising retargeting programs to reach out to people who have visited your website.
  • Create social media campaigns to encourage people to engage with your brand.

Taking a few simple steps to keep these leads in your sales pipeline will pay off in the long run. Research has shown that 75% of companies basically drop leads who aren’t ready to purchase immediately. Make sure that your business is part of the 25% that will stay in touch and be top of mind when the consumer is ready to buy.

 

BDX recently asked 3 experts in the industry what builders should consider as they follow-up with home buyer leads. Thanks to Mike Lyon, Meredith Oliver and Mike Moore for your words of wisdom. If you’re not following these leaders and learning from their experience helping builders sell new homes, you’re missing out. Here is their advice:

 ____________________________________________________________________________

It’s Time To Start Marketing and Selling Like It’s 2013

From Mike Lyon — www.doyouconvert.com

In 2005, builders didn’t have to think about how to manage their online leads. Shoot, we had people camping out waiting for homes and paying crazy prices! In 2010, many builders were struggling to pay their bills, let alone pay attention to anything happening online. Now, we finally see light at the end of the tunnel. All of the builders I work with are saying something to the effect of “We just had one of our best months ever”.

Pay close attention, you have a small window of opportunity. I would say 9-12 months. If you haven’t figured out how to create 25% of your sales from online sources a year from now, it is really going to hurt. The fact is, your website is the new model home. How have you staffed it? Are the lights on but nobody’s home?

Countless surveys show us that about half of sales agents don’t even respond to their online leads. These sales agents and their builders don’t understand that a lead with an effective nurturing process will set an appointment 25% of the time. And here is where it get’s really interesting – they will write a contract 30% of the time. So go steal some prospects from your competition! Start marketing (and selling) like it’s 2013!

Learn more about Mike at www.doyouconvert.com or follow him on Twitter @mikelyon

____________________________________________________________________________

The Need For Speed

From Meredith Oliver —  www.CreatingWOW.com

Speed! If you don’t respond fast enough to homebuyer leads, your prospective buyers will be furious. How fast is fast enough? You can’t be too fast. You can only be too slow.

Your goal should be to catch the person while they are still browsing the web for homes before they move on to another task and become preoccupied. You want to pull the person into your sales funnel quickly and efficiently so your ongoing follow-up plan has a chance to convert them from an online shopper to an in-person buyer.

Connect with Meredith at www.CreatingWOW.com  or follow her on Twitter @CreatingWOW

____________________________________________________________________________

Contact, Speed and Urgency Are Keys For Success

Mike Moore at http://mooreleadership.blogspot.com

Although there are several keys to converting sales leads into customers the most important are CONTACT and SPEED. A recent study revealed that between 40% to 50% of inbound leads are never contacted. A sales lead is a request for information and the faster you respond the higher your conversion rate from lead to customer. A Harvard business study results showed that companies who followed up within the first hour were 7 times more likely to convert a lead to a customer. Even if the lead was contacted at 1 hour the conversion rate dropped significantly. Time matters most.

So, URGENCY becomes the key to following up and converting leads to customers. I’ve found too many new home salespeople, sales managers and homebuilder’s view leads as secondary to foot traffic in their models. In this new age of business as consumers shift their shopping habits, this is a grave mistake that costs homebuilder’s sales and damages their reputation because of the lack of urgency in their response.

Connect with Mike at http://www.mooreleadership.blogspot.com/ and www.makingcustomers.wordpress.com

 

 

How can a business accurately quantify the effect that their efforts have on consumer awareness? In most cases you simply hope that all of the dollars you spend on marketing and advertising show tangible effects on sales or on some other meaningful call to action. However, through our Retargeting efforts, we can accurately pinpoint how much more valuable a consumer is that has shopped your site and seen your products versus someone who has never run across your business. The results can sometimes be startling.

Several months ago we began a campaign dedicated to serving banner ads on general real estate sites with the goal to drive traffic for our builders and convert home shoppers into new home shoppers.  The results were fair, with click thru rates marginally above the industry average (.20%, or 2 clicks/1,000 impressions).

However, as the campaign progressed and we became more in tune with the ins and outs of Retargeting, we came across something interesting. Simply sending banner ads to websites that may be in your line of business may drive large volume in terms of impressions, but it may not be the best way to go about things. The real value comes when your banners follow those consumers who have shopped your site and THEN go to visit other sites.

For example, our real estate campaign received an impressive amount of volume from Homes.com, but we saw low performance in terms of click-through’s and consumer action.  The click-through rate hovered around a .10% and did not merit additional dollars towards this website. However, when we had users who had already shopped our site and were then retargeted on Homes.com, we saw an incredible lift in performance. In the month of October, our Retargeted users are more than 10 times more likely to click one of our banners than a new consumer would on the same website. We saw an even more extreme example on Hotpads.com, a highly valued partner in our Vertical Ad Network. Historically our campaign dedicated to getting new traffic on this site averaged a .20CTR. In the month of October, our pool of Retargeted users is averaging a 2.79CTR. 10X that of our regular campaign and 27 times the industry average!

From all of this, we can deduce that while a traditional campaign dedicated to new users certainly has merit, performance will not be as strong as it could be when targeted to pre-existing users. It’s obvious that in the world of online banner ads, there’s no better resource for your business than the people who have already shopped your site and are familiar with your product and brand.

Jaime Lintner, BDX Ad Ops Assistant, helps manages over 30 million ad impressions per month across a network of real estate websites for hundreds of homebuilders. For more information about advertising on the BDX websites and our network of affiliates, email info@thebdx or contact your local sales rep.

When:
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
11:00 AM – 12:00 PM CST

Register Here.

“We get leads but they just don’t seem to be very good?” How many times have you heard that from your sales team? Low lead conversion is usually the symptom and not the actual problem.

Surveys have revealed that only about 3% of sales executives are following up appropriately with their online leads.

This essential hands-on workshop provides an easy-to-follow roadmap leading to a successful Lead Management Program that will help you attract and convert more prospects into qualified buyers and explode your sales goals.

Learning Outcomes:

  • The latest homebuyer statistics and shopping behaviors.
  • Learn about the online sales process.
  • Discover ways to engage leads quickly and effectively online.
  • Maximize your lead capture rate by setting appointments from your website.
  • Set appointments that convert 30% of the time.
  • Mike’s top tech tool that guarantees more sales.

Presented by Mike Lyon

Mike Lyon has “real world” knowledge and first-hand experience in the realm of online marketing and sales for homebuilders. He delivers his information from the trenches and draws from his diverse background in online advertising, digital design and internet sales.

With his energetic and entertaining speaking style, Mike has brought to life the topics of internet marketing, sales and technology at events across the country including the past 3 International Builders’ Show.

He is a highly sought after consultant and has contributed to the success of homebuilders and real estate companies all across the nation. He is the bestselling author of Browsers to Buyers: Proven Strategies for Selling New Homes Online and the recently released Social Media Guide for Real Estate

Learn more about Mike at www.doyouconvert.com or follow him on Twitter @mikelyon