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.

Tomorrow afternoon, the newlyweds who just visited with you are going to invite their friends, and their friends’ friends to discover your model homes. You’re going to feel like a tour guide at the Smithsonian. This fantasy scenario could become a routine occurrence if you can master the art of social media marketing.

Think of social media as the partner of content marketing. Content marketing drives people to consume information, which promotes interest and generates action. Social media drives engagement, which triggers social behaviors. The pair functions as parents in the inbound marketing family, and the effect is powerful enough to produce generations of loyal customers. Consider these three facts from the Hubspot State of Inbound 2015 report.

• 75% of marketers around the world prioritize inbound over outbound marketing.[Tweet This]

• Inbound campaigns achieve higher ROI than outbound.

• Companies are 3X as likely to see higher ROI on inbound campaigns as on outbound.[Tweet This]

Why Social Media Works So Well in Home Building

Social media harnesses the power of the social proof theory, which suggests that people look to others for guidance, especially when faced with an unfamiliar or uncertain situation. If word-of-mouth can influence small ticket grocery store purchases, when the buyer has familiarity and certainty, then imagine what it can do for big ticket investments. Many young buyers who are active on social media have little to no home buying experience. If you can create a remarkable experience for one buyer, you have the genesis of a viral social media campaign.[Tweet This]

Measures of Success in Social Media

Each social media site has its own unique concepts, but the general path for social media marketing looks like this, regardless of the platform:

Generate remarks about positive experiences with your brand >

Get likes, followers, pins, positive reviews, or votes of confidence >

Inspire dialogue between initial influencers and followers >

Develop a community between your influencers, followers, and YOU >

Reward brand advocates to take a leadership role, expanding the community.

Once you commit resources to engaging with your community, you will use content, contests, incentives, and rewards to ensure that your influencers keep talking. You want to encourage them to generate the repeat exposure to your brand that leads to top-of-mind awareness and brand equity. If your brand focuses on educating consumers, you will use social media to establish your authority, making your business the go-to-resource on home building topics.

Through all of this social media activity, you have two larger business objectives:

1. Continually generate traffic to your website

Whether you promote a contest, share a blog post, send a video link, or offer a white paper, traffic must be directed to your site. There, you can ask them sign up for an email list, download a report, or make an appointment to visit your models.

2. Convert online leads to real-world buyers

With your calls-to-action, you are capturing the information you need to get engaged members to enter your lead funnel, so that your sales team can convert them into enthusiastic homebuyers, who will become even more influential social media advocates.

Ready to take the next step? Contact BDX  at info@thebdx.com and discover how to drive online traffic, feed your sales funnel, and sell out your communities fast using social media.