performance

thumbs downBy Blair Kuhnen, BDX

This is the third of four blogs in our online reputation management series.

We previously covered online reputation management and steps in auditing and monitoring your online reputation. Now we will address responding to bad reviews.

Home building is a very human business and we, as humans, all make mistakes. The Internet amplifies those mistakes making them more visible. Gone are the days when you would address an issue that made it into print media and then quietly went away. Online reviews don’t go away. They have to be handled differently than other potentially negative public relations issues.

Don’t let negative brand or employment reviews cause further damage by going unanswered. Delays allow the current situation to escalate leading to lost sales or potential employees. That said, we believe there are right and wrong ways to respond.

It is uncomfortable to admit mistakes and takes courage to publically acknowledge them. Online, that is exactly what you have to do. This is important for two reasons: (1) When done right, it keeps the PR issue from escalating, and (2) it minimizes the ongoing damage of negative information that remains visible. This second point is what differentiates handling online vs. offline reviews. Potential customers and employees are going to see your response or lack thereof. Reviews handled with care will both prevent additional negative reviews and reduce the impact of the bad reviews.

We believe a builder should respond to a negative review in a timely, authentic, and humble manner. A personal and conversational tone is generally preferred. Here are some guidelines:

  • Show empathy: Apologize and express that you understand the pain/inconvenience caused. It does not matter if what they are saying is 100% accurate, you don’t want to debate or seem defensive. Try to understand their point of view and how the situation made them feel.
  • Demonstrate your contrition: Empathy alone is not enough. Express how your actions were wrong and what you are doing to fix it. Show that you are taking steps to make amends and prevent similar issues.
  • Without making excuses or sounding defensive, stress the positive: This is the tricky part, but an opportunity to turn lemons into lemonade. Let’s assume something positive (e.g., company growth) contributed to unintended employment related results. In this case, you should point out the jobs and advancements made possible through your growth, but admit to the negative consequences.
  • Ask for feedback: Ask the poster to come back and comment on how you did with resolving the issue.

When a prospective customer or employee reads your response, they should be thinking: “Some of the reviews I see here are bad but at least the company has acknowledged the issues and are seeking to find a resolution.” If someone wants to come to work for your company, they want to believe your story. If they don’t, you probably don’t need them.

Is this easy? No, but you can do it. I ran across this blog post from SEER Interactive that gives a good critique of several reviews on Yelp. It is worth a read before you draft your first response to a negative review.

When You Should Respond to a Poor Online Review

In general, faster is better. However, do not write a response while you are still angry as that could cause even more damage. Additionally, you don’t want to seem like you are in denial about the allegation even if the complaint is unfair.

There are times when you will not want to respond and maybe should not. When a negative review is pure slander, you might not respond. You might try to have the review deleted from the site or even consider legal action. These cases are few and far between.

Who Should Respond to a Negative Online Review

Unless you are Amazon, you probably don’t want your reply to come from someone with customer service in their title. In many cases, you should consider your president or a regional department head, but most importantly make sure someone is responding. You may want to consider providing a direct dial phone number that you can be reached at. Sometimes talking it out is better than corresponding through the web or email. While we are talking about negative reviews, responding to positive reviews humanizes the business and is a lot more fun for your CEO.

A colleague recently shared Glassdoor reviews of Zillow, a massive online real estate site with more than 500 employees. Their CEO, Spencer Rascoff, directly responds to many of the Zillow reviews with humility and a style that probably helps their recruiting effort.

An Example of How to Respond to a Poor Glass Door Review

This builder used in this example is growing quickly. Strong revenue growth creates huge opportunities for all employees if they seize them. Start by thanking the poster for their feedback. Read the review carefully and make sure you directly address specific issues.

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This company needs to support its current strong employees while only recruiting the best. This response is crucial:

  • You want to communicate to prospective posters that you recognize your growing pains and are taking action. We believe employees will be less likely to post negative reviews if they see a solid response followed up with action.
  • A solid response allows prospective employees to see the opportunities your company has to offer while minimizing their hesitations.

A Hypothetical Recommended Response to this Review:

“Thank you for pointing out some of the problems related to our recent growth. We did not do well. Our team is the backbone of our success. Our rapid growth has created tremendous opportunities for career advancement, but it stretched our systems. We are sorry that we have left some employees feeling they are not supported and in some cases we asked for more than what was fair. That is a terrible feeling especially when you work as hard as our employees do.

This has been an area of concern for executive management. We left employees far too stretched and failed to delegate authority that would have made your lives easier.

In response we are implementing our company-wide leadership training and development program in January and are speeding our recruitment efforts to handle our continued growth. We need to get new employees up to speed faster with our processes and procedures so they can serve customers better. We will not grow revenue and profits at the rate we desire without a well-trained, motivated, and loyal team leading the charge.

Finally, we need to push authority down further and are currently experimenting with ways to give additional decision making and spending authority to our field personnel.

Please return later and re-post or reply anonymously to tell us how we have done.”

Over the top? Maybe, but this type of response can make an immediate impact. This may be difficult the first time, but it gets easier. You will feel better having responded and may have more clearly identified how to improve your business.

This blog series has given you a good understanding of how online reputation management works, from how to complete a reputation audit to providing recommendations for responding to negative reviews. Do you still have bad reviews out there on page one or page two of Google search results? Stay tuned for the final post in this series where we will show you how to get your positive reviews ranking higher in Google search results.

 

By Jay McKenzie, Director, Content and Social Media, BDX

Most builders agree social media has moved well past the fad stage to assume its rightful place as a core tool to drive their business.

At BDX, our team of professional social media agents manages more than 30 social media channels for our brands. We also manage social media for an increasing number of top builders across the nation.

As we conduct social media reviews for our builders (or share the latest on social media for builders at industry events or webinars) I speak often with builders from all regions and buyer segments.

In each case, I ask builders what metrics they track for social media and how they track it. Their answers vary widely and many seek our advice on what to track. Here’s a recommended, two-tier approach to tracking the core social media metrics that most impact your firm’s success:

Tier One: Musts Benchmark your firm against major competitors. Set goals. Actively manage to goal. Measure month-over-over month and year-over-year; week-over-week is overkill for most builders.

1)      Reputation Management – Like it or not, buyers, shoppers, Realtors and others are talking about your brand, the homes you build and service you provide. You can’t share great comments or reply to concerns if you’re not listening. In addition to listening and responding courteously and promptly, track what’s being said and trends in both positive and negative comments over time.  Tracking complaints can help you root out and fix any recurring issue.

2)      Audience Growth – Many builders believe a Fan will stop following them once they buy, build or settle in. That seems logical, but I see less evidence than you might think. Plus, smart builders make heroes of current and recent homebuyers. You want testimonials to share with future home shoppers and doing so also keep owners in the fold. Measure total fan growth overall and by social media platform (Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube, Google+, Instagram, etc.)

3)      Reach – According to a top Facebook exec, the average post by a brand reaches 16% of Fans. Facebook has billions of dollars of cost. Advertising accounts for more than 90% of Facebook’s revenue and the 1 billion user platform faces intense shareholder scrutiny. By an astounding coincidence, your reach soars when you invest $10 per day to promote your best posts. I wait to see which Posts get the most Likes/Shares organically for a day or two, and then back one with $10 a day for 4-5 days. Do this four or five times a month. It’s a big reason why BDX’s social media fan base grew 5x last year. It’s also a popular service we offer our social media clients.

4)      Referring Source and Traffic – Which social media platforms are driving the most traffic to your website and to your blog from your social media posts and how is each trending?

5)      Engagement – How many Likes and comments are you earning? This is a function of the quality and relevance of your posts and how many people see them (see Reach, above).

6)      Shares – The big payoff from engagement. You want fans to like and share your posts, especially posts that contain links back to your website and blog, which send their friends back to you.

7)      Conversion – Hopefully, you’re using the many great and free features of Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools – and setting goals for key conversion events that drive your business. Set goals, track them obsessively: visits to your site from your major social media accounts, pages viewed, time-on-site. Focus on vital actions that will ultimately drive sales: lead forms completed, newsletter sign-ups, driving directions viewed, printed or sent to a smart phone, phone number reveals or clicks, model home and sales center hours and address, etc.

Tier Two: Valuable to Track/Manage

Other Valuable Metrics

  • First-time and returning visitors – Ask how BDX can help you re-target and re-connect with visitors to your listings on BDX and your website
  • Bounce rate
  • Click-thru rate
  • Cost per click
  • First-touch, last-touch and assisted conversions
  • Influence – Klout and Kred offer you a free measure of your social media influence and clout. Is it increasing? How do you compare to other builders?

This list of metrics is just a fraction of what can be tracked and the list could go on and on! Let us know what metrics that you track not mentioned here and we’ll share them with our builders and credit you.

Jay McKenzie heads up content and social media for BDX. His team of social media agents focuses solely on home builders. For a free review of your social media or to discuss how BDX can assist you in fully leveraging the fast-changing world of social media email info@thebdx.com.

 

Want to get off to a great start for 2014? Each day for the next two weeks, we will be posting a marketing resolution for the New Year.

#8: I will tag my inbound advertising links this year so I can track ROI

Tracking inbound links is the first step in evaluating the effectiveness of your online marketing efforts. A well-organized system for implementing tracking codes will pay dividends in managing campaign performance and auditing performance across several systems with vastly different cost and performance metrics.

There are lots of software solutions to help online marketing managers track and analyze performance including Adobe Analytics, Webtrends, and Google Analytics; most of the builders we work with have Google Analytics installed.  Google Tracking Codes give marketers the ability to track activity from third party sites like your listings on New Home Source or a banner campaign. Tracking URLs are easy to set up and can provide a wealth of information regarding performance of listings, banner advertising, emails and more.

Read the blog post: Measuring Ad Performance to learn more about tracking performance.

 

Want to get off to a great start for 2014? Each day for the next two weeks, we will be posting a marketing resolution for the New Year.

#5: I will upload a video with my listing

Did you know that adding video to your new home listings on NewHomeSource.com can increase leads by 28% and click-thrus by 36%?

Video not only brings your brand to life, but also elevates the performance of your website and a properly optimized video can improve Search Engine Optimization (SEO) rankings.  Did you know that a properly optimized video is 53X more likely to have a front page result on Google?

Video allows you to begin building trust with home shoppers by giving the history of your company, showcasing testimonials and highlighting the products that make up your homes.  Here are a few ideas to get you thinking about ways you can use video to drive your business:

  • Outside The Gates (Why Live here? Lifestyle.)
  • Company History/Philosophy
  • What sets us apart? (New Initiatives)
  • Behind the scenes
  • Our process (What to expect)
  • Financing (You can do this!)
  • Educational (Viral)
  • Design Tips
  • Move-in (How your home works)
  • New vs Used (Consumer Education)

From templated web videos to full scale national broadcast level productions, our media experts can produce projects to meet any budget.  Learn more about enhancing your listings with video here.

By Thane Tennison, BDX Senior Advertising Manager

As a publisher, I work with hundreds of different builders and agencies all trying to gain a competitive edge in the online space. Sometimes that edge is obvious like adjusting creative to improve Click Through Rate (CTR) and drive lower Cost Per Clicks (CPCs).  Sometimes, it’s less revealing like understanding which channel yields better conversions and ultimately a lower $/lead regardless of the upfront spend.

Oftentimes agencies ask, “Why should I buy display advertising from you when I can get it from Google?”  It’s a legitimate question, Google and other Ad Exchanges provide a wealth of sites and a range of products from paid search and “contextually relevant” placement to keyword targeting and a seemingly attractive pricing model for Pay Per Click.

If I were a marketing team looking to drive traffic at the very top of the funnel display, an exchange like Google might make sense. However, for a more targeted media placement I often find that a direct buy has significant advantages.

PREMIUM PLACEMENT:

The main difference between a direct buy and a remnant network exchange is just that – it is remnant inventory. Publishers with direct clients are incentivized to provide the best placements for optimal performance and there are a number of tools at their disposal to help optimize the campaign. Publishers can optimize a buy by booking premium positions, managing ad priorities, frequency capping, day parting etc.

The exchange networks simply look at impressions available as well as the yield opportunity that your ad will get clicked vs. another ad in their network. This means if you’re not constantly managing your bid, keywords and testing new creative you could be at a significant disadvantage. At the BDX we have insights into creative that works and creative that doesn’t. A few times a month we help a builder achieve 4x lift in click thru just by making adjustments to the art.  With exchanges, the art would run as is and you might find that you’re having to pay more for that click since the exchange is going to need to serve more impressions to secure that revenue. A low CTR not only means you may pay more per click but you’re also competing against the yield they can make from every other advertiser competing for that customer.

TARGETING:

Networks have limitations in their targeting abilities by relying on keywords and the contextual relevancy of the website. However in real estate – especially new home construction – these networks alienate about 50% of the home shoppers who are relocating into a market.  If I’m a local builder in Austin advertising on Google targeting real estate websites I’ll reach consumers in Austin but I won’t reach consumers moving from Dallas, Houston, L.A., Chicago or D.C. into the Austin market.

We recently ran an analysis of traffic by market and the results are clear; traffic on a market level works in concentric circles. In Austin, about 50% of the traffic is within market (people moving from one side of town to the other) another 30% of the traffic is from neighboring cities (i.e. Dallas, San Antonio, Houston) and 20% from consumers outside of Texas.  In Texas, these markets are hundreds of miles apart and if I’m a local builder I have zero brand equity with a consumer from Dallas or Houston and much less from someone moving from Atlanta or LA.

What was even more interesting is when we looked at clicks by each of these groups. People living in Austin were the least likely to click the ad.  We saw the greatest click thru from consumers out of market looking for information and shopping home builders in Austin.

PERFORMANCE:

We’ve looked at the Google Analytics of several builders and have a predictable level of performance across each of our advertising channels. This allows us to keep pricing competitive and ensure we’re delivering meaningful value to our clients. With Ad Networks, a builder might receive a low CPC but we typically see much higher bounce rates and fewer meaningful actions. So while you might save on the front end it could cost you more on the backend where it really counts.  Obviously at some point the economics will work but it’s important to differentiate quantity vs. quality.

These factors are some of the reasons many exchanges have reverted to focusing on retargeting which shows significantly stronger conversion vs. blanketing a host of sites with ads.  The metrics simply didn’t warrant continuation and they’ve had to create solutions that provide better value. Even with the impact of Retargeting for the online exchanges we’ve identified a whole set of nuances specific to that medium.

Exchanges do have their place and may make sense for specific campaigns or clients that can afford continued active management. However, I think most builders who try to “save” by taking their advertising in house often lose out in reach and performance.

For information regarding online marketing and a review of your current digital marketing plan please contact us at info@thebdx.com.

Thane Tennison is the Senior Advertising Manager for the BDX and manages hundreds of home builder brands across a network of over a dozen real estate websites.