Manual Makes BuilderBooks.com
I am extremely excited to announce that Browsers to Buyers will now be carried by Builder Books, the publishing arm of the NAHB. I would like to thank Torrie and Jackie for the opportunity and all of their hard work!
This Week on Builder
I applaud Builder Online for their up-to-the-minute news and great articles. They have done an excellent job getting useful information to the masses quickly. Here are a couple of great stories to check out:
Oklahoma HBA Launches Marketing Campaign
Builders use video, blogs, and more to emphasize local market’s health and counter negative national housing headlines. (Yep – that’s my market!)
Need Better Follow-Up?
After report reveals Denver builders’ failure to capitalize on leads, pros stress basics such as phone calls and handwritten thank-yous.(read more info on this study here>>)
A Whole New Banner Ad – 4 Times Better
AdMission Partners with BHI to Provide Online Rich Media Display Ads for U.S. Home Builders
Some pretty cool stuff from Builder Homesite (NewHomeSource) and AdMission.
They have developed a way display multiple properties dynamically through banner ads. Basically, you create an ad template – then it pulls the latest details of the homes you have for sale. On top of all the technical footwork, they are getting better results! Check out the claims from users:
Early AdMission ad campaign participants experienced ad click-through performance that was more than double that of standard display advertising run concurrently on the site.
“Pulte Homes’ Orlando division began running the AdMission banner ads on NewHomeSource.com a couple of months ago, and we are also running four other promotional banner ads at the same time,” said Kristin Vuckovic, marketing manager for Pulte Homes’ Orlando division. “We get a very good click-through rate with our creative on NewHomeSource.com, but we were thrilled to find a click-through rate that is four times better as a result of using the AdMission style of ads.”
Want to see the “AdMission style” of ads in action? Click Here>> to view multiple banner ads displayed. Pretty sweet stuff! Be sure to view the KB Homes ad.
64% of Agents Don’t Follow Up – Say What!
"Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much" Luke 16:10a
Builders – if we can’t be trusted with the traffic we have now, how can we be expected to handle it when it comes back?
Take a look at this at this new whitepaper just released by Red Tree Resultants and Qgenisys. They conducted actual on-site evaluations acting as motivated prospects to learn if there would be adequate follow up on the visit to try to persuade the prospect to become a purchaser and what builders and developers can do to improve their market share. What they found out:
- Despite spending millions of dollars to attract them…In only 36% of the visits did an agent bother to follow up with the prospect who visited the community and expressed immediate purchase interest.
- In only 14% of the cases did agents follow up with personalized information about the community that reflected anything they discussed with the prospect.
- Builder agents from the higher-priced homes/communities actually followed the prospect more aggressively than did the lower-priced homes/communities.
- Of all homes visited during our research, unless a prospect followed up with the builder, nearly 60% of all prospective sales would have been lost due to lack of follow up by the builder or the builder’s representative
- We estimate that up to 75% of builders’ emails, both from sales reps and marketing teams were caught by our researchers’ spam filters.
Their findings clearly show that after spending all those marketing dollars to get potential buyers into their homes, motivated buyers were largely ignored and received almost no relevant follow up from the builder’s site agent. On-site builder agents allowed prospects to walk out the door, but also allowed them to slip through their fingers with little relevant follow up…or in many cases ANY follow up after the visit.
The Conclusion – Builders who implement the changes we have recommended here will be better positioned than those that do not to take advantage of the inevitable turn around that will eventually come in the housing market.
Thanks to Brendan and his team for the timely and powerful info.
Contact:
Red Tree Marketing Resultants
Brendan Miller
(303) 741-2369
www.redtreeresults.com
