The past couple of years have thrown a curveball at home builders. The rapidly changing health climate and marketing conditions have made the ability to pivot essential. The historically low mortgage rates added another wrinkle to the process with many home buyers rushing onto the scene to take advantage. This spike in traffic left builders struggling to manage the influx of buyers while experiencing low inventory and materials shortages that have impacted future communities.
How do builders keep busy when inventory is low and interest lists are a mile long? Here are some digital marketing tasks that should take priority during this time.
Review and audit your website
The global pandemic has shown how invaluable a company’s website is and now is the perfect time to make sure your website is effective. Review your website and identify areas for improvement: is your website easy to navigate? Does your website have clear calls to action? Do your community pages have up-to-date information? Is there a simple way to join an interest list form or contact a sales associate? If your website is lacking in any of these areas, it might be time for a redesign.
Optimize your website for SEO
Having a solid local SEO strategy is important for home builders to master if they want to be found by potential home buyers. Here are a just a few updates you can make to improve your SEO: making sure your website is mobile-friendly. Mobile visits accounts for most of a website’s traffic (check your analytics!) in recent years, and as a result, Google has placed more importance on websites that are optimized for mobile. Chances are, if you don’t have a mobile-friendly website, you’re missing out on a lot of traffic. If you’re not sure if your website is mobile-friendly, take the Mobile Friendly Test.
You can also conduct on-page optimizations like updating title tags and meta descriptions, regularly update your blog with fresh content and properly tagged images, and making sure your business information is correct and consistent on Google My Business and across any listing services. Improving your SEO takes time but is well worth the effort.
Dive into the data
Understanding your data allows you to uncover insights that can improve the performance of your ads, social media content, website, and more. You can see what’s working, where to make adjustments, and identify patterns and new trends. Free tools like Google Analytics, Search Console, and Data Studio can be used to understand and break down your data and make the necessary adjustments.
Work on customer service
Using this time to refine your customer service processes. Your home buyers are the core of your business and need to be your top priority. Reach out to recent home buyers to understand their experiences, needs, and pain points when working with your company and discover ways to improve the process while meeting their needs and expectations. Your goal should be to create a consistent customer service experience across multiple channels like mobile devices, social media, and a self-service model where buyers can find the information they need on their own, like a website FAQ page or Help Center.
With long wait times and even longer waitlists, managing expectations by over-communicating is key. Set clear and consistent messaging across every touchpoint so customers know what to expect during the process – this includes on your website, in email marketing messages, text updates, LiveChat, and any other means of communication you set with your buyers. The more upfront you are with information, the happier your buyers and sales associates will be.
Keep marketing!
Don’t pull back on your marketing dollars. You may not have much inventory available right now but you should still work on getting homebuyers excited for your upcoming communities and new homes. Maintaining a consistent marketing effort improves brand awareness and keeps your brand top-of-mind when they’re ready and able to buy.
2020 turned into an unexpected banner year with a new home sales boom that caused builder marketing departments to rethink their marketing priorities. Smart builders are working on keeping that pipeline full by adjusting their strategies and remaining proactive so they can continue to reap the benefits of their marketing programs.
Graphic Language can help fine-tune your digital marketing strategy so you’re well-positioned to drive the highest quality traffic and yield the highest quality leads. Connect with us to see how we can partner in your digital marketing success.