As a home builder, you are often one voice in a highly competitive market. You need your brand to stand out: to offer something that the competition doesn’t and connect with your customers in a highly effective way. Digital marketing has become increasingly essential. Many of your customers will do their research online before they reach out to you in person–and in fact, you may never have the chance to connect with them directly if you don’t pull them in with your digital marketing efforts. Check out the top digital marketing strategies for home builders and how you can utilize them.
Strategy #1: Your Website
Your website is an essential part of your digital marketing strategy. An effective home builder website will allow potential customers to not only find your brand, but also connect with you, learn more about you, and determine whether they want to use you for their home-building project. Your website is like the receptionist for your business, sitting at the front of your office and guiding your customers through whatever they need. It should include several key options.
Information About Your Business
Your website should provide information that potential customers need to know most when they visit. That includes:
- Contact information
- The types of projects you create
- Insights into your projects, including before and after photos
Ideally, customers should be able to figure out whether they want to hire you to complete their building projects by looking through the information you provide on your website.
DIY Solutions
In many cases, customers want to be able to take care of essential tasks directly on your website, at a time that’s convenient for them, without having to contact your office or wait for someone to call them back. Your website can provide DIY solutions like booking a time for a consultation or even allowing customers to take care of some design options directly from that page.
Chatbots and Interactive Elements
Chatbots are the ideal solution for allowing customers to ask their questions and get answers directly on the website, at any time of day. Globally, an estimated 600 million shoppers interact with chatbots every year. Increasingly, customers trust those conversational AI solutions to provide them with answers to their questions and solutions to their problems. Those interactive elements also allow you to offer a higher level of customer service, improving overall customer satisfaction.
Texting from your website is another great way to increase overall customer engagement. Providing conversational AI texting solutions lets customers interact with your brand in a variety of ways, so they can choose the one that best fits their needs.
Strategy #2: Search Engine Optimization
For customers to find you when they want information about home builders in your area, you must optimize your website and content for search engine performance. There are several key strategies that go into search engine optimization.
Keyword Research
What search terms are homeowners in your area using when they’re looking for home builders who complete the types of projects that you focus on? Not only do you want to make sure that your business is highly visible to search engines, but you also want to focus on the keywords that are actually relevant to your brand. If you use keywords that aren’t relevant to the type of homes you build or the types of projects you complete, you’re more likely to attract traffic to your website that doesn’t actually want the services you offer.
Once you have determined what keywords you need to focus on, make sure you’re using them effectively across your website. Not only does that mean using them in titles and content, but it also means adding them to meta descriptions and meta content like photo descriptions. Don’t forget to include your local keywords! As a home builder, you operate in a specific geographic area, and you want your search traffic to focus on those areas.
Paid Search Ads
It can take time to build your organic search ranking. Paid search ads, on the other hand, allow you to bypass that wait and bring more traffic to your website. By investing in paid search ads for the keywords that matter most to your brand, you can draw in traffic more effectively.
Content Creation
Providing a steady stream of content helps keep your website fresh and ready for search engines. Create before and after posts that share more information about what a project looked like before you started and after you finished the job. Walk potential customers through what to expect during the building process. Share progress photos. You can even use your content to offer some DIY solutions or advice and tips for new homeowners. Over time, you’ll build an extensive content library that will bring interested clients to you when they’re searching for information in your area of expertise.
Strategy #3: Email
Email marketing remains a highly effective strategy. In fact, it has a higher return on investment than most other marketing strategies. As you build your email list, you can send out relevant content to clients who are interested in your services or those who have used them in the past. That can include:
- Tips and tricks
- Information about the current real estate market in your area
- Trends in homes, including what people are looking for when they build new homes in your area
Sending out emails keeps your brand top of mind for clients who have used you in the past, so they’re more likely to use your business for future building projects or recommend you to friends who are getting ready to build a home.
Strategy #4: Social Media
Your social media platform is an incredibly important way to reach potential customers. As they scroll through their feeds, they can see what your business is accomplishing, how you’ve been interacting with others, and even what past customers have to say about you. Social media helps provide essential social proof of what other customers have thought when they used your services. Many people now view social media recommendations from people they’ve never met through the same lens as recommendations from friends and family members, so social proof is a great way to build interest and trust in your brand.
There are several things you can do to build your social media presence and increase interaction with your brand.
- Share content regularly so that potential clients expect to see you in their newsfeeds.
- Set up chatbots to interact with customers and answer their questions when they reach out to you.
- Respond to customers who comment on your posts.
- Create content that is likely to attract interest.
As your social media following grows, they will share their content with other interested users, too. Social media is a great way to draw in customers who may be interested in building a home in the future and allow the idea to take hold in their minds over time. It can also help you add subscribers to your email list, draw clients to your website, and provide you with a deeper understanding of your target market and their needs.
How AI Can Help With Your Home Builder Marketing Efforts
As AI technology continues to advance, it can offer many benefits to your home-builder marketing efforts. By utilizing it effectively, you can see immense growth. Conversational AI, in particular, offers many ways to connect with potential customers and improve overall engagement with your brand.
Identify and Qualify Leads
AI-powered assistants can identify visitors to your website and qualify them to get a better idea of what leads are most likely to move forward as satisfied customers. Your AI solutions can help you determine which visitors are on your website because they are interested in making a purchase and which ones have no real interest in your brand or are at your website for another reason. That makes it easier to focus your time on leads that are more likely to pan out for your brand.
Learn More About Your Target Market
As a home builder, you must have a strong understanding of your target market and their needs. Not only do you want to know basic demographic information like their average age, where they live, and the funds they have to spend on a home building project, you may want to know things like what interests them, what questions they have, and what pain points they have that you can help solve. AI tools can help you better get to know your target market so that you can design your website and your content for their needs.
Automate Engagement
Engaged clients aren’t just likely to choose your brand to help build their home or take on their major home repair or renovation project, they’re more likely to recommend you to friends and family members or come back to work with you in the future. With AI solutions like AtlasRTX, you can engage your customers long after move-in, sending them more information about how to take care of their new home, when home warranties expire, and when they may need to make service appointments. For example, you can add a texting button on your website, allowing customers to talk to you in the way that works best for them.
Increase Interaction
With an AI-powered interaction solution, you can provide clients with what they’re looking for when they visit your website. Today’s clients, more than ever, expect your home builder brand to interact and engage with them on a regular basis. Conversational AI can provide interactions with customers on your website through a custom-designed chatbot, ensuring that clients can get fast, easy answers to their burning questions. Furthermore, it provides more self-service options for your clients, allowing them to make many of their own buying decisions directly from the website, at a time that’s convenient for their needs.
Are You Ready to Enhance Your Digital Marketing Efforts?
At AtlasRTX, we offer a range of AI tools that help you make the most of your digital marketing efforts. From improving your understanding of your target market to delivering the support your customers really need to choose you as their preferred home builder, we have tools that fit your needs. Contact us today to learn more.
