Homebuilders.com

Most home builders recognize the importance and cost-effectiveness of email marketing. With consumers’ preference for permission-based marketing, along with sophisticated real estate CRM systems that have built-in mass mail functionality, it only makes sense. But how much thought really goes into planning your email campaigns? Do you send an email to your entire database only when you think about it or have news? Or do you approach email marketing as any other major marketing initiative – methodically, complete with objectives, planning and deadlines? To get the most from your email campaigns, we suggest the latter.

As we learned in the just-published email marketing whitepaper from Lasso CRM, Cut Through the Clutter, creating an effective email campaign is both an art and a science. With over 144 billion emails sent daily, consumer email must be well-planned, properly formatted, cleverly crafted, and carefully analyzed in order to be effective.  It’s important to consider the following questions:

• What is your goal?
• What is your message?
• Who do you want your message to reach?
• What action do you want people to take?
• Will your email display properly across multiple email providers?
• Is it optimized for mobile?
• How will you measure results?

For an easy-to-read, step-by-step guide to answer these questions and more, download Lasso’s latest email marketing whitepaper.  Email marketing has never been more important, and implemented correctly, can yield powerful and measurable results. Let us know how we can help. sales@lassocrm.com

Memphis-based Vintage Homes has formulated a new business plan made for the modern housing crisis – and has been recognized for their marketing efforts.  The company was recently honored with a Bronze in the 2013 National Housing Quality Award, which is reserved for home builders who achieve and maintain high standards in customer satisfaction, construction quality, business results, strategic planning and many other categories considered by the NHQ Awards adjudicators.  Vintage Homes’ efforts were especially noted in its successful business renovation in the face of considerable challenges as well as its reimplementation of marketing strategies, utilization of business-focused technological tools and services, as well as its innovative Opportunity for Improvement program.

Vintage Homes had previously built its 33 years on designing, constructing, and selling brand new, customizable higher-end homes.  However, when the housing and sub-prime mortgage markets hit crisis and the nation’s economy took a devastating downturn, CEO Charles Morgan had to reformulate his business operations to keep Vintage Homes afloat.  His solution was to redefine and entirely remake his company to service the housing needs of families at the starter home level.  While the starter home market was significantly more competitive (accounting for resale homes as well as other home builders’ properties), Morgan and his team developed and put strategies into motion that would turn renters into homeowners.  According to CFO Odus Wiley, this move has definitely paid off: “We run into so many people who believe they will never become homeowners. It’s a great feeling to see the look on their faces when we show them there is a way.”  Vintage Homes has become, if possible, an even more dynamic home builder in Memphis.  By reorienting their company to reflect the needs of the new home buyer, such as offering credit repair services to customers, Vintage Homes has truly made a difference in the community as well as a formidable comeback in light of great difficulties that had lain ahead of them in 2006.  Read more about their remarkable journey and how they overcame these challenges here.

The 2013 NHQ Awards committee determined that Vintage Homes stood out amongst the other home builders who had submitted their companies for consideration by the NHQ Awards.  Homebuilding companies are evaluated on their own successes and not against the achievements of other builders every year.  The NHQ Awards themselves are a collaborative event to recognize the finest in the housing industry by the NAHB Research Center and Professional Builder magazine.

Twitter has grown from a simple personal platform for conversation to a vastly-extended network of information and business opportunities. At one time, it may have been difficult to see how one might utilize the mini-blogging platform for anything else but personal updates; it now benefits any intelligent business person to educate themselves about the other benefits of using Twitter as a business tool.

For those who are using home builder software, Twitter can be an excellent complementary technology to use for better SEO results and ranking. Here are some things to keep in mind while tweaking your tweets for the best possible results for your home builder website:

1. Make sure that your content is easy to find and engaging. You’ll want to create tweets that are both relevant to your subject of interest and accessible. In other words, make sure that potential home buyers can find your Twitter account with ease and that once they do get there, the information presented to them is targeted, clear, and informative. You don’t want to turn customers off with too much jargon or frustrate them by not making your account easily accessible.

2. It can be very useful, when creating the layout and content of your Twitter account, to consider how you are planning to put Twitter to use as more than a blogging platform. One popular technique among home builders is to offer incentives and even rewards through tweets.

Once you’ve caught someone’s attention and directed them to your Twitter account, it’s time to offer them a reward for following your leads. Even if someone is not particularly likely to win a reward or contest, they will still want to follow your updates for the chance that they might. Perhaps the best sort of contest to engage in is one that encourages customers to retweet your posts. This leads people to share your information and business with their followers on Twitter. This kind of campaign leads to great exposure for you to customers who may have otherwise not found you!

Who out there doesn’t like the idea of being offered something for free? If you make sure to include this kind of automatic incentive, customers will absolutely be more intrigued by your Twitter and are much more likely to peruse the rest of your tweets and even follow them back to your main website.

Twitter makes an excellent complement to home builder software efforts, and can be a fantastic way to boost your SEO rankings. It is impossible to overstate the potential importance that one tweet can have for a company’s business, so be inventive when it comes to your Twitter account! For content ideas and further information, visit Lasso and take a look at their webinars.

Lasso CRM software can help real estate sellers present a professional environment to customers.

An organized workplace can change the face of a business on many levels.  When it comes to home builders and those in the real estate and sales business, professionalism is the key to success.  Lasso’s home builder software is designed to make the workplace one that agents want to work in and customers want to see.

Professionalism can come in all forms.  In the home building business, many times professionalism involves forming and maintaining lasting customer relationships and a positive work environment.  When agents get bogged down under the details, they spend time organizing instead of connecting, and the customer relationship may suffer, which in turn will eventually harm sales and profit.  But that that need never be a problem again with Lasso’s CRM software.

Thanks to Lasso’s innovative home builder software, customer relationship management is now easier, as is managing and organizing the workplace to deliver the results and professionalism many companies are looking for.  With useful and helpful features designed specifically for those looking to increase productivity, Lasso CRM software is the answer.

Lasso’s CRM software helps companies to manage and track leads, build important bridges with external realtors and agents, send out customized e-mail campaigns to reach multitudes of prospective buyers, and streamline buyer management to reduce costly errors.  Agents can access a single database that contains vital information about properties and leads, making organization in the office easy to manage, and allowing businesses to focus on their clients.

Never lose a lead again!  With Lasso’s software, businesses are now able to manage, control, and track a multitude of information and keep their workplace professional and organized.  Seller focus can be focused where it belongs, the buyer, and the reputation of a business will increase exponentially.  Increased business productivity and easier-to-access information helps companies present their best face to the world.

Lasso’s CRM software systems were created with real estate developers and sellers in mind. Counting McCaffrey, Benchmark and Renaissance Homes among their numerous success stories, Lasso’s innovative approach to customer relationship management is a step in the right direction for any home builder or agency.

For more information, visit Lasso or their Facebook page. You can also follow them on Twitter or watch their Youtube channel.

We’ve talked about Lasso’s home builder software and the difference it can make to your sales and marketing team. Track ROI, manage payments, convert leads into sales, let it take care of all that “administrivia” for you… it’s a very helpful system. But take it from another home builder! Ideal Homes uses Lass to improve sales velocity, conversions, and new home sales. They wrote about their experience with the CRM:

“Lasso makes it easy to create a tailored follow-up process. I save time managing my leads and reach more prospects in less time… and more customers are coming through our model home doors.”

Ideal Homes, based in Norman Oklahoma, is an award winning home builder renowned for their commitment to energy efficiency, quality, and customer care. They initially deployed Lasso for their online sales counselor (OSC) program in 2010. Shortly after, as a result of dramatic improvement in the volume and rate of conversions to onsite appointments, Ideal implemented Lasso across the entire sales team and all their communities in January 2011.

Ideal has used Lasso to establish a consistent approach and corporate culture for lead follow-up and prospect communications across the company. They also wrote that, “It helps me stay on track, pure and simple I have used other customer tracking programs, but Lasso is a large step above them all” and, “Simply put – immediate results for our online program.”

So that’s one company who found Lasso useful. Ideal Homes is a big builder too, having built more than 7,000 homes for Oklahoma families in their time. But large or small, all sales agents need to be able to focus on the prospects and clients, turning those home browsers to home buyers. Do you think home builder software would benefit your team? If so, try Lasso, for selling more homes, “Faster. Easier. Profitably.”

Did you know that 9 out of 10 home buyers look for their homebuilder online? It’s in incredible number, and it means that as a home builder you need to seriously consider your internet marketing schemes. Whether that’s a mobile site, SEO, blogging – the more internet presence the better. One way to really boost your presence online as custom builders in Nashville is a listing on Custom Builders.

Custom Builders is the first of it’s kind, the only online resource for all custom builders in Nashville. Google that and you’ll see we pop right up. Which means that your listing is up there on the first page – excellent for home buyers searching online, and a boost back to your personal website. Each listing we provide has a link to not just your home page, but also your inventory, new home communities, and blog. The listing has a gallery of photos and a summary of your offers with SEO-improving backlinking. It’s a great resource for home buyers, and an important place to be.

Every listing comes with a 90 day free trial. For a limited time Custom Builders is offering a special low rate on listing there and Top Ten Builders for just half the cost it’ll grow to within the year. And you’ll be locked into that low rate for your entire listing. As custom builders in Nashville you really can’t miss out. Contact us for more information and for our special price.

Did you know that 9 out of 10 home buyers look for their homebuilder online? It’s in incredible number, and it means that as a home builder you need to seriously consider your internet marketing schemes. Whether that’s a mobile site, SEO, blogging – the more internet presence the better. One way to really boost your presence online as custom builders in Houston is a listing on Custom Builders.

Custom Builders is the first of it’s kind, the only online resource for all custom builders in Houston. Google that and you’ll see we pop right up. Which means that your listing is up there on the first page – excellent for home buyers searching online, and a boost back to your personal website. Each listing we provide has a link to not just your home page, but also your inventory, new home communities, and blog. The listing has a gallery of photos and a summary of your offers with SEO-improving backlinking. It’s a great resource for home buyers, and an important place to be.

Every listing comes with a 90 day free trial. For a limited time Custom Builders is offering a special low rate on listing there and Top Ten Builders for just half the cost it’ll grow to within the year. And you’ll be locked into that low rate for your entire listing. As custom builders in Houston you really can’t miss out. Contact us for more information and for our special price.

You may want to raise or leave room in your budget for next year’s online marketing strategy. If you don’t already have a website optimized for mobile, you really need to consider it or you could be losing sales and new customers. This is also where you will stay above your competition.

The growth of mobile web users is estimated to grow to 134 Million users next year and surpass desktop users. Over 50% of consumers use their mobile devices to shop online in a range of activity from comparing prices to downloading product photos.  If you are a homebuilder, having a mobile website that gets consumers straight through to your models, quick-move in homes and directions to your communities is crucial. And that is just the beginning. To effectively steer your mobile marketing strategy, here a few tips that will help.

1. Start Fresh and Fast. Your current website may be visible on a mobile device but it may not effectively deliver the information that mobile users are looking for. Design a new site based off of your existing site that is optimized for mobile. Speed plays the biggest part here. Make sure that your mobile site loads in less than 5 seconds, focusing on the main drivers for consumers (communities, plans, inventory & contact) and always provide a call to action that gets them in touch with you.
2. Analyze. If you already have Google Analytics installed and are utilizing SEO then pay very close attention to your mobile traffic and behavior. Track keywords, usage visits and peak times to better able targeting your audience and content.
3. Text Away. Using SMS text messaging to reach your mobile customers gives you a direct link to them. Research shows that 90% of text messages are read by the recipient. You’ll be connected in seconds to every lead and you can be sure that all your messages are read by motivated prospects and customers who have signed up to receive them.
4. Mobile Apps & Video. It is projected that over 99 million tablets will be purchased next year with Apple expected  to ship 45.5 million iPads. Giving your sales team and consumers the ability to use special apps designed to view your homes and communities gives you a definite edge over other builders. Having professional videos made that you can post online is also growing as more consumers view video on their mobile phones and iPads. Many marketers are putting more of their funds into online video than TV.

Getting behind the growing mobile technology trend will most definitely keep you ahead of the game, will keep your business looking current and your product at the consumers’ fingertips. New technology is helping sell more and more.

Are you ready for the new generation of home buyers? Echo boomers – there are 80 million of them with a total of $200 billion annual spending power. With an average gap of 24 years between those buying or selling real estate and those who represent them, will you be able to speak their tech savvy language when they come to you looking for a home? Let’s face it, there is a huge difference between what they call a “digital native” vs. a “digital immigrant”. How do you know if you are one of these immigrants? If you where born before 1970, there is a good chance you are. You know what it is like to use a typewriter, you remember buying your first Motorola brick phone and there is a good chance you saw the fax machine make its way into the office. You are also a professional communicator and you know you have to stay on top of the latest technology and communication methods used by this new crowd. So here are a few tips to get to know Echo Boomers and what they are looking for when it comes to buying a home.

Be Found
We all know the stats, 9 out of 10 home buyers start their search online. Be found where they are looking! Get your social community set up and treat it like your child. Feed it, dress it up and take it places! Don’t just set up a Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter account and let it set there. Create your social community and the Echo Boomers will notice you. Get your homes online! There are plenty of reputable listing sites ready to take your listing and get it sold! No longer does the rule “if you build it they will come” apply but rather “if you put it online, maintain and tweak it they will come”. The search starts online, will they find you?

Be Smart
With 94% of echo boomers using their cell phones to surf the web and send email a smartphone will keep you in the game! Loose the dumb phone and use your new iPhone to your advantage. You can send emails, text messages, photos, videos and connect with all of these new social networking sites at the touch of a fingertip. If you don’t have a smartphone, stop reading this blog, go get one and then we can talk (or maybe text?)

Be Texty
Get your texting fingers primed and ready. Don’t be surprised if an Echo Boomer asks you to “text” them the details on a home or listing. 80% say their cell phone is their “lifeline” and would rather text than talk. Be ready to respond to a text in a timely manner which means no more chicken pecking! I know that for some of you this really chaps your hide. You might call your pubescent teenager on the phone that you pay for, leave them a message asking them where they are and the text you back “What do you want mom?” Well, this new generation is more responsive and comfortable using their thumbs instead of their mouth. It doesn’t make it right, but it “is what it is”.Their punishment will be oversized thumbs and an early onset of carpel tunnel syndrome. So who has the last laugh?

Be Speedy
Echo Boomers are used to getting responses at the speed of light. When they email you, call you, text you, Facebook you they expect a response and quickly. Don Tapscott says it right in his book Grown up Digital the “Net Gen” has a “need for speed”.They have no idea what it is like to wait around, this is an immediate gratification generation.

Start Listening
A simple Google of “Echo Boomer” will give you a laundry list of what experts, writers, TV personalities and your next door neighbor has to say about the up and coming generation. Know what your buyers are looking for and facilitate their needs. A study done by NAHB and Better Homes and Gardens shows some impressive statistics about what Generation Y is looking for in a home:

• 65% of new home buyers wanting a porch
• 91% want an energy efficient home
• 71% want a home office or media space

Echo Boomers are adults now, not kids, and they want to be taken seriously and given the BEST customer service you have to give! Let’s face it, this generation has high expectations of what this world should be like (i.e. their first home) and who better to make that happen for them than you? No need to be discouraged because they want a trusted adviser, you actually have the competitive edge over your Echo boomer counter parts but you must be able to talk their language.
What are your thoughts?

Many builder marketing and sales teams know that creating an online presence is and has been the most important investment that their company could have made within the past decade.  And for those that haven’t joined online social networks, invested in an updated or new website, or a company blog are probably hurting because of it.

If your brand isn’t being seen online, you may as well be invisible. Understanding the value of online brand building and investing in your brand online will increase traffic to your homes online and in your communities. In turn, it will increase leads and ROI. First, before you launch your online branding campaign, you need come up with a few strategies that will boost your success. Follow these tips to reach out online and grow your online presence.

Research your Target Audience. If you’ve been building homes for several years now you may know who your audience and type of customers are that buy your homes, but do you know exactly? To learn more about them there are some great tools out there such as Google for Real Estate and Compete that will narrow down your target audience including age, gender, income and marital status. You must do some thorough  research and planning before coming up with good content and communication strategies online.

Voice Your Brand. Come up with a message that your audience will want to hear and be creative. You may want to hire a professional marketing team to help you develop this. It will be foundation of your brand’s online presence. Make sure that you speak with  your audience and not at them. Relate to their needs and be consistent and clear in your message.

Get Social. Now that you know what type of audience you have and a clear message to deliver to them, its time to get into the social media scene and interacting daily with them. Start a Facebook page and Twitter account and ‘Like’ and ‘Follow’ other industry professionals and connect with them on LinkedIn. Leverage any existing offline partnerships in your online circle and grow your reputation. Start an online blog and write articles weekly that will spark interest and drive traffic. Search engines love fresh content.

Network = Networthy. Remember that starting conversations invoke interest and interaction with you and your brand. The more that you network and reach out, the stronger your online reputation will grow.  As you continue to build your reputation online, remember that it takes time and dedication and it is not easy. It may be helpful to recruit a team of people that can help with your social media campaign. Stick with these strategies and you will start to see your hard work pay off and more leads and sales will start to come through online, always make sure to follow up!