Ok I don’t normally do this but recently I had the pleasure of doing business with a very unique individual. As some of you may know The Builder Matrix recently opened its business doors to smaller home oriented business. One of our first new clients in this new endeavor was Robert Atlas and Phoenix Carpet Repair. He was basically a one man show trying to make a big splash in what was/is a new industry. Carpet Repair has always been around but always coupled up with those in the carpet cleaning business. Robert began his carpet career in the cleaning side but decided that he only wanted to focus on the repair end so he decided to start a carpet repair company. That decision alone makes him fairly unique because most people would not hang their hat financially on that one small aspect of the carpet business but he has very quickly proven many people wrong. After only a few months he is literally dominating the carpet industry in the valley of the sun.

What makes him more unique than most I’ve met is his understanding of the importance of the Internet for growing his business. I would not describe Robert as computer or Internet savvy but one thing he almost instinctively knew was that his new business needed to be online and in front of the right audience. Believe it or not, I have to convince many people of this fact but not Robert. He has aggressively gone after everything we taught him about his new online presence from his website to his blog to his social media presence and like I said, in short order he has gotten the attention of all of his peers. “How did you grow so much so fast?” “What are you doing to get your business?” are just some of the questions that Robert is commonly answering. If I could describe Robert in a just a few words I would say he is a “make it happen” person and he “get’s it” and we’re darn proud that he chose us to help him get started.

Wanna chat with Robert? Wanna pick his brain about his new carpet repair business? Do you live in Phoenix and need a carpet pro?
Call Robert. He’s one of the friendliest people I know.

Robert Atlas
Phoenix Carpet Repair
115 N. Beautiful Lane
Phoenix AZ 85041
(602) 688-4186

No doubt that if you asked 100 home builders & home builder marketing professionals around the country about their marketing practices and policies you might get 100 different answers. In today’s marketing environment there are indeed countless approaches and many reasons behind why some would choose one route and others would choose another. Lord knows I’ve heard them all. Some are based on hard data and facts and some are based on hunches. Some make a lot of sense and some leave you scratching your head.

This blog post was inspired by many years of working with home builders across the nation and most recently one builder that my company recently had the pleasure of working with (well, almost worked with). You see the builder in question approached us to get a proposal for some SEO work and after 2 weeks of research we provided them with a proposal and a solution to their problem. They wanted to virtually take over their market in the search engine results for the areas in which they build homes. A noble & lofty goal given that this particular market was very competitive and several major players were already in that space but at the end of the day it was doable.

So we have a problem and we have a viable solution. Done deal right? Nope. Last month the home sales for that area began to drop and the home builder lost two thirds of their expected sales for a six week period of time. That’s enough to get any home builders attention and I understand that but what makes me shake my head in confusion is the decision that this builder made and as I eluded to earlier, many many home builders make when sales begin to drop.

Pull the marketing budget.

Or at the very least halt all marketing efforts until things change. Why, why why? Can someone, anyone tell me the thinking behind this? Here’s a few things I know. Regardless of what the market says there is ALWAYS a buyer. They may not be coming in droves but they are ALWAYS there. With that being said when is it ever a bad thing to make sure you’re found when they’re looking even if it means you spent something to get that buyer? When can you not afford to have a first page presence in the search engines if that means that you get the most qualified buyer even when the market takes a dive?

After I spoke with the aforementioned builder about their decision I checked to see the traffic in their area, the area that they would’ve owned. I found that nearly 4 thousand people were searching for new homes in June. Even if that number is down by 50% that’s still 4000 searches. Wouldn’t just one of those buyers make a huge difference in your ROI?

You see, optimizing your site is a long term investment that ensures your presence in the search engine results regardless of what the market is doing. This means that when the market is good, you’re selling homes and when the market is bad, you’re still selling homes because you’re there when they’re looking.

So I ask these questions and I am seeking some helpful responses. Why would you pull your marketing efforts and budget in down times? Why would you not want to secure a piece of the buyers pie be it ever so small?

Allow me to offer some answers that I suspect are out there.
1.) You don’t believe in the Internets ability to perform.
2.) You think you have a deep grasp of buyer practices.
3.) You’re waiting to see what another builds does.

Please offer your input on this as it will no doubt be a learning experience for everyone especially for those marketing professionals that lose their job during these times.

Don’t forget to comment and thanks for visiting the Matrix.

If you find yourself not knowing how to answer some of these questions, you may need help.

Read more »

Probably the most common question I get from clients is “What in the world do I write in a blog?” Aside from the perceived terror of posting regularly on Facebook or Twitter it seems that blogging on any kind of regular basis strikes the most fear in people. I get that. I was a bit intimidated myself when I first began but then I just realized that I was thinking way too hard about the whole thing. Stressing for no big reason. So I just took a great big chill pill and sat down and started putting thoughts to Notepad. I decided that I was just going to have fun with my blog. And it works! Uhh, I think it works. So here’s the best advice I can offer for all you new bloggers to the world of the home building blogoshere, RELAX!

Some say that you should post to your blog at least 3 times a week. Yea! Like I have the time to do that? Maybe 3 times a week for a professional blogger but not this chap. Anyway, who made that rule? Is it written in some kind of blogger bible somewhere? Is that the magic blog number? I think not and if you’re stressing because you just can’t come up with content for 3 blogs a week, stop it! I blog when I have something to say, have an opinion to share, have a lesson to offer or even when I want to rant about something. Healthy cynicism used constructively is a good thing and people love that.

You need to see your blog as your company playground. A place to be yourself because as I’ve said a million times, people want to to see the personality behind your brand and your blog is the place to display all of your imperfect, raw and uncut glory. If all you wish to portray is your perfect well rounded self then just turn your blog off now, we get enough of that in American politics.

What to say, what to say?
Several talking heads in our industry have already attempted to fuel the flames of creativity as it pertains to blog topics so I won’t do it again. (Although I will if you wish to contact me)

But I will say this, and listen carefully, stop thinking that your blog needs to be:

1.) Perfect: You’re shooting yourself in the foot if you try to hard to gussy it up all the time. You’re not writing a 5 page school essay so stop trying to be grammatically flawless. The people reading blogs these days are the same people that are using “words” like LOL, BRB, LMAO, GTG etc in their everyday lives and I guarantee that they could care less if your sentence is grammatically complete.

2.) Relevant to the industry: Really? Who says? Where’s that written? Not only that, but how boring is this approach? Why not share something about you, about the economy, about a new product you recently bought and liked, something educational, or like I said earlier; a rant? People are looking for reasons to engage and respond and if your blog just reads like more website copy then it ain’t gonna happen. How’s that for grammar?

3.) Riddled with keywords: Again, who says? More importantly why? Ok, ok I guess if the only reason you have a blog is to help you with SEO then go ahead and litter your blogs with keywords but then it’s not really an honest to goodness blog is it? It’s an SEO machine and if that’s your bag baby then more power to ya but whose to say that your non keyword content won’t attract consumers? Personally I’d rather do business with someone that I could sit and have a beer with over the person that’s all business all the time. Wouldn’t you? I’m jus sayin.

So there ya go. Andy Rooney once said “That life is like a roll of toilet paper – the closer it gets to the end, the faster it goes.” So get to writing. The faster you start the faster you finish and the more comfortable you get.

Most of all, CHILL OUT. It’s not your company State of the Union Address.

Please share your thoughts – I wanna hear from you.

I couldn’t resist posting about some builder social media hero’s I’ve seen recently. This of course on the heels of a recent post I did about “doing social media wrong”. Call me a weirdo but I genuinely get excited when I see a home builder using social media in a way that actually generates interest in their homes in a creative and interactive way and not just the usual “We build great homes” approach. Creativity is what the public is looking for and if it gets my attention (and I’m not even looking to buy a home) then you can bet it gets the attention of those that are truly looking. So if they haven’t already heard it, allow me to say “Well done” and keep on leading the way. Take a look at these two Builder Social Media rockstars.

First stop is Home Creations.
Their most recent video was entitled “Joe & Makensie Tour Turtlewood“. Now I don’t know if this was planned or they just went with the flow but I was very inspired by its creativity. I think you will be too. Check it out and remember, this is just one woman with a video camera and her creativity.

Next up is Penn Homes and Lisa Pool. The best thing about Lisa is that she’s real and she’s raw. My favorite  kind of person anyway but what’s cool is that she’s not constantly pushing her homes but building relationships instead. She interacts on a personal level and pulls people into her daily life. Oh, and she’s always talking about the homes she selling. I wonder if those two facts have something in common?

It all begins here but what do I mean?

Information is king when it comes to building great websites but information squeezed into every corner of the page is confusing. An effective website is a road map that leads your consumer to where you want them to go, not just a collection of information. Many builders make the mistake of treating their website like an online brochure by just offering information about their homes in as many places as they can in hopes that their consumers get the message.  Unfortunately this is not a clear message.

Consider for a moment how you or one of your sales professionals would present your home during a walk through with a buyer.  You would actually lead them through the home pointing out certain qualities and amenities asking closing questions all along the way.  Eventually the walk ends at the Salespersons desk  where you ask the buyer to purchase the home and close the deal.  What you wouldn’t do (at least hopefully) is wave your hand towards the home and say “Well, there it is! I hope you find something you like! I’ll be over here if you’re really serious about buying.” Now, you might giggle about that approach but believe me it happens. What’s worse is that you may not approach a walk in buyer that way but chances are you’re doing it online and may not even be aware of it. This dynamic is actually pretty typical because we’ve been taught in the past that websites are tools that you can just “set and forget”. Let the website do the presentation for you and maybe someone will like what they see and call you.  No doubt homes have been sold this way but I would argue that with the expectation of today’s consumers that mentality is gone. I’ll cover the mindset of the online home buyer a little later but for now, let’s agree that you no longer can afford to “forget” your website and have wishful thinking about its influence on your consumers.

So then what is the ideal website look like as it pertains to clarity? Remember the road map? Well, now it’s a treasure map and the treasure that the consumer finds is their new home, but the treasure map that is your website is actually designed to give you the treasure! A qualified lead from your targeted audience. Obviously if you sold a home to a consumer online without ever having to work to close the deal then that’s awesome but  let’s all live in the real world for a moment. The greatest treasure, besides the afore mentioned, that you could get from your website would be to have that consumer provide their correct contact information and request to be contacted for additional questions or more info on the home. Here’s the kicker. YOU MUST INSPIRE THEM AND THEN LEAD THEM TO YOUR ACTION PAGE!

Ok, I know that as a general rule of thumb I do not practice the art of self promotion on Facebook but, I’ve been getting some good feedback about our clients Facebook landing pages so I thought I would throw it out as a service for everyone. We usually reserve this as a bonus for our website design clients but I realize that many of you don’t need a new website but would love to have a cool Facebook landing page to match your online presence. Well, here ya go.

A Facebook landing page is the default page that new visitors to your Facebook page will see. Normally, your Wall is the default landing page but with a custom designed FBML page you can give your Facebook visitors a little taste of your website. Take a look at some of the landing pages we have designed. If you’re already a fan of these pages you will need to click on the Welcome Tab to see the landing page.

For a $100 flat fee we’ll design your FBML landing page and show you how to upload it. For a short time we’ll throw in a Twitter page design as well. Give us a call, email us, text me and we’ll make it happen for you.

Hey, even if you do not wish to get a cool landing page let me know your thoughts on the ones above.
Thanks!

Ok campers, Social Media is becoming more & more prevalent for the builder crowd and that’s awesome.  Just a short two years ago it was nearly non existent but the lights are getting switched on and people are starting to realize its importance. This wont be another boring post about how
essential Social Media Marketing is to your business, I think you get that and quite frankly I’m getting tired of reading that shtick.

So there you are, coming in droves and appearing in my thread. Home Builders! I can’t say for certain but I think I’m connected to all of you or at least a fan of your pages. Way cool, but here’s the thing and I say this with nothing but love in my heart.

You’re doing it wrong!

Please take a moment and listen to what I’m saying because if you’re going to jump into Social Media then you have to make sure you’re using it in the most effective way possible as with any marketing endeavor.

Allow me to start with a story. As I mentioned before I’m connected to the bulk of home builders on Facebook which means that the bulk of the posts I read are from home builders. Duh, right?

Here is what I typically see. “This beautiful home…..blah blah blah” or “This new plan……blah blah blah” or “Come visit us at….blah blah blah”. What is this except for written commercials or as some like to call it, spamola. Now, before you get all frustrated allow me finish the point. The other day I took the time to pick just one these builders and I examined their follower list. I went through each follower one by one (more than 100) trying to determine why they could be following this home builder. What I found was a long list of industry people or industry businesses (like myself) along with what appeared to be friends from church, co-workers and a few that I just couldn’t tell who they were. Hopefully prospective home buyers right?

So, the question that begs to be asked is, when you’re posting this umm, spam; To whom are you talking to? Or in other words, who are you trying to sell? Who is seeing your advertisements? In the case mentioned above, no one that will be buying a home anytime soon if ever right? So to be completely blunt, it’s a waste of your time to post that stuff.

You see Facebook was never meant to be another place for you to place your ads. It’s meant for building relationships and allowing the consumers who follow you to see another side of your business. The real you. They want to know the personality behind your brand, the real, uncut and transparent you. If I’m a potential home buyer and I’m thinking of following you the first thing I’m going to do is look at your wall to see what you post. If all I see is “buy this buy that” umm, no thanks. But if I see you, you’re sense of humor, your comments about current events, your interaction with other people, your weaknesses and vulnerabilities then yep, I’m in. Sound strange? Not really. So many people have already said that Social Media is like a cocktail party. How would you respond if someone at a social gathering just walked up and forced his business card in your hand and started selling? Get the picture?

So this post could easily branch off to so many other topics about how to post, what to post and how to get your consumers to follow you but I’ll save that for a follow up post. First, I’d like to get your comments, responses and or reactions to this post.

Have you analyzed your followers? Do you know whose following you? If so, what kind of response do you get from spam like posts? I’d truly like to know. Leave your comments below.

P.S. If you wanna know which builder it was you’re gonna have to call me and I’ll let you know if it was you. If it wasn’t you and I can’t tell you who it was.

What’s more important: making your website search engine friendly or user-friendly?

Search engines rank your site…

But users must be able to find what they’ve come for… Does one trump the other? In short, the answer is a resounding NO!

Sadly, most builders’ websites do neither well.

I’m going to borrow an example from the current advertising world to try and make an analogy:

Best Buy has a new product line. And the company spent big bucks promoting it during the Winter Olympics. The product line: their Blue Label laptops. If you haven’t seen it, it’s basically Best Buy’s attempt (and it could really prove a winner) to respond directly to customer feedback. Based on customer surveys that asked computer users what features they’d most like to see in a laptop, Best Buy gathered all those wish lists and bundled the most popular features among them into this new line of laptops.

It may be a tall order, but Best Buy is betting that these user-designed laptops can’t lose in their market.

Back to my analogy…essentially this new line of “blue label” laptops is designed to be Best Buy’s most user-friendly machines. But underneath all this user-friendliness a machine also has to perform, and herein lies the relationship between search engine friendliness and usability.

Your website needs to be fine-tuned for search engines (site architecture, sophisticated but clean html, optimized graphics, meta tags, title tags, appropriate keyword density) but you have untold opportunity to work magic with users — as if this were a big blank canvas.

Maybe that’s too hard to believe?

Remember, one aspect of user-friendliness is ensuring that a site visitor finds what he or she expects to find after landing on your site. Do we know what that is?

It’s a good bet that a potential home buyer is looking for all or some of the following information:

• checking out your credentials
• wants to see your models
• want to learn about the surrounding community where your are homes are located

In addition to these bullet points, I have news for you: “what they’ve come for” may not be as easy to pin down as you might imagine.

From the moment one site visitor types a search query into Google, Bing or Yahoo! to the moment he or she clicks through to your site—they have expectations. They have expectations when they start shopping for a new home, in fact! They’ve already seen visions of sugar plums dancing in their heads. For many people the idea of a “home” is intoxicating and can take our emotions and even our senses to very powerful places.

I suggest you consider these intangibles as much as you consider laying out all the technical specs of a house.

Listen to what BMW has to say:

“What you make people feel is just as important as what you make. At BMW we don’t just make cars, we make joy.”

If you can pull this off with your website while having it rank well in the search engines, then you will be among a very small percentage of builders.

I spend a ton of time on builder websites. I like to see what home builders are doing in their marketing and I make a lot observations. Some good ones, some bad ones and some train wrecks. The other day I came across a builder site and wanted to look at their pics & floor-plans. I was greeted with this message.

Hmmm, I thought. “What it the world? Why would they do this” I asked myself. My initial thought was that they were trying to cleverly build a mailing list by having this requirement so I took a pic of this text box and posted it to Facebook asking for the opinions of other industry pros and the consensus was that this was indeed a train wreck.
Then I got an email from Lisa Pool from Penn Homes and she made so many great points about this issue that I asked her to share them as a guest blogger. So without any further ado, I give you Lisa Pool.

Lisa Pool
Builders spend on average $10,000 per plan to have it developed and put in place within the organization. Marketing of these plans is included in that expense. Putting a valuable asset on the web where anyone including the competition can take it, develop their own version of it and then build it without spending the money frightens many builders, especially smaller ones. It is a valid fear. We have had it done to us even within the last two months.

However, the truth is this: if someone wants your plans, they are going to get them. Anyone can walk a home under construction with a tape measure. Anyone can shop you at a model. Anyone can request a floor plan be faxed to them and anyone can go into your model with a video camera.

The other truth is this: after a while all homes look the same. Three bedroom homes have three bedrooms and two baths, occasionally a powder. Front load, rearload, side load etc. Kitchen with cabinets oooooooh this one has an island and granite. The reason buyers take notes when out with a realtor is because they can’t remember one home from another. So what makes one home stand out from the others? What makes a buyer make that final selection? That is what you have to key in on.

The buying cycle of a new home purchaser has extended, correct? People are shopping online for convenience reasons: time of day, work schedule, personal weekend schedule, kids soccer games on Saturday, church on Sunday, family chores. People shop online for the same reason people walk into the model and say they are just looking for decorating ideas. Sometimes they are, sometimes they just don’t want to be pressured to purchase something they aren’t ready for but are beginning to consider.

Websites are virtual models. You want everything easy to find and see, but ultimately you would like them to ask a question, to engage in the process somehow. You want them to come back if they are just starting to look. You do NOT want to be ruled out because of self imposed barriers.

So where is the balance? How does a builder protect his investments and still keep a prospect engaged?

How about the option to set up a portfolio of designs with their own personal customizations like paint colors, brick, furniture, or merely this optional bay window and side loaded garage? To set up this portfolio you ask them to set up a profile. This profile then allows the builder to gain much more usable insight as to who is interacting with their website. The marketing department can then send accurate segmented marketing materials that match the buyer profile such as blog material or how-to emails with track-able links bringing them back to the site. This will allow the marketing department to drip campaigns with sticky track-able marketing to further segment the market so that when the buyer reaches out for further information the sales team can “see” who this person is before they actually meet in person.

This type of buyer information is much more valuable in the long term than a mere email address that can be faked leading the marketing dept to waste time and resources on bad data. Opt-in and verified opt-in is much more usable. I’ve used the “how did you find us” method at contract and when they first come in the model but the truth is, they rarely give the correct answer. Even on the Internet I get bad answers. I asked one person and she insisted she got it from a source we don’t even have. I knew she came in via Newhomesource.com. She said she came to us from a site called “The Bluffs”. That is sort of true, but not quite.
Emails sent with pictures and links have given me more insights into this same buyer. I know what she is interested in based on her responses. Things like cooking, gardening, financing options, decorating and schools.

I would also tell a builder like the one you shared about that I score my leads and not with the traditional ABCDF methods. Certain actions and interactions on the internet detail a buying cycle that I can watch. As they reach certain milestones I can test the score by moving the buyer into the next profile. Their reactions to this new material will tell me how strong they really are and if I need to decrease the score again.

Selling to Internet buyers is like fishing. You have to bait the line and tie it on tight. When the fish bites you set the hook. Then you reel them in slowly or fast depending on their reactions, sometimes loosening the line, sometimes reeling it in as fast as you can. The ones that give you a real phone number and address, don’t even bother to score. They are ready, willing and able. Send them to the sales dept IMMEDIATELY and stay on top of them. They may as well be in your model already with a pen in hand. It’s just a few details they need to work out.

I love the profile idea. Great input from a seasoned professional.
Thanks Lisa!