Builder websites have taken a new status in marketing as a top lead generator, with virtual model homes and multiple touch points for every step of the buyer journey. They’re much more than an online brochure — your builder website needs to do it all.
Your Brand Needs To Shine Online
- Be Consistent
Your company should have a look and general feeling that radiates from your website to each and every online interaction. Consistency during the entire home shopping experience builds trust, memorability and brand equity.
- Be the Trusted Resource
Customers enjoy being included in your builder story by sharing user generated content and testimonials. This kind of sharing is a form of word-of-mouth marketing that builds organic trust and reliability in your brand in the minds of potential customers.
- Create an Engaging and Professional Image
Having a content rich and professional looking website goes a long way towards proactively addressing your customers’ needs and facilitating their buyer journey. People have come to expect these experiences in other industries and builders need to leverage the latest technologies and best practices to shine.
- Be Available
You can’t be available 24 hours a day, but your website can. Increase the number of home sales that you make by adding self-service features scheduling tools to your site. You’ll reach those late- night customers and night owls even when you’re not in the office and never miss another sale or lead again.
Build Confidence And Seal The Deal
- Ratings and Reviews
Ratings and reviews give real life credibility when collected by a 3rd party. Builders who have implemented TrustBuilder average a 4.4 average rating, higher SEO positions and increased sales.
- Testimonials
There’s nothing that helps sell a home better than another happy homeowner. The trick is to make sure that testimonials are current and not from two years ago.
- Financial Planning Tools
Taking the guesswork out of financial planning by providing tools like estimators and calculators can bring confidence in a time of uncertainty.
- Educational Content
The homebuilding process is complicated and can cause unnecessary anxiety. Having educational content for every stage of the buying cycle can not only help buyers feel more confident, it can help your SEO as well.
Deliver An Engaging Experience With Quality Content
This is not the time to hold back your best content. All of your best images, tours, and resources should be front and center on your website and wherever you list. And if you don’t have these things— now’s the time to create them, pronto. Make sure home shoppers have the tools to truly visualize their home.
Quality, Variety and Quantity is the rule of thumb when it comes to showcasing your homes. Adding often overlooked rooms like an outfitted garage, backyard patio or home office can make your marketing efforts stand out above the standard front elevation and black and white floor plan.
Interactive Floor Plans are one of the most engaging tools to add to your website to capture buyers in the early phase of researching. BDX interactive floor plans offer save and retrieve that prompts buyers to hand over their contact information—generating highly qualified leads for your team.
Visualization tools like interactive feature changers give a buyer confidence going into the purchase process. More importantly, a shopper that personalizes their kitchen, bath or even home exterior is an emotionally engaged home shopper. Leads generated from interactive feature changers like room visualizers should be deemed as hot leads.
3D Interactive Tours give buyers a complete view of your unbuilt plans and can showcase your available plans to out-of-town buyers. They are also ideal for plans that you do not intend to build as a model.
Virtual reality tours offer the most immersive experience for home shoppers to date. Structural options and design features literally come to life in 3D creating an unforgettable experience that will stand out.
Develop a Solid Virtual CTA Strategy
Calls-to-action help home shoppers have a clear path to get in touch with you. With more buyers buying homes completely online, your CTA’s should include language that more clearly defines the type of virtual actions that shoppers are expecting today. Make sure you have multiple CTA types in key locations on your pages and you have a solid mobile CTA plan to take advantage of those shoppers as well.
- Tour Our Virtual Model
- View Our Online Design Center
- Schedule A Self-Guided Tour
- Learn More
- Contact Us
Create A Mobile Adaptive Experience
30—40% of a builder’s traffic can be from mobile devices. Designs need to not only adjust to the size of the screen, the entire experience needs to be considered.
With a growing number of buyers purchasing homes sight unseen, the challenge and the opportunity for every builder is to make it easier and inspiring for prospects to fall in love and buy a home online. Make sure you give your potential buyers all the info they need when creating or updating your website.
To learn more about the products that can help your website succeed, email us or visit our site here.
