The digital marketing world is constantly changing and evolving, and agencies, especially full-service advertising agencies, must constantly adapt to new situations and learn new strategies to cope with various challenges. Let’s take a look at some digital marketing trends that all home builders will need in their toolbox in order to stay competitive and keep consumers engaged.
- Artificial Intelligence / Chatbots
You may have noticed the chatbots, or live chat, on many company websites in various industries. With an automated chatbot, consumers who visit your website have a convenient place where they can get immediate help with their questions and needs for customer service. Chatbots work with web design and artificial intelligence that is capable of tasks like answering consumers’ simple questions and processing payments. For more complicated questions or needs, you can always follow up with customers later via email or phone.
Chatbots make the customer’s experience more engaging than a boring contact form. It also makes their experience more personal and immediate.
You can set the chatbot to send customers messages on your webpage like, “Hello! If you would like to learn more about our available homes, please let me know!” or “Hey there! How may I help you today?”
- Sponsored Facebook Posts
On average, one in three people on the social media platform use it to find recommendations and reviews. Successful marketing plans for Homebuilders will include sponsored posts, or “boosting” posts, to extend the reach of a post to a larger audience. With a regular Facebook post, you may only receive a few likes or comments from your followers.
However, through media planning and buying, a sponsored Facebook post allows you to choose an audience to target (or an automatic audience), a call-to-action, the duration of the boost, and the budget. You can also use conversion tracking on the post, so you can evaluate the results and the engagement the post receives.
Sponsored Facebook posts look like an organic Facebook post, but the word “Sponsored” appears under the name of the company’s business page. You can create a new post and boost it, or you can choose to boost an older post. It’s a good idea to boost a previous post that your audience has already engaged with.
- Video Marketing
Using video for marketing will remain as important as ever for all Homebuilders. Video content is more engaging than textual content by a measure of 400% in some cases. Furthermore, visual marketing is the perfect way to display your work to potential clients and connect them to your brand.
Ideas for videos for marketing homebuilders online may include:
- Slideshows of home projects
- Home Walkthroughs
- FAQs
- Get to Know the Builders/Team
- Trends in Home Building or Home Improvement
- Different Home Themes (Kitchen, Bathroom, Exteriors, Interiors, etc.)
- Why Build a Custom Home?
- Facebook Live Videos
- Trade Show Coverage
- Personalization
Personalization is the future of digital marketing. General messaging that suits a wide audience is no longer enough to cut it. Marketers are now using segmentation and personalized, custom messaging to make an impact with today’s digital consumers.
Builders can now easily personalize online marketing communication like emails, ads, landing pages, and social media for specific types of consumers. For example, differentiate consumers by demographics, interests, behavioral patterns, etc. With personalization, your tailored messaging will resonate more with consumers and what interests them in comparison with general content that doesn’t personally apply to them or their needs. Here are some examples of different types of personalization that are fairly easy to accomplish:
- Email marketing triggered by behaviors like abandoning a shopping cart, browsing specific products/services, or downloading a catalog
- Personalizing emails for different segments of potential customers
- Retargeting website visitors with ads that show products/services they have recently viewed on your website
- Replying to your audience on social media by responding to comments and sharing user-generated content
- Using geo-location to target audiences to your location
- Omni-Channel Marketing
You may be familiar with multichannel marketing, but in the modern digital world, you’ll also have to strategize effective omnichannel marketing. Omnichannel marketing involves creating a consistent customer experience between different channels on which consumers research companies and interact with companies.
Digital consumers are constantly moving between channels. In fact, some consumers will use different channels simultaneously, such as switching between desktop and mobile versions of websites. The key is to provide a consistent experience that will meet the expectations and needs of your audience.
Homebuilders should provide consistent messaging, design, and personalized content that is focused on the consumer across all channels. Channels you’ll have to juggle will include your physical location, your social media platforms, your website and your mobile website, phone, email, and physical or digital catalogs.
One Eighteen is the Los Angeles advertising agency that can help you meet new challenges and implement new digital marketing strategies, through personalization, branding content, marketing campaigns, and more, to ensure success in 2021. Give us a call today, before your competition does!