The week went by slowly but today is flying by and there don’t seem to be enough hours to accomplish what I want to do today. Blergh. But anyway, the week’s news is also somewhat slow so I’m going to take a slightly altered tack today. We all know that it’s not a bubble and the housing market just won’t quit. There’s insane demand and no supply. Lumber costs a bazillion dollars and the supply chain is all messed up. Prices are high and builders just can’t keep up. So what’s a builder to do when they’ve got more leads than they know what to do with but they still need to maintain a marketing presence? That’s what we’re going to talk about today.
MAKE SURE YOUR CONTENT IS CONTENT
Now is a GREAT time to focus on SEO and improve your organic search presence! Get those Google My Business Listings up and running. Edit the copy across your website. And get those blogs written. I’ll let you in on a little secret, blogs aren’t supposed to entertain and delight if you’re a home builder. Blogs are supposed to educate and be authoritative. This article talks about the 7 types of content that gains traction and of the 7 the one most suited to home builders is the authority one.
Don’t post blogs just to post blogs either. More is not always better. This is where someone who is an expert in SEO comes into play. They research and analyze your site to find just the right kinds of topics for authoritative blog posts. Often, this type of content is what we call evergreen content, meaning it’s somewhat timeless and can be referred to often. Use it to post on your social media and to your Google My Business. Share it on other pages of your website. Not to toot our own horns, but we’ve for both a stellar SEO specialist AND some excellent authoritative authors on hand at ONeil. We’d be happy to help you fine tune your SEO efforts while you keep building homes. If however, you’d like to take a stab at some of this content yourself, here’s a handy list of resources to get you started.
WON’T YOU BE MY NEIGHBOR
Facebook is rolling out a feature that seems to be a direct competitor to Nextdoor in the US. Facebook has been testing Neighborhoods in Canada and apparently likes it enough to bring it here. Focusing on your organic social media presence is another great way to keep your brand top of mind while not focusing on bringing in leads. I haven’t seen this new product yet, but it seems like this would be a perfect fit for builders. Afterall, you’re building the homes that comprise the neighborhood.
Generally speaking though, upping your social media game is a great way to help your overall branding efforts. I say this all the time, but people take organic social for granted. It seems easy enough because so many people use it for personal use but the businesses that do social well, put an enormous amount of time and effort into it. It is a great place to build up your voice and show people the personal side of your business but even if you outsource it, you still need to participate in the content sourcing process.
The good news is that the home building business has an endless supply of content that’s perfect for social media. Beautiful photos of homes and local amenities ✅, happy customers who just closed on their dream home ✅, customer testimonials ✅, videos of home tours ✅, examples of giving back to the community ✅, interior and exterior home trend foder ✅. I mean seriously, have you taken a look at the content on the new Discovery + streaming channel? It’s all about homes and home life (and a heavy dose of true crime murder mystery). Get out there and show the world who your business is, home buyers want to know!
YOU STILL NEED TO BE A LITTLE SPENDY
Microsoft has added new product to their ads. Microsoft has oddly become like the little engine that could, except that it’s a very large and well funded engine that could. At any rate, their making moves in line with Google and trying to keep themselves in the ad game by diversifying their product line.
While it may feel like you don’t need any more leads, there will come a day when you do, and maintaining some level of presence across a variety of advertising platforms is imperative to ensure that you don’t find yourself trying ramp up your marketing efforts from zero and finding trouble gaining traction as quickly as you would like. Digital advertising is quick, but it can’t deliver results overnight. A steady stream of ads now, will help ensure results later.
Hopefully these tips will help you make the best decisions for your home building business in 2021. With that, I’m off to tackle a long to do list and sail off into my mother’s day weekend.
