Marketing like this is trying to appeal to the masses. You're paying top dollar to get exposure to the most amount of people - which in turn means you're really going to get lost in the mix. You're paying to be seen by people that don't really have any potential in becoming a customer, so why are you doing it? Wouldn't it make more sense to spend your marketing dollars in areas that only your qualified and potential customers will read or hear your message? Here are 4 great tips to spending your home construction marketing budget in the right ways.
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Secret 1: Facebook advertising can absolutely find your next client for you
Facebook ads are a great way to attract customers. It offers some useful features and configurability that often provide a much higher return on investment than other online advertising options.
First of all, ads on Facebook only cost what you want to pay. You can set a limit and not have to worry about your advertising costs going over that. Granted, if you want to pay more you'll get more views and clicks, but if you are on a tight budget this is a great way to get your online advertising started.
Second, Facebook has a robust mechanism for targeting ads. For example, you can decide you'd like to target:
- married
- women
- 40-60 years of age
- with masters degrees
- living within 50 miles of your office
- who buy shoes online and
- who vacation regularly
Finally, it's often better to get potential clients to "like" your Facebook page instead of simply directing them to you website. This way they will see your regular and interesting social media posts which will then take them to your site. If they have liked your page, you can get their attention twice - through your Facebook page and again on your website.
Secret 2: Actual case studies will allow potential customers to buy into your company
Everyone shopping online these days looks for the review section. We've gotten savvy enough to know that marketers are supposed to say great things about their product and we want to know what regular folks have to say. This is where a testimonial or case study can be so powerful. We recommend the following ideas when using testimonials or case studies.
Be sure to use case studies that aren't picture perfect. If every customer story is about everything going well and exactly to plan you will lose credibility pretty quickly. However, if you have a step-by-step case study about working closely - and successfully - with clients on a problematic build, or how you overcame issues with the zoning board, these stories will better show your commitment to your craft and customer satisfaction. Everyone knows there will be unexpected challenges in any home building adventure, so showing your potential clients how you address those will ease their anxieties and improve your credibility.
Utilizing these stories is absolutely free to you, and you can incorporate them into your website with a blog that is easy to update and keep current. All it takes is some time spent reminiscing with current or past clients and a little time to type up their stories. And, you can share these on your Facebook page where your pre-qualified leads who have already liked your page in Secret 1 will read them and be more likely to check you out.
Secret 3: Keeping a positive profile in online directories helps you get found online
Every place online where your website is listed is a boost in helping your site get found and ranking better in searches. There are collections of website listings called directories. These are not search engines, but they do provide credibility to your website that will then help with ranking, etc. Here's the secret part: while placing your site on one or two directories is certainly helpful, listing on multiple directories lends authority to your site and tells search engines that your site is current, active and to should rank higher. (Okay, it's a bit more complex than this, but functionally this is how it works for your site.)
The great folks at HubSpot have put together a list of themost important directories to focus on when listing your website. This, again, is a free step most of the time. Some directories cost money and you'll need to decide if you would like to join these based on your marketing budget.
Secret 4: All the power lies in local results
The internet has trained us how to search differently. Now, if I am looking for a plumber near me, I'll search in one of the following ways:
This is why it's important to incorporate geographic regions or cities into your site title and keywords. Change your site title to "Best Home Builder in [city, state]" so that when someone does a search like my second example above, you can come up first.
This is the fun part because of these 4 Secrets. If you start using geographic keywords and text on your site, this will tie into Facebook's location targeting, it will provide more specific information to your directory listings, and it will help with your case study blogposts getting seen by people in your region, potential clients searching for the "best home builders" nearest them.
To wrap up, much of the work to getting found online still feels like some kind of Internet magic that only a select class of web-geek types understand. While this may have been true once, there are now lots of ways to improve you "findability." Follow our four secrets above and get ready to hear from a higher quality of informed, pre-qualified leads who want to hear about how you can assist them their home building dreams!
Photo credit goes to Flickr user JD Hancock
