Winning Throughout The Buyer Journey

The most expensive marketing that a builder can do is the one that ends with an avoidable failure on the lower part of the buyer journey. It takes time, resources and money to get a home shopper engaged and walking happily down the path to buying a new home. Here is a great infographic that we created documenting some of the common struggles that home shoppers encounter on the buyer journey. We’ve talked extensively about the importance of visualization, but today we are focusing closer to the contract—addressing options selection.

Every home builder marketing professional will tell you that the home buyer journey often starts a year if not two before a purchase is made. A delicate dance is often done to awe, educate, entertain, and entice a buyer down the funnel ultimately resulting in a home sale. Typically, early funnel content is educational. NewHomeSource nurtures many of these buyers with our Learning Center articles written to address the questions and concerns that home shoppers ask most frequently. It might be why most builders that list with NewHomeSource can typically attribute 30% or more of their sales back to NewHomeSource. The point is, that by the time a home shopper lands on a builder’s website, they’ve likely invested in marketing on an integrator website like NewHomeSource, as well as SEO, Social Media, and PPC among other things.

Marketers tend to focus heavily on getting online foot traffic and it’s easy to stop there with a premature high-five, but the research shows that the battle is far from over. Tools like room visualizers, interactive floor plans, and online VR are undoubtedly sticky, but the one tool that seems to work every time to get a consumer past the last sticking point is an online design center like Envision.

Optionality in new homes can be a double-edged sword. It’s often cited as the number one reason that buyers choose a new home over a used home, but it can also be the kill switch. But, is there a way to have your hand high and ready for a high-five when a buyer reaches this stage of the journey and avoids the typical pitfall? Yes! I would call this the magic moment for builders using the Envision online design center in presales mode. A buyer will launch from fear mode to excitement when you put the ability to understand the options available before they sign on the dotted line. Envision gives a buyer access to manufacturer-supplied articles, photos and videos, and specs that allow them to adequately understand the possibilities when it comes to customizing their home. With this information at their fingertips, Envision pre-sales leads convert at a staggering 20-40%, ensuring that all of your early funnel marketing dollars aren’t wasted at the last minute.  

Want to learn more about Envision? Visit theBDX.com or email us for a demo.

About the Author

Alaina Latiolais is currently the Marketing Manager and HBA Partnership Program Manager for Builder’s Digital Experience. She previously worked as a Digital Marketing Consultant for BDX working with builders of all sizes in the Austin, San Antonio and Corpus Christi markets. Finding her love for B2B marketing, she now helps educate home builders about marketing and technology and understanding the digital consumer. Alaina has over a decade of experience working with small, medium and large businesses on their marketing strategies, always with a strong focus on the latest technology and results. She has a practical approach that saddles between warm and daring, always challenging businesses to take the next step to adopt new technology and ideas.

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