A growing number of homebuilders are learning how to use their website to promote the advantages of living in their homes.
By David Weldon
Browse the website of Homes by Carmen Dominguez and a few definite impressions emerge of the company and it’s Orlando area projects — elegant exterior home designs, large and inviting living spaces, bright lighting and subdued color schemes, traditional features, and complementary landscaping.
But beyond the gallery images of attractive homes and room designs, the website itself leaves similar impressions — subdued page colors, simple link designs, classic background images.
The similar impressions between the company’s house projects and its website are not accidental. They are part of a deliberate online branding effort that carries the message of Carmen Dominguez’s approach to her houses to every part of the company’s marketing: “Custom Homes of Timeless Elegance.”
That blending of company brand and website presentation is the holy grail of online marketing. More than just an electronic catalog of floor plans, or email inbox from customers, a growing number of builders are using their website as a critical tool for attracting customers, creating community, and furthering brand.
“We’re trying to tell the Carmen Dominguez story on our website,” explains Michael Williams, general manager at Homes by Carmen Dominguez, a custom home builder in Orlando.
Homes by Carmen Dominguez is unique in the Orlando market because it is owned by a Hispanic woman, and that fact has a great influence on every aspect of the company’s designs. The company wants customers to be aware of that fact, to share Carmen’s vision of European inspired traditional elegance, and to appreciate her approach of building homes that incorporate the customer’s personality. “It’s not just about building a house, it’s about establishing a relationship,” Williams says.
But every relationship starts with a first glance. And, as the saying goes, you never get a second chance to make a first impression.
Love at first site
In a competitive environment, the builder has one chance to get the customer’s attention and wow them. The key is to use every marketing tool available to get your company’s image in front of the customer, to create a favorable and lasting impression, and demonstrate how you are different from your competition, says Williams.
“Branding is not the logo you put on your product, not the name of your company, and not the stuff you send out,” explains Brian Bram, director of creative services at Last Panda Creative Media, an online consulting and design firm in Cambridge, Mass. “Branding is less tangible — not what you think of yourself, but what others think of you.”
To give an example, Bram cited the Rolls Royce automobile line. Mention a Rolls Royce in conversation, and your listener might not know the specific details and options available in the latest model. But they will have a very clear image of who drives one, what they earn, and the lifestyle they lead. What makes Rolls Royce the icon of the luxury automobile is how the public perceives the experience of owning one, he explains.
This is where the Internet can be an invaluable tool, Bram explains. Virtually every company in every industry claims the same thing to their customers, but a web site enables you to interact with customers in a way never possible before, and prove it.
“Until recently, the web was seen as just one of several marketing tools,” Bram says. “But I see web-centric branding as being the most effective of all.”
For builders, a website enables the company to show more than just the floor plans and designs of house models they offer, but more importantly, the benefits of the developments they build and communities they build in. Bram calls this “experience marketing.”
“The benefits of living in your community are more important than the features of your houses,” Bram says. “Convey to the customer what it is like to live, work or shop there, not just what the building looks like.”
Bram recommends that builders bring the wider community into their website content, and make the site as interactive as possible. He also recommends that the site cater to more than one target audience, such as initial customers that need basic company and contact information when shopping for a builder; contracted clients that need design option ideas for the house they are having built; longer-term customers that need warranty and upkeep information for they house they have been in for a year or so; and vendor and building partner customers.
Serving existing customers
Failing to involve existing customers is one of the greatest shortcomings of most builder websites currently, according to Blair Kunhen, director of marketing at Builder Homesite Inc., an online consortium of homebuilders and building product manufacturers.
Other mistakes that builders commonly make with their websites, Kunhen says, include making sites that are “too flashy” (often distracting and annoying); use too many large graphics (“people won’t wait for a slow loading picture”); send inconsistent or conflicting branding messages (different branding message online and offline); and fail to capture information of who visits the site and how they use it (“the work doesn’t end when the visitor gets off the website, that’s when it begins,” he says).
Like Bram, Kunhen advises builders to capture a sense of the greater community in their websites. “Bring forth the lifestyle of what it is like to live in your communities — including information on schools, resale value, etc.” What defines a builder and creates an image in the public mind of their company is not just the contractor’s choice of exterior styles, but how their houses fit in and enhance a neighborhood, he notes.
While webmasters would no doubt like to believe that visitors are eager to return day after day, in reality, it is hard to get visitors to keep coming back to your website on a frequent basis, Kunhen says. That puts the burden on the builder to remind customers to do so. And that is where related marketing tools, such as email blasts and online newsletters, can help.
But beware the habit of sending out email blasts or electronic newsletters to your customers on too frequent a basis, advises Leslie Stevens, president of Eclipse Marketing, in Concord, Calif. Stevens focuses on the homebuilder market, and regularly works with both builders and electronics integrators in marketing and branding efforts. She says that customers will appreciate information, and advertising, if they view it as truly useful.
In addition to offering virtual tours of home models and community developments, Stevens says builders should make every piece of their marketing efforts available on the website, such as links to PDF versions of the originals. This includes every brochure the company prints, information on every vendor the builder works with, links to press releases from the company, and links to media references to the company.
Other useful offerings on the website can include virtual press conferences, so-called webinars for customers that enable them to hear from product or decorating experts, Stevens says.
A point that is often lost in branding efforts, Stevens says, is to make the website the central point of contact for customers and have all branding and marketing material reference and —most importantly — point to the website. This includes radio or television spots, print brochures and flyers, signs and banners, all of which should promote the website URL.
It is also important to keep the website a living thing, Stevens notes, not a static billboard. Content and features should be changed regularly, and updated often. If a visitor to the site is turned off by lack-luster technology or antiquated information, the builder can’t expect to be viewed as innovative in their market.
Builders should track visits from all links and features they put on the website, Stevens says, and compare marketing results from the website against other mediums the company uses. This will let the builder know if the website is working from a branding perspective, not just a page link one.
Like Kunhen, Stevens advises builders to design websites that promote brand and community, and in ways that are simple and easy to use. That includes the technologies that the builder uses to build and manage the website. “Everyone has a different computer — Mac, PC, old, new.” If a site page does need to use advanced or data intensive graphics, there should still be a default link (“If you can’t see the graphics, click here”) to a lower tech-spec version of that content.
Getting it right
While the building industry has been accused of being historically slow in adopting technology and using the Internet for sales and marketing, builders can take some comfort in knowing they are not alone, says Andrew Celentano, president of SkyWorld Interactive, a website development and Internet strategy consulting firm in Stoneham, Mass.
Asked how good a job companies do at using their website to further their branding efforts, Celentano says “the overall rating I would give is mediocre. Even many large companies aren’t doing a very good job at it.” That is unfortunate, he adds, since an effective website and branding effort enables even smaller homebuilders “to compete with the big guys.”
Celentano advises corporate clients in how to create and grow image, and how to continuously engage perspective and existing clients. He stresses that “there is very little attention span” on the web, and builders must quickly capture a customer’s interest — from the customer’s perspective.
“Most sites like to talk about themselves,” Celentano says of corporate sites he has studied. “We’re trying to turn that around, to talk about the customer. Most customers are on your site because they have a problem they want to solve.”
Avoid being cute with your marketing, and using language or imagery that is unfamiliar, Celentano says: “I’ve seen campaigns where the message made sense for the client, but not the audience.”
Celentano also advises that builders develop a website that speaks to different target audiences according to the needs of each, and “customize your site to show different views and different navigation, according to their individual needs.”
Like Stevens, Celentano recommends that a builder make all materials related to the company available on the website. Beyond just linking to news releases and media articles, he also suggests sending out case studies on projects the builder has done through email and newsletter features.
To keep potential and existing customers happy, and not harassed, by your online efforts, Celentano advises the builder to include “Keep Me Informed” type links on the site. This not only lets the builder compile contact information on perspective leads, it gains permission to send out follow-up materials and builds community.
A word of caution with website development, Celentano says: the builder should only develop features and content areas that they can effectively manage. It is easy to add links and functions to a website that aren’t routinely checked or acted on. This creates frustration for visitors, and casts a bad light on customer service.
“On the internet, and with email, people expect to get immediate answers to their queries,” Celentano says. “The follow-through is very important.”
Finally, at the risk of sounding self-serving, Celentano advises builders to seek out a company that can really advise them in how to a website that serves the customer needs.
“Some of our clients could do their websites technically,” Celentano says, “but they don’t know how goofy it looks to the public. If you’re trying to get a client that is technically well-healed, and they are looking for a professional company, it’s worth spending the money to make your website reflect a very professional company, and not a mom-and-pop shop.”