If you want to get new housing developments in front of the right eyes, direct marketing is essential. By reaching out to relevant prospects directly, you can make every step towards a new home sale more profitable and less risky.
Despite its daunting measures, there’s been a positive link between GDPR and direct marketing. Since the new regulation has come into effect our databases have been fine-tuned to make sure we’re targeting ready-to-buy leads, rather than sending out mass messages to a hotchpotch of email addresses. Today’s homebuyers are the best-informed homebuyers of all time, so your direct marketing strategies cannot be generic. To help get you started, we’ve pulled together our tried-and-tested methods of driving sales directly.
1. Be a prospect social stalker
Social media allows us to find out more about a person than we’ve ever been able to before. For housebuilders wondering what makes homebuyers tick, it’s the ultimate tool. Facebook especially captures a lot of information about its users. Use the network’s analytic tools to find out who your customers are – their wants, needs, personalities and shared behaviours. Local community groups often have thousands of members: see what they’re saying, ask them questions, then use all of this information to come up with a personalised campaign that targets your perfect customer directly. Here are a few campaign tips to get you started.
2. Jump onto third-party direct mail campaigns
Become a force to be reckoned with by partnering with third-party companies that have strong, relevant databases. All the hard work of building up a GDPR-compliant list of leads is done for you, but you must find a company that complements your house building firm without being direct competition. Our direct mail campaigns are exclusively available to new homes developers in the UK – we have the relevant audience and the industry know-how to pique homeowners’ interests. Take a look at how closely we can tailor your campaign, targeting leads based on factors such as location, property value and number of bedrooms. You’re immediately reaching an audience who have specifically opted-in to receive these messages, saving time, effort and money and landing genuine results.
3. Focus on benefits, not features
Don’t sell a product, solve a problem. Whenever you write any direct marketing content for a new home development, you want a juicy pull that will make prospects choose your company over competition. Don’t just mention the terrace, talk about the spectacular view and morning sunshine. If you’ve found out (from your social stalking, perhaps) that many local residents are cyclists, emphasise the easy bike route into town. If they’re busy mums, highlight the brilliant proximity to the local school and park. If you want web users to engage with your marketing efforts, the language you use is crucial to appeal to the positive emotions associated with buying a home. This is by far the best direct marketing strategy as it immediately puts the attention on how the property will make the potential customer’s life better.
4. Be consistent and measurable
The best direct marketing strategies have a solid return-on-investment (ROI). This will let you know what’s working and what’s not. Set an objective, figure out your budget and tweak future direct marketing campaigns according to each success (or fail). Without knowing this, you’re playing a risky game as you could end up investing hundreds on a direct marketing campaign that’s delivering nothing in return. Whether you’re sending out a weekly direct newsletter, following-up calls within a certain period of time or placing an ad on a local site every month, consistency also builds trust and awareness among homebuyers. Whenever you’re sending out a new direct marketing message, always create clear ‘call-to-actions’ in order to move prospects to the next stage of their buying journey.
5. Mix up your marketing
The way your customers buy homes has shifted. Search engines, email, forums, mobile apps, maps – the tools of property buying are far more complex than a decade ago. The ‘Digital House Hunt’ survey by NAR and Google found that almost 90% of new home shoppers use a mobile search engine at the onset and throughout their research. Prospects flit between online channels, using a range of devices to join up their knowledge of potential developers, areas, agents, prices and more. Which means housebuilders need to move with the times – reaching home buyers online directly depending on which stage of their buyer journey. From online research to active searching, it’s crucial to adapt direct marketing strategies to match where potential customers are. One of the biggest challenges for housebuilders is finding the right partners to tap into ready-to-buy databases and deliver these marketing activities. Get in touch with our expert team – who work exclusively with new homes developers – and see how we can deliver the best direct marketing strategies and PropTech solutions to reduce your advertising costs and increase sales.
