The way in which housebuilder marketing teams interact with their customers has changed significantly over the last year. The pandemic has brought with it new ways of thinking, new technologies and inevitably, new challenges.
In our latest blog piece we take a look at which trends are here to stay and how marketing teams can turn challenges into opportunities.
Keeping it digital
In case anyone needed reminding, it’s become abundantly clear that the digital landscape is the new battleground for marketeers. Adults in the UK now spend an average of 4 hours online per day, up from 3 hours 30 mins in 2019 and 3 hours 2018.
Recent data from Hubspot found that Construction has been one of the main beneficiaries, with web traffic to companies in the sector as high as 50% above trend during some points in the year. High website traffic, as well as an increasingly buoyant housing market, represent fertile ground for housebuilders willing to invest heavily in their digital output.
The move from offline to online is nothing new or unfamiliar, but the pandemic has radically accelerated the inevitable. A digital-heavy marketing strategy is now a must, providing marketing teams with deep insights into campaigns, customers and the effectiveness of their chosen platforms, whilst VR and other site-related digital technologies are important supplements for sales teams.
Managing your data
A crucial part of any successful digital strategy is effective data management. A recent study from The Drum found that 63% of businesses struggle with unconnected data sets, whilst three quarters said they can identify less than 20% of customers who visit their website and 38% can identify less than one in 10.
The requirement for digital solutions which respond to this problem has become an urgent one. Disparate sources of data need to be united under the same roof, whilst an anonymous user is a non-user unless properly tracked and observed.
Data management and customer data platforms look set to become defining features of marketing strategies for years to come, offering huge benefits when it comes to audience segmentation, targeting, platform selection, insight and analysis.
The problem is particularly acute for housebuilders, who will be some of the first to attest to the amount of resource that is wasted on targeting house-hunters who aren’t even ready to buy a home yet.
Prospect Generator are part of a growing market of suppliers offering effective solutions in the field. Our proptech tools allow you to closely monitor your web traffic and understand which of your visitors are a) interested in buying a home from you and b) financially ready to do so.
All the homebuyers are plugged directly into your CRMs in real time and we provide detailed insight and analysis on a weekly basis.
Keeping your customer engaged
An increasingly competitive online marketplace, growing expectations and the influence of the ‘instant gratification’ generation means that websites need to be engaging.
It’s a trend which has been accelerated during the pandemic, with recent data revealing that users now spend an average of 15 seconds on a website. Bounce rates are becoming an increasingly prevalent concern for marketing teams and the battle for the website is well and truly on.
“Content is king” is an adage firmly entrenched in the dictionary of marketeers and often described as the response to the problem. We can understand why: a quick search on google reveals an explosion of data supporting the virtue of content marketing.
The basic principles of web-psychology, however, are arguably lesser known. Our view is that they’re of equal importance and shouldn’t be overlooked when flirting with the ways in which to jazz up your website and keep customers engaged.
Especially in the age of corporate scepticism, users are increasingly on the hunt for websites which give them something of use. They’re more likely to give you something in return as a result.
Our Home Valuation and Budget Calculator tools do just that. They answer the most pressing questions of any house-hunter and in return they’ll supply you with all the insights you need. It’s pretty straight-forward stuff, but more often than not, simple is better.
Social media’s unstoppable rise
Social media usage grew at its fastest rate in history in 2020, with the 4.2billion worldwide users accounting for over 50% of the global population. The average daily usage is 2 hours and 25 minutes.
Consumer facing platforms like TikTok and Youtube experienced significant growth during the pandemic as more and more people parked up behind a mobile or computer screen. TikTok was the real star of the show and so much so that it is now being used by agents and housebuilders to market new homes.
The same can be said for LinkedIn, where engagement levels jumped from 610 million in 2019 to 727 million in 2021.
Wearesocial, one of the U.K’s largest social creative agencies, also points to an increased number of users adopting social media to go shopping. The data points to the growing influence of social media as the house-hunters shopping window, which is something we’ve spoken about before and expect to continue for the foreseeable.
The time is now
We’ve been encouraged by the fantastic response of marketing teams over the last year or so. Adapting to change has been of the utmost importance.
Growing demand for our products – which allow sales and marketing teams to harness the trends we’ve discussed above – illustrate that our industry is adapting to change with open arms.
If you would like to hear more about how we can help you stay one step ahead and deliver pre-qualified, opted-in sales leads, please get in touch with us at https://prospectgenerator.co.uk/contact-us/ or email [email protected].
