In this day and age, building a house is the easy part. Marketing your business and attracting new buyers is what many home builders find increasingly difficult. The prices are soaring, and competition is harsh. Everywhere you go, you’re fighting for attention.
How do you target a new home buyer?
Is there a special technique or place that you need to know of?
Knowing what works best and where buyers spend their time can help, but this comes later. For now, you need to identify your target audience and market.
Who is your ideal buyer?
How old is this person?
What can they afford?
What do they want from you?
To help you answer these questions, we offer several home builder tools that you can use to gain a deeper insight into your audience. Check out our Sales Lead Boost Campaigns, Budget Calculator, and more.
First, here’s how to target your ideal home buyer.
Determine what new home buyers want in a property
A generation ago, first-time homebuyers were significantly younger. While most Baby Boomers and Gen X-ers became homeowners in their 20s, most of today’s younger adults can’t afford to pay for a deposit before they are 30 years old.
There are two types of buyers in 2022 – older Gen X-ers looking for their “forever home” and Millenials who are finally financially ready to purchase their first house.
These two types of home buyers have different needs and expectations.
Of course, both Gen X-ers and Millennials come from different social backgrounds. While Millenials are mostly first-time buyers, a certain percentage of these young people are looking for luxury properties. Gen X-ers can be first-time buyers, too, or in pursuit of luxury homes.
Regardless of time and zeitgeist, homebuyers are always a challenge to define.
If you decide to start selling to all types of buyers, you would be stretching yourself too thin. You need to pick a specific kind of buyer and specialise in a market they are attracted to. Then, you can start building your ideal customer profile and define what’s important to them.
What features are most important to new home buyers?
As we said, different types of buyers want different things. Each group prioritises different layouts and amenities. That’s why it’s so important to describe your target audience.
For instance, most first-time buyers would rather choose a house with a fabulous open floor plan than a home with many bedrooms. Instead of size, they are looking for flow. Modern and aesthetically pleasing kitchens are also very much in demand for Millennials.
Meanwhile, older and more experienced homeowners (typically Gen X-ers) are in pursuit of properties that reflect their family values. Practical trumps pretty, so they’d rather pick a less attractive house in a great neighbourhood than a fantastic one far away from malls and schools.
Work out where you can find your target buyers
The age difference between Gen X-ers and Millenials becomes more obvious when you start looking for your target buyers. Currently around 50 years old (between 42 and 57), Gen X-ers have different online and social media habits than most Millenials. However, both are tech-savvy.
Most importantly – both generations are comfortable using social media.
While Gen X-ers and Millennials use Facebook in equal numbers, Gen X-ers prefer Pinterest and YouTube to Instagram and Twitter, which Millennials love using. Unlike Gen X-ers, whose long-established habits include offline ads, Millennials don’t trust traditional advertising.
In other words, Facebook is the best platform for targeting either type of buyer.
- If your target audience coincides with Millenials more than with Gen X-ers, the most effective marketing technique you can choose is social media-based user-generated content;
- With Gen X-ers, it’s better to go for a more traditional approach, such as old-fashioned TV ads. However, you should try to combine that with engaging tutorials and how-to videos.
In both cases, never underestimate your target buyers’ critical thinking and research abilities. Whatever you say is true – Gen X-ers and Millennials will double-check. It’s mutual to these generations that they are highly independent and well-educated, which makes them smart buyers.
Understand your target home buyer market
Your target market is a “specific, defined segment of consumers that a company plans to serve with its products and services”, which means your ideal home buyer affects not only your marketing strategies but also your products. It’s like building houses on demand.
A mismatch between your offer and the buyers’ expectations can break your business. If you invest in a type of house that nobody wants to buy, you’ll be in huge trouble.
What is the difference between the target audience and target market?
Essentially, they are influenced by the same buyer habits and characteristics. The key difference is that a target audience helps you navigate your marketing strategy and messaging. In contrast, a target market also affects other aspects of business, such as products, packaging, and price.
Here’s how to define both types of targets:
- Identify your unique selling point – the key benefit of your business offer;
- Define your audience segment and identify your ideal buyer persona;
- Evaluate your target market – is it accessible, competitive, and profitable?
Understanding your target market is vital for several reasons. The insight that stems from a thorough market analysis allows you to put your home buyer’s needs in focus. It helps you reveal their concerns and expectations and discover the most effective solutions.
Create a strong brand for your development
In today’s business landscape, a strong brand perfectly combines buyers’ expectations and your unique personality. It helps if you already have a well-defined target audience.
Now, ask yourself what kind of a homebuilder company you are.
You can’t be a luxury builder if your ideal buyer is a first-time homeowner with only enough money for a deposit. However, your brand can be defined by your eco-conscious values and sustainable materials, or you can specialise in energy-efficient homes.
Remember that a brand is a comprehensive concept that envelops everything from the colour palette on your website and in brochures to the language you’ll use in ads and when communicating with your buyers. In banding, there are a lot of different elements to consider.
The most important of these elements include:
- Personality and voice;
- Vision and mission;
- Tagline and slogan;
- Design elements.
In addition to being strong enough to resonate with your target audience, your brand must also be 100% original. For this, you should return to your unique selling point and use your brand to highlight what makes you different. If you do this right, you’ll have a tremendous competitive edge.
Advertise strategically
Once you have all three elements in place – the ideal buyer, the target market, and the brand – you can start developing your advertising strategy. Once again, it will depend on who and where your ideal buyer is. Regardless of this, you’ll need to establish an effective online presence.
Your website, social media pages, and online ads are the key to this.
Appealing Website
Your ideal buyer almost certainly uses the internet to research brands, which is why you must use your homebuilder website as a lead generation and conversion tool. An appealing and engaging website is the alpha and omega of today’s marketing, no matter the audience or market.
First and foremost, your website must be fast. If it takes only a few seconds longer to load, you’ll lose a lot of your visitors before they access the site. Your solutions must be instant.
The next in line is your landing page, where you must make a lasting first impression.
After that, your website’s appeal and conversion potential depend on various elements, from content to navigation. A great website must be easy and logical to use, visuals should be engaging and look professional, and content must establish you as an expert in your field.
With all these elements, your website must convince the new home buyer that you have the experience and passion needed to help them find a perfect house. An effective About Us section also comes a long way, as well as a clever CTA. When a buyer decides to contact you, that must be effortless.
Social media presence
Facebook and Instagram are the best social media platforms to market your homebuilding company and reach your target audience. Gen X-ers and Millennials use LinkedIn and Twitter, but these sites are generally not the best investments for targeting new home buyers.
Facebook and Instagram are perfect for sharing high-quality photos and videos.
As a home builder, most of your social media content will be oriented around this. You’ll need many attention-grabbing visuals of your houses, including renders, high-resolution photographs, and videos. Instagram is especially convenient for building striking online portfolios.
However, sharing photographs is not enough to engage new home buyers on social media. You need to interact with them too. Answer their questions, give them your expert advice, and keep them engaged with polls and questions. They expect you to be available and ready to solve their issues 24/7.
You should also leverage social media ads, but we’ll talk more about that in a moment.
Online advertising
Another way to target your ideal home buyers is through online advertising. In addition to your website and social media pages, you should also have a solid SEO strategy. While SEO drives organic traffic, paid online ads can increase the number of fast conversions.
Do you need both? Absolutely.
SEO
SEO stands for search engine optimisation. It’s an effective marketing practice that allows you to target and convert your audience in an organic (non-paid) way. SEO is used to help your website rank higher on Google when a potential buyer searches for local home builders.
Once again, the success of this strategy depends on how well you know your buyers.
Can you guess what kind of search queries they use? What are the common keywords that they type in? On top of “homebuilder” and “houses for sale”, they probably look for other keywords that reflect their specific needs, such as “two-floor”, “open layout”, or “kid-friendly neighbourhood”.
After you identify your target keywords, you need to find a way to incorporate them into your website through content. Avoid keyword stuffing – both Google and buyers find that tacky and unprofessional. Instead, use these keywords to write articles that will showcase your expertise.
Paid online ads
When we say paid online ads for home builders, we mainly mean the following:
- Google ads;
- Facebook ads;
- Pay-per-click.
When used in conjunction, these three methods create an online advertising powerhouse.
Potential buyers can see Google ads on top of their search engine results, which could help you reach your target audience faster than SEO. However, Google ads can be tricky. You need someone to help you optimise your Google Ads Quality Score, or you can get buried by competition.
Facebook ads are more straightforward and incredibly effective. The social media giant offers many native tools for audience segmentation and fantastic targeting capabilities. Also, when you pay for ads on Facebook, you get visibility across its social media network, including Instagram.
Pay-per-click offers a cost-effective alternative to paid online advertising if you’re targeting your ideal buyer on a limited budget. With PPC, you’re paying only for the clicks – every time the ad attracts a potential buyer and triggers an action that leads to conversion, a provider gets a commission.
Onsite signage
Banners and billboards, flags and arrows – onsite signage have been a real estate marketing staple for decades, and it’s still just as effective as it was fifty years ago. That might be the only offline advertising technique that continues to work like a charm and is certainly easier than SEO!
Onsite signage can benefit from the right placement, colours, and copy but can probably do its magic even if it’s less than perfect. Banners and billboards are in-your-face ads that are not too intrusive. You can’t miss them, but they don’t bother you, whether you’re Gen X-er or Millennial.
Differentiate your company from the competition
Easier said than done, right? Being unique and better than everyone you share a target market with is the number one requirement of running a successful business, but it’s also the number one challenge. If you fail to differentiate yourself from the competition, you lose your audience.
We’ve already talked about this when we were discussing branding.
We’ve mentioned the immense importance of aligning your buyers’ expectations with your personality. Differentiating is easier when you have a defined brand identity, but it requires plenty of market research. To differentiate from the competition, you must analyse it first.
Once you have a deeper understanding of all three – your business offer, your audience, and your rivals – you’ll be able to find a unique way to approach your target buyers. Your key differentiating point can be anything from your house design to your brand message or customer service.
Use an estate agent
You might know everything about building homes, but selling is an entirely different field of work. You don’t have to be a builder and a seller too. Instead of juggling too many balls, you can hire an estate agent to help you out. When it comes to real estate sales, nobody is better.
Local agents know the pulse of their markets and target audience.
Agents have all the latest information on the state of the market, current demand, and future trends, which makes them the most knowledgeable advisors. Not only can estate agents navigate buyers through the sales process, but they can also equip you with valuable marketing insight.
Do you have trouble with the research needed to understand your target homebuyer better? Local estate agents know where your ideal buyer parks their car, which amenities they use the most, and how much equity they have. A good agent is a powerful sales tool and a well of knowledge.
Help buyers visualise the development
Can you finally understand what your ideal buyer dreams about? That’s great news because you will need to show them exactly what they want to see. Buying a home is a giant leap, which no buyer would dare to take unless they are certain they’ll love living there.
Now that you know your ideal buyer, you can help them visualise their dream home.
Prepare a show home
Is your buyer a young family with kids? Most families enjoy watching movies and cooking together, so make sure to rent the biggest, most comfortable couch and set a scene for a perfect Saturday night. Add details to make it feel like a home – a bowl of fresh fruit or some popcorn.
Buying a home is not just a huge investment – it’s also an emotional rollercoaster. You need to help your buyer visualise how happy, calm, and comfortable they’ll be.
We should also mention that property styling ensures versatility.
Choosing the best layout and furniture for a certain buyer means a world of difference. You can even host two show-home events in the same house and try to attract two different types of buyers. The only thing you need is a perfect understanding of their domestic habits.
Full-colour development brochure
Another way to leverage the power of visualisation in real estate sales is by creating a fabulous, full-colour development brochure. Of course, you’ll follow the same rules as before – get to know your target buyer, understand how they envision their home, and show them the best version.
For this, you will need to invest in high-quality renders.
Though somewhat expensive, renders are crucial when trying to sell property still in development. Aside from staging a show house, there is no other way for potential buyers to see what you’re building, let alone picture themselves living their best life there.
On top of gorgeous high-resolution images, a development brochure should also include floor plans and property details. It’s a large project with a massive impact, especially since you can use brochures to tell your brand story and target your audience in both offline and online environments.
Nurture your leads and engage, engage, engage!
Targeting requires dedicated and continuous effort regardless of the industry or audience. With our Print Campaigns we can help you get a jumpstart and target users of Property Price Advice, one of the UK’s largest property price and advice websites.
Targeting is not the end of it, though – you must also track and nurture.
Monitoring your progress is an essential step toward strategic success. By knowing how many new leads you have and what your conversion rate is, you’ll know how to improve. You can use our tool’s detailed insight and reporting to determine which marketing channels bring you hot leads.
Finally, you should never stop engaging your audience.
Use your site to convey your brand story, post your buyers’ testimonies, and add shortcuts to help new visitors share these stories on social media. You can also use Facebook and Instagram to communicate with potential buyers, answer their questions, and impress them with photos and videos.
When they start dreaming of their forever home, they should think of you first.
