Our friends in new home construction are grappling with a great deal of change and unpredictability as the COVID-19 crisis continues. The challenges are real: steep nationwide drops in monthly contracts and average sales rates per community, significant uncertainty on the mortgage front, and major instability across labor and the supply chain. While we’ve seen encouraging signs in some markets, the savviest homebuilders are reacting swiftly to navigate the current environment and positioning themselves to pivot toward recovery.
After 25+ years of working with homebuilders and developers across the country to weather all kinds of challenges (think 9/11 and 2008), we’ve learned that the right marketing can make a tremendous difference as you work to sustain your business through this crisis and the recovery that’s sure to come. To help your marketing team continue driving sales and building your brand, we’ve gathered a few strategic suggestions.
- Leverage high-touch communication to protect the sales you’ve already made. From contract to close, going above and beyond for every buyer should always be “business as usual.” In these unusual times, it pays to figure out what’s beyond that — and operationalize it as fast as possible. Capitalize on every opportunity for better, more frequent touchpoints with your backlog to help them stay confident in their buying decision.
- Get everyone on board and on message about COVID-19 and your business, and prepare the entire team to be as accessible and transparent as possible. Buyers may want to ask more questions of sales, design and even construction than ever before. Expect more calls, texts and emails. The good news is that handholding pays off. It’s a good idea to equip the whole team with approved talking points on how the crisis is affecting the company, your region and each particular community. Sales should communicate exactly how you’ve adapted the buying process (e.g., how you’ll be handling home tours and virtual site visits). Your design and construction teams should be prepared to answer questions about labor and supply chain issues, and how you’re keeping both buyers and workers safe. Most importantly, be honest and clear about how current circumstances are affecting each buyer’s individual home.
- Step up the touchpoints throughout the buyer journey. People need reassurance right now, so take a warm and confident tone. Stay on top of your scheduled calls and conferences, and maintain a more frequent cadence of informal contact in between. For example, a quick email update on progress with loan approvals or a text message from the construction manager with an image of a newly installed countertop. This will go a long way toward keeping these buyers reassured and engaged.
- Romance the finish line. Pepper your social feeds and email nurture streams with content featuring recent buyers enjoying their new homes. It’s easy to capture buyer stories and testimonials via Zoom or other conference tools. You can record them (with permission of course) and then edit those recordings into shareable clips.
- Retool your media and creative strategies to feed future pipelines. Now is not the time to relegate awareness building and lead generation to the back burner. Unfortunately, many formerly reliable tactics may not be practical or even possible right now. For example, billboards and other out-of-home elements aren’t driving traffic the way they used to because there are simply far fewer people on the roads. In most of the country, event marketing isn’t happening at all.
- Go where the people are now. What is working may surprise you. According to the latest Nielsen data, 83% of Americans say they’re listening to radio and podcasts as much as they were before the pandemic and, in many cases, even more. And, of course, people are using social and other digital media more now than before the coronavirus outbreak.
- Ratchet up paid social and digital advertising to take the place of out-of-home. Pretty simple, really — people aren’t out and about, they’re at home and they’re online.
- Utilize your human capital in new ways. People are interested in personal stories right now. With a clear strategy and good training, marketing leaders can direct social takeovers of your brand pages and conduct “live” talks on Facebook and Instagram. The design team might create a video or even conduct a live social Q&A on the latest trends. Members of the build team could be featured in posts that showcase craftmanship and quality construction. Think outside the box and capitalize on the eagerness for connection to build awareness, interest and affinity.
- Deploy video to provide a sense of “being there.” You may have to be creative and resurface older content or unused assets from previous work while social distancing is the norm. Animators, illustrators and editors can help create new video content without the need for an in-person shoot.
- Consider investing in more virtual or augmented reality for the future. Many builders are already leveraging VR and AR. The COVID-19 crisis may well serve as the catalyst that brings these “you’re right there” experiences to mainstream marketing — and you could be ahead of the curve.
- Expand the scope of your social initiatives with newer ad formats and social experiences. We’ve seen Facebook Instant Experience content perform exceptionally well for our builder clients. With strategically crafted creative and the right advertising strategy, the ROI for Instant Experience ads – including driving website traffic and conversions – puts this ahead of other content types.
- Replace on-site events with sponsored social media events. Parents are hungry for ways to keep their kids entertained, so why not hire a local family-friendly entertainer to create a Facebook or Instagram Live event sponsored by your brand? Wrap the event in other elements families can use right now — recipes, song sheets, coloring pages and more. These virtual social media events can be a great way to show support for your community while keeping your name out there. The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) shared the Chippewa Valley Home Builders Association’s LEGO® contest, and it’s worth checking out. Keep your brand visible, but stay generous, humble and kind.
- Finally, take heart! Homebuilders learned a lot from the previous downturn, and the industry as a whole went into the coronavirus pandemic in a better position than it did in 2008. Housing has taken a sharp detour in most regions, yet demand for new homes continues – if at a different pace. And while no one has a crystal ball for the timing or the details, indicators suggest that housing will help lead the country into recovery. Now is the time to dig in on what needs to happen today, but remember to set your eyes forward and start putting plans in motion for successfully pulling out of the turn.
