Home Builders: Creating Content that Reaches your Ideal Buyer
When you're working to market your home building company, you're looking for the right kinds of clients. In general, most home builders are looking to break into a market at a higher price point, and that's not always easy to do. There's so much competition in the housing market these days, and it's tough to compete with builders who've been serving that particular market for years. It comes down to establishing yourself as a quality builder in the market you're looking to target, and getting the word out about your home building company to exactly the types of home buyers you're looking for. So whether you're looking to build in the $1 million price point or the $500,00, here's how to make sure you're creating content that targets the right people, and pulls in the right jobs to set your company apart in your desired market:
Set a Buyer Persona
To create content that reaches your ideal buyer, you first have to know who your ideal buyer is. This is perhaps the most important step when it comes to content creation for home builders. If you create content for the wrong buyer, you won't get the jobs you want, and you may be forced to fill your schedule with projects that don't really fit your company's niche. So before you do anything, do some research.
What does your ideal buyer look like? Are they a young couple looking to start a family? Or maybe the buyer with the money to build one of your homes is an empty-nester who hasn't yet retired. You may end up with more than one buyer persona, but we recommend you limit yourself to three, for now. This is because your buyer personas need to be thorough. You have to know what that buyer makes, what they do for a living, what they do in their free time, how many kids they have, and have a general sense of what they're looking for when it comes to their new home.
It's also important to figure out who the decision maker is. Even if you typically work with couples, it's likely that one of them has a bigger say when it comes to who they want to hire to build their home. Once you've figured out who's most likely to be searching for your business online, you can start to create content that directed towards them.
Creating Content that Works
After determining your target buyer persona, it's time to actually create the content. Whether your website hosts a blog (which we highly recommend) or you're just creating content for your social media or Houzz accounts, it's important that you're putting out content that has legitimate value for your target buyer. What sorts of questions are they likely to ask, and what information might help them get closer to choosing a home builder? You're looking to create content that's thorough and shareable. Thorough content answers people's questions in a way that's satisfying, and shareable content ensures that your name gets more and more visibility on the internet.
Remember that you can't just create quality content whenever you feel like it. We know you're busy, and content creation is something that's likely to get pushed to the wayside. But when you're only posting once every two or three months, it doesn't give clients a lot of confidence in your communication abilities, and it will hurt you when it comes to search engines. Google likes websites that post regularly, and social media platforms prefer users who keep up their presence at least on a weekly basis. So if you're going to create content that truly gets the attention of your target buyer, then make sure you're putting it out on a regular basis.
Post that Content at the Right Time
In addition to ensuring that you create the right content, regularly, it's a good idea to put some thought into when you post that content. There are definitely times when more people are on social media sites, like at lunch time and in the late afternoon when work hits a lull. But it's important to determine when your target buyer is online. For this, you might have to do a bit of research, but just knowing your ideal buyer's daily routine might help as well.
For example, if your target buyer is a high-powered businessman, you might be best served putting out content early in the morning, when he's reading the news or going over emails, or late in the evening, when he's finally getting home from work. Oppositely, if your ideal buyer is a stay-at-home mom, you're probably going to get more engagement in the afternoon after she's finished a lot of her daily errands, and the kids are still at school.
Put a bit of time into researching when your ideal buyers are online, and make sure you're posting content when they're sure to see it. With so many people online and on social media these days, it's easy to get lost in the sea of everyone posting and sharing content. When you optimize the times that you post through research, you have a better chance of making your content visible, and pulling in some of those ideal buyers with your quality content.
Engage on Houzz and HomeAdvisor
Home service directories like Houzz, HomeAdvisor, and Angie's List are the ideal place to interact with people who already want to learn from what you have to say. These directories are full of people gathering ideas for their new home or renovation, and it would be a shame to miss out on such an ideal audience. If you don't already have an account, make one! Then you have an easy secondary platform to share your quality content with people who will genuinely want to read it.
What's more, it's easier to get your home building content shared on sites like these, where the users are all looking for information on home building tips and tricks. By increasing your engagement on home service directories, you're likely to start building relationships with more and more users who fit your target buyer persona.
Keep up on Social Media
We mentioned that posting regularly was a good way to make sure your content gets read, but keeping up on your social media is just a best practice for any home builder. If you regularly engage on your social media platforms, even if it's simple things like sharing other relevant content, or posting a few before and after pictures, you're more likely to get more followers, and keep them. The more followers you have, the wider reach your content will get. That means more people sharing your content, which means more eyes on your content from legitimate potential clients. It's in your best interest to keep up your social media engagement, even if you're just sharing one thing a day, and posting new content once every other week.
By following these content creation best practices, you'll be able to reach your ideal buyer and begin to draw in more qualified leads. Targeted content is a great way to help you break out of your current market, and start scheduling the jobs you really want. If you have more questions about targeting your ideal buyer or creating quality content, don't hesitate to get in touch. Evenbound works with a number of home builders and home developers, and we'd be happy to help answer any questions you have about the powers of inbound marketing.
