Flag inappropriate reviews

Google has specific terms of service that prohibit certain reviews, so if the bad review breaks their terms of service, you can ask to have it removed. It’s always best to respond to the review first, and then click on the little flag that shows up to the right of the star rating when you roll over the stars on the review in question with your mouse. Mark what is wrong with the review. Facebook and most review sites have a similar function.

For example, former employees, vendors, competitors etc. are not allowed to review a business, only customers. It’s best when responding to carefully insert the reason why the review is inappropriate, without being snarky. For example. “We’re sorry you’ve had a bad experience. We wonder if this might be a case of mistaking us for another business, as we have been unable to find any NAME HERE in our records. Please contact us at XXX-XXX-XXXX and we’d love the opportunity to address your concerns.”

Always respond to reviews

The lesson here is simple, always respond to reviews, especially negative reviews. Even if the review you feel is a mistake or malicious, you need to respond. You should respond to reviews in less than a week, but the sooner the better.  A review monitoring service can help you stay on top of all the different sites out there where reviews may surface.

Keep your emotions in check

As a business owner or manager, bad reviews sting, sometimes a lot. It’s really important to maintain your cool and not react emotionally, even if the review is unfair or mistaken. Remember, everyone will see your response. You want to come across as caring, concerned and willing to go above and beyond to make your customers happy.

For example: “NAME OF REVIEWER, we’re so sorry your experience didn’t match your expectations. We work hard to go above and beyond with every customer and would love the opportunity to improve your experience. Please call us at XXX-XXX-XXXX and we’ll address it to the best of our abilities.”

Bury negative reviews

Unfortunately, Google and other sites, for obvious reasons, don’t make it easy to get rid of negative reviews, otherwise, reviews would be worthless. So at some point, you’ll probably get a negative review. The best way to mitigate negative reviews is to bury them with positive ones. Unhappy customers are apt to leave reviews, but happy ones are a little less likely to go out of there way to do so. You need to make it easy by soliciting reviews. Advent Builder Marketing has a great tool to solicit feedback and let respondents share that feedback with a single click. The more good reviews you have, the less the occasional less than stellar review will affect your star rating.

What about good reviews?

We recommend responding to good reviews as well. A simple thank you and we enjoyed working with your will suffice, but anything to insert a little positive personality into the response will help build a subtle humanizing connection with others reading the reviews.

Overwhelmed by it all?

Let us help. We have an awesome software solution that can help you monitor and solicit reviews. Contact us to learn more.

The post Home Builder Guide to Managing Online Reviews appeared first on Advent Builder Marketing.

For some of your prospects, this will quickly become a minor annoyance and not much of a concern. For others, concern for the health of those around them will be a long-standing issue.  At a minimum, this means for some people, they’ll want to delay unnecessary in-person contact until later in your sales process even after restrictions are lifted. 

What adjustments should you consider?

Show your homes really well online

Now more than ever, an easy to use website that showcases beautiful photos, video walkthroughs and information from the comfort of home is invaluable. The quality of your work should be abundantly reflected in the quality of your online presence. If you haven’t added fresh photos in years, it’s well past time. Get professional photos, or at the very least, have a professional clean up and curate existing photos to help visitors fall in love with your homes even if they can’t see them in person.

Post on social media

We’re all sick of the constant virus news. While you shouldn’t be tone-deaf to what is happening, people want distractions. They want to think about something other than the latest breaking news. Give them some inspiration and help them to dream about that new kitchen or new home.

Make it easy to connect

If you have yet to do so, consider adding a live chat feature to your website. You can control the hours and have it go directly to a mobile phone if need be. Studies show, website visitors will ‘text’ a question before they’re ready to pick up a phone and talk live. It’s a great way to break the ice and get a conversation going.

Make your availability clear

By utilizing a free service like Calendly integrated with whatever calendar you use, you can have a link right on your site for visitors to schedule a meeting, virtual or in-person. Giving the prospect the ability to look at available time slots without calling gets them over a mental barrier without committing, and makes it more likely they’ll actually book time with you or your sales team.

Get comfortable with virtual meetings

It seems like overnight, “Zoom” (a common online meeting platform) has become a ubiquitous term. It really is easy to use. As a builder, rather than meeting in your office, you can use the Zoom app. When virtually meeting with your clients, if you do so from a model home you can flip the camera and walk them through the home pointing out various details and distinguishing features. They can tour the home with you, without even being there.

If you need help with any of the above, even if you’re just having trouble getting a Zoom meeting to work, we’re here and would love to help you out. As always, we’re happy to talk free of charge, no strings attached. Call us at 574-400-6267 or schedule a consultation here.

The post Home Builders Post-Coronavirus: Now What? appeared first on Advent Builder Marketing.

Houzz is an extraordinarily popular website/app for people to collect ideas for building or remodeling a home.  Users can create folders of designs that they like for home exteriors, kitchens, bathrooms, and other indoor living spaces.

How is Houzz helpful to you as a builder?

A strong presence on Houzz will boost your online authority (i.e. help with search rankings) and get your business more exposure. With over 20 million users in the United States alone, many of whom are right now thinking about building a home, this is not an opportunity to miss. You need to be highly visible when users search for pictures, examples, and ideas for their home projects and for when they search for builders in your local area.

How do you become ‘highly visible’ to Houzz users?

The more proactive on the site you are the more your company will show up in those searches.  

How can you be more visible on Houzz?

There are several different ways to interact with others on Houzz. The first is through creating a portfolio of your completed projects for home building clients to search and gather ideas for their new home. Another way is to network with other subcontractors and suppliers that you work closely with on your home building projects. A third way is to be helpful on question forums when homeowners ask questions as this builds rapport with them and increases your authority. 

How can you create a successful Houzz portfolio?

1. Create a profile for your company. This includes your email, phone number, website, address, and a blurb about your specialization. You will also upload a profile and cover photo for your business. For these photos, you will want to use professional images that represent your business well and communicate to the users the quality of work you complete.
2. Upload a portfolio of completed projects. Show off your work through before and after photos. Be sure to use high resolution professional quality images to really showcase your work. If you don’t have access to professional photos, a home builder photo editing service can make phone pics look like near professional quality. The phrase “a picture is worth a thousand words” is very true in this environment. The more pleasing and eye catching your project photos are the more frequently they will be saved to the Ideabooks of users, which will increase your exposure among other users and promote your visibility on Houzz. Your project names should include a descriptive name along with the location.
3. Use plenty of relevant keywords. When you upload your project photos, list as many relevant keywords as possible. A goal would be to have 5-25 keywords per photo. These keyword tags are not visible to users, but help to make your project photos more visible on Houzz. You want to use general (ex. contemporary kitchen) and specific (ex. subway tile backsplash) keywords. In describing your projects, keep in mind popular trends and materials used. You don’t want to use industry specific terms, but use everyday common language that your customer would use.
4. Don’t skip the extras! Some additional items will be indicated for your completed projects. You will enter a location tag that will allow users searching for professionals in your area to find your completed work. A style of the room or house will be marked in the entry and you will also want to put in a link back to your business website.
5. Offer idea books. You can also create your own Ideabooks where photos can be grouped according to types of products, colors, settings, or specific rooms. It gives users a different way to look at your projects. They could browse a folder of “contemporary kitchens” to look for ones they like rather than looking through all of the completed home projects.
6. Ask your clients to review your business on Houzz. The more positive reviews you have, the more authoritative your profile is in Houzz’ eyes and you gain more exposure. You want to have at least 3 reviews, but 10 or more is best. 
7. Put a Houzz link on your company website.

How can you leverage subcontractor and supplier relationships to maximize exposure?

If you worked with any subcontractors or suppliers who are also on Houzz, you will want to give credit to them in the “Credits” line underneath the project description when you are on the project page. Once you tag another professional on your project and they accept it, you Houzz projects will show up on their Houzz page as well. If a user clicks on a project from their page, it will link them back to your Houzz page where more photos will be seen from that project. This will increase your exposure by allowing users to add your pictures to their Ideabooks, which can in turn, allow their followers to also see them giving you further exposure. 

You can also follow other professionals, competitors, manufacturers, and associations on Houzz. Networking with area designers will help to drive business. Like a social network, followers will be notified when the business has new photos, Ideabooks, or are featured in an article.

How do you interact with homeowners on Houzz?

Houzz users can comment on your photos and ask questions regarding products used, colors, etc.. To help build your rapport with the homeowners and increase your online authority, you should take the time to answer their questions, provide a helpful tip, and thank them for their interest. By providing them with useful information it will go a longer way than a hard sell in this community. Even those who aren’t quite in the buying phase yet could become prospective clients in the future. Your Houzz activity is also monitored in a tab, so users can see how active and engaged a professional is on the site.

What makes a business successful on Houzz?

Those who are most successful on Houzz will be those who have invested time and effort into their profile by adding high quality photos, keywords in their photo descriptions, information about the company, and stay active on the site by uploading new content frequently (weekly/monthly) and engage with users through answering questions or providing tips. 

If you have more marketing questions regarding this or other social media platforms, join our Home Builder Marketing Group on Facebook as we discuss ways to promote your business in the always changing market.  Feel free to contact us at Advent Builder Marketing with your specific business’ needs. We’re happy to provide free, actionable advice. 

Want more help? Colene here at Advent Builder Marketing is a Houzz expert and would be happy to talk with you further about your Houzz needs.

The post Helpful Houzz Hints for Home Builders – How to Boost Your Online Authority and Build Brand Awareness appeared first on Advent Builder Marketing.

Set up a Separate Instagram Account for Your Home Building Business

If you use Instagram personally, make sure you set up a separate account for your home building business. Mixing business with your personal page is a bad idea. Personal pages are limited in how you can promote yourself and can make your business look less professional.

In your business bio, be sure to include your business’ website. Keep your name and profile image consistent, recognizable, and professional. Spend the time necessary and don’t skimp when setting up your bio. This needs to be informative and interesting because it will be what hooks your followers. It should include who you are, what you do, and a bit of personality. 

Instagram is a Long Term Marketing Tool

Instagram works best as a slow, long term brand-building tool for home builders. You want to subtly get beautiful images in front of potential clients so that your name becomes synonymous with desirable new homes in your market area. Your goal is to convert passive browsers into happy clients. This is a long term play. You’ll need to post regularly for an extended period of time before you’ll start seeing any measurable results.

Overt Advertising Will Turn Off Prospective Clients

The typical Instagram user doesn’t want to see in-your-face ads for your homes, but rather inspirational photos of your home designs and projects. You don’t want to come across as the used-car salesman. You want to let your pictures speak for themselves by sharing ones that are attention-grabbing and full of personality.  

Use Warm, Inviting Quality Photos of Your Homes

Be sure to use quality pictures to reflect the professionalism of your business. Instagram has some editing tools available to help enhance the colors and moods of your photos, but be careful and consistent in editing them. If your photos are dark, cluttered or distorted consider using a home builder photo editing service to make the photos look professional before posting. You want to be true to the brand you have created. Lifestyle photos are key to appealing to the Instagram audience. Warm looking photos with people enjoying aspects of their home will capture the interest of the users.  

Don’t Forget the Instagram Caption

Be sure to include active and inviting captions. Don’t just describe the image, but accentuate it. Tell a story that emotionally connects the viewer to the photo and makes them want to see more, but be careful not to make the caption too long. The purpose is to be direct and interesting enough to capture their attention, make them think, and then to take action.

Give Incentives for Users to Follow You

Offer promotions, exclusive announcements, and promote events to your followers. Give them an incentive to keep in touch with your page and see what is going on with your business. Tell them where they can find you at the next builder show or home showcase. Offer them something special if they attend an event as a result of your post. Special offers help you earn more followers and solidify engagement with them.

Multiply Your Reach with Hashtags

One of Instagram’s most powerful features is the use of “hashtags.” A hashtag is a word or string of words (no spaces) that follow a “#” symbol, and typically appear at the end of the text on your post. Hashtags enable people who don’t explicitly follow your account to still find you. You can think of them as a keyword for searches. For example, if someone searches for #granitecountertops and you have a kitchen image tagged with that hashtag, your image will come up. If the user likes your photo, they may decide to ‘follow’ you, and you will be able to continue marketing to them with future posts. 

Your posts should have at least one hashtag, but no more than five. If you are worried about the clutter within the caption of your photo, one way to avoid this is by posting the hashtags within the comment section.

A few hashtag tips:

1) Use keywords and phrases relevant to your business.  Examples include tags such as #builders #construction #builder #architecture #interiordesign #realestate #homedecor #design #building #contractors #architects #renovations #contractor #home #renovation #homeimprovement #dreamhome #house #custombuilder #plastering #developers  #build #newhome #roofing #remodeling

2) Research popular and trending hashtags in your industry as trends change in popular designs of home design. Examples could include: #modernhome, #cottagestyle, #smallspacesquad

3) Use a mix of generic and specialization tags. Generic tags of the overall house could include: #housetour, #currentdesignsituation or any of those listed above. While specialization tags could focus on specific rooms of the house, such as #dreamkitchen, #outdoorliving, or #officegoals or they could be focused on building material types such as #quartzstone, #customcountertops, or #concretedesign.

4) Create your own hashtag for your business (#yourbusinesname) and use it consistently with every post.

Engage with Clients through Reviews and Comments

Encourage previous clients who are Instagram users to post photos and reviews on both their personal page and your business page. If they post photos on their personal page of the completed home project, you can share their tagged photos on your business page. Be sure to give credit and a shout out to the person in the caption. Be sure to respond to notifications and thank followers for their tags. You don’t want to leave the conversation one-sided. 

Analyzing the Success of Your Posts

Don’t let your Instagram account plateau! Remember, Instagram promotion is a long term game. You need to keep attracting new potential clients and in order to do so you need to know what is working. You need to analyze your successes, know your audience, and repeat those things that are working. You can track and see what times you should post to gain more engagement from your followers. You should also try and post content consistently, on average one image per day. Find similarities between your most liked posts and this will help to guide you on what type of posts to share in the future. 

If you have more marketing questions regarding other social media platforms, join our Home Builder Marketing Group on Facebook as we discuss ways to promote your business in the always-changing market.  Feel free to contact us at (574) 400-6267 or schedule a free consultation and we’d be happy to answer your questions.

The post Instagram 101 for Home Builders – How to Reach Potential Clients appeared first on Advent Builder Marketing.

But where the heck do you start?

There are lots of tools you can use to drive qualified, profitable leads, but there are three that are absolutely fundamental to all others:

1) A well performing website

90% of home buyers (including 73% of senior home buyers) will search for options or research a home builder online before contacting you (NAR 2017 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers). Regardless of which marketing tools are used, and even for word of mouth potential customers, eventually nearly ALL of your prospective customers are going to funnel through your website BEFORE they decide to take the next step with you. Your website is the lynch pin to all your marketing efforts.

You build high quality homes. Your website needs to convey that with every fiber of its being. It needs to connect visually (great photos, presentation, etc.), intellectually (sound reasoning, your unique selling points, etc.) and emotionally. Yes, emotionally. Studies show most people make decisions, like building a home, based upon emotions and then back them up with reasoning. If you’re site is ignoring this point, you’re missing out on great leads.

Secondly, your site needs to encourage the right prospects to contact you. Notice I said the ‘right’ prospects. A great site will subtly discourage those customers who are not a good fit while encouraging the right prospects to contact you with effective calls to action.

2) Local search optimization and citations

If you’re hard to find, or your competitors are showing up more than you, that’s a problem. Search optimization (SEO) is nothing more than optimizing your website so that you show up when someone searches for “home builders” in your area. There are things that need to be done on your website, as well as things to be done outside your website. One of the most important things are citation listings. There are litterally hundreds of sites out there, sites like foursquare, apple maps, mapquest, superpages, yellowbook, and on and on, that will list your site. The more of those that have consistent information pointing back to your website, the better you’ll rank.

3) Review and reputation management

Reviews matter. Even for a product like building a home, reviews matter. Inc Magazine reported 91% of consumers pay attention to reviews and 84% of them trust online reviews as much as friends’ recommendations. And reviews affect your search rankings. If you have poor reviews, or they’re non-existent, this can be a great area to improve the volume of interested prospects visiting your website. There are automated tools that can make getting and improving reviews easy.

That’s it. If you don’t know where to start when it comes to digital marketing to help drive more sales as the housing market starts to slip, those are the big three to start. No doubt you’ve got questions, and we’re here to answer them. Just click here to schedule a quick chat and we’ll be happy to answer any questions you have and offer some free advice without obligation.

The post Home Builder Digital Marketing… Where do you start? appeared first on Advent Builder Marketing.

As a builder, the feast and famine modes are all too familiar. But with a properly designed and executed digital marketing plan, you can get a leg up on the competition and insulate the downside risk. Here’s what you can do now to better position yourself for a market slide.

1. Invest while you can – Done properly, digital marketing has a great ROI. But it does take some investment, especially upfront if you haven’t laid the ground work already. If you want to turn on the spigot when home builds are fewer and farther in between, you have to have the plumbing first. So while profits are still relatively good, invest some of those profits in a marketing ‘insurance policy’ of sorts, to set up a digital funnel you can crank up when you need to.
2. Review the big picture – If marketing dollars get tight when times get lean, you best know where to put those dollars for maximum return. Take some time to evaluate now what you’ve done in terms of marketing the past few years, and ascertain where those dollars are most effective, so you have a game plan in place. If you’re depending mostly on word of mouth, nows the time to talk with marketing experts and establish a plan.
3. Get social – For most home builders, the potential customers are a matter of geography, and one of the best ways to get your name out in front is to use social media like Facebook. If you don’t have an account, set one up. If you do and you’ve been busy, it’s likely received very little attention. Start posting new builds, home owner tips, etc. to build a following. It’s a long term strategy that will get you better top of mind positioning should the market continue to tighten.
4. Consider paid ads – PPC, or Pay-per-click advertising is one of the easiest ways to turn on instant traffic to your website. With a properly designed campaign, you can turn it on and start driving leads to your door in pretty short order. And when the queue gets full, it’s easy to turn that volume back down. It’s one of the best ways to even out the ebs and flows of the market.
5. How’s your website – Digitally speaking, prospectives that search for home builders are going to route through your website (if you’re getting decent search results). How’s that website looking? Does it need attention? Are photos current and professional? Does it put your best foot forward. Now is the time to invest while cash flow is still good.

With a little planning, you can go into any market downturn better positioned than your competition, garner more of a shrinking market and avoid downsizing and losing some of your best personnel. Now is the time to take a good hard look at your total marketing picture.

The post Home Builder Marketing in a Shrinking Market appeared first on Advent Builder Marketing.

1) Find out when home building competitors are mentioned on the web

If you have a gmail or google account, you can set an alert to get notified every time someone somewhere on the internet mentions your competition. This is a great way to keep tabs on what is going on in your local home building market, and get insight into how your competition is promoting themselves.

2) See what home builders are doing on social media

Facebook, Pinterest, Houzz and more… if your competition has an account, make sure you follow them. For some incredible insight into Twitter and Instagram posts, use Keyhole. Keyhole analyzes posts giving you detailed metrics of your competitors such as posts, impressions and reach. It can also provide demographics, share of posts, geolocation and more.

3) Find out what keywords your home building competitors are ranking for

Google’s keyword planner is a great tool for ferreting out what the best search terms are that your website needs to be optimized for. However, you can also find out about competitors data as a feature of the tool. If you’re looking for even more competitor information, SEMRush has some great tools for analyzing competitor keywords, ranking and traffic. You’ll quickly learn what your competition is doing to capture leads.

4) Find out where their website visitor traffic is coming from

A backlink analyzer scours the web to find pages that link to whatever site you’re wanting to research. With a tool like the Moz Link Explorer, you can find out where your competition is listed on the web and make sure you’re listed there as well.

5) Find out where other custom home builders are advertising

What Runs Where technically specializes in helping businesses buy paid advertising, but it has some great tools to help watch what your competition is doing as well. It supports dozens of ad networks and allows you to track a list of your competitors. You can even set alerts to find out the moment your home building competitors launch a new ad or publish new content!

6) Don’t forget to play average consumer!

If your home building competition is harvesting contact information as they should, make sure you subscribe to any email subscription they are utilizing on their website. To keep things anonymous, use a non business related email address or create a generic email account with gmail, yahoo or other free email providers to use as a proxy for the subscriptions.

What if find out my home building competitors aren’t doing much in terms of digital marketing?

Well then… sit back and get ready for a pretty easy home run! Most home buyers start their search or do significant research online before getting serious about selecting a home builder. If most of your competition is taking a very passive online strategy, with nothing more than a website serving as an online brochure, you’re in a position to get a serious leg up! By employing some basic pro-active strategies, you’ll get your name out in front of more potential home buying customers for a minimal investment.

Feeling a bit overwhelmed by any of the above? We totally understand. We do this for a living and sometimes it’s taxing for us too! Feel free to give us a call and we’d be happy to help and answer any questions you may have.

The post The Top 6 Ways to Spy on Your Custom Home Building Competitors appeared first on Advent Builder Marketing.