Archive for the ‘Events’ Category

15 Marketing Ideas for New-Home Sales

Friday, February 8th, 2013

Position your company to make the most of the recovery with these tips, garnered from sales and marketing professionals at this year’s International Builders’ Show.

By: Clarie Easley | www.builderonline.com
While the housing market’s recovery is undoubtedly a welcome development for home builders, at an education session titled “50 Marketing Ideas in 90 Minutes,” held at this year’s International Builders’ Show, it was clear that the upswing is bringing on challenges of its own. After years of pared-down marketing efforts—during which time social media exploded into a major player on the marketing scene and shoppers increasingly took their searches online—many builders are facing a brave new world of new-home sales strategies.
To help ease the transition, a panel of sales and marketing specialists, including Robert Cowes, president at Smarttouch Interactive; Alan Daniel, CEO at Smarttouch Interactive; Jennifer Hurt, principal at Ingenuity Group; Lianne McOuat, vice president at Partnership Marketing; and David Miles, president at Miles BrandDNA, looked back on their own experiences and turned to the audience for best practices both old and new. Here are the takeaways:

Website Design
  • Think of your marketing plan as a solar system and your website as the sun, the panelists suggested. Your marketing efforts around the Web, including social media, email campaigns, and other venues, should all direct shoppers back to a well-planned site.
  • Don’t offer site visitors the whole story, since that allows them to make a decision without you ever having the chance to contact them. Instead, hold some information back, such as pricing, and experiment with different calls to action to harvest email addresses or phone numbers to enable your sales team to follow-up with prospects.
  • For the same reason that most builders wouldn’t trust your average freelance writer to hang drywall, panelists suggested hiring professional writers to write website content; builders should also have their writers create content for blogs, Facebook, LinkedIn, email blasts, and other outlets.
  • Make sure your online ads are staying in front of prospective buyers by placing “cookies” on their computer when they visit your site. Those cookies will then track the next few sites they visit—which are likely to be sites they visit often—and place your ads on those sites when they visit them again.
  • Incorporate a form into your website to garner information on what shoppers are looking for in a home. (How many beds and baths? Do they want a formal living room?) Then email them floor plans that fit their criteria.
Branding
  • According to a study of new-home buyers, five years after Lennar customers purchased a home, they couldn’t identify who their builder was, “but they know what kind of car they drive,” one panelist pointed out, emphasizing that builders need to look to other industries for good examples of how to stay visible to customers to better establish a brand reputation.
  • Decide what message you want your brand to be most associated with, and then ensure that message is conveyed at every interaction a customer has with your company.
  • Rather than fight the reality that people use model homes for decorating ideas, embrace it by redecorating one room in your model each month to keep people coming back while establishing your brand as a leader in design. Send out an email blast with a photo of a corner of the room, and then make people come into the model to see the rest.
  • Don’t underestimate the power of philanthropy.
Video
  • “With the value of using video today, we as builders should do something cool,” one panelist noted, adding that last year, 456.6 million content videos were watched and 105.4 billion video ads were viewed. Viewers spent 2.5 times more time watching personally relevant short form videos compared with other videos.
Targeting
  • Tap into professional organizations such as young professionals groups, medical professional organizations, and teachers associations by offering a networking lunch at your model homes and collecting business cards for a raffle. “These are people who have a career and a paycheck,” making odds better that they will be in a position to buy, one panelist noted.
Working with Realtors
  • Stay top of mind with local Realtors by sending sales teams to the Realtor offices to be a part of their weekly meetings.
  • Since Realtors are an excellent source of qualified leads, treat them as a customer and educate them on how you build and the value your homes offer.
  • Don’t waste money targeting all Realtors, since “90% of the business comes from 10% of the Realtors,” one participant noted.
  • Consider hosting a monthly lunch group for the top Realtors in your area at your model homes to give them a chance to become familiar with your product and learn about any new communities or floor plans you offer.

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SmartTouch Interactive Supports Local Youth Sports in South Carolina

Friday, November 4th, 2011

SmartTouch Interactive supports the West Ashley Rocks youth baseball team. The team plays out of St. Andrews Parks and Playgrounds in West Ashley, South Carolina. They are a 10 and under travel team that was formed after they played as an all-star team and won the Ripken/Babe Ruth 10 and under state championship. The West Ashley Rocks came in 3rd in the South East regional tournament out of 20 teams from across the Southeast.

St. Andrews is a very organized and active local organization that supports many charities with the events they host. One of the programs they are involved in is the Darkness to Light program. It requires all parents of children playing on the youth baseball teams to take training classes prior to the start of the seasons.

SmartTouch Interactive is a proud supporter of the St. Andrews program through the West Ashley Rocks youth baseball team.

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Alan Daniel, CEO of SmartTouch Interactive Participates in Marketing Automation Round Table at the Texas E-Marketing Summit

Monday, October 24th, 2011

This past Thursday, October 20th, Alan Daniel, CEO of Smarttouch Interactive participated in the Marketing Automation round table at the Texas E-Marketing Summit. The Texas E-Marketing Summit is an interactive marketing showcase within Innotech – The Business & Technology Innovation Conference & Expo.  Alan was invited to discuss in a round table discussion with Kathy Mandelstein, Director of WW Demand Programs, Web & Events, IBM Collaboration Solutions & Social Business &  Joel Granoff, SR. Director, SAP.

Alan entertained questions on the lead nurturing process with marketing automation technology analyzing the chart below.

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SmartTouch Interactive CEO, Alan Daniel to Speak at InnoTech Austin Conference

Friday, October 7th, 2011

Daniel to Participate in Panel Discussion on Marketing Automation at The eMarketing Summit Special Event @ InnoTech

Austin, TX – October 10, 2011 – SmartTouch Interactive®, a marketing automation and Real Estate CRM software solutions and services company, today announced that Alan Daniel, CEO & Co-Founder, SmartTouch Interactive will participate in the expert panel discussion, “Harnessing the Power of Marketing Automation,”  at the upcoming The eMarketing Summit, a special InnoTech event.  The session will take place at 2:30PM on October 20, 2011.

Daniel joins fellow panelists Kathy Mandelstein, Director of WW Demand Programs, Web & Events, IBM Collaboration Solutions & Social Business and Joel Granoff, Sr. Director, North America Ecosystems & Channels Marketing, SAP Americas – Small Medium Enterprise.  During the session, these three marketers will share their experiences with how to enhance the customer experience and sales cycle through marketing automation activities.  The expert-led panel discussion will take a deep-dive into how effective marketing automation processes can nurture and grow business. Real-world case studies and examples will be discussed and analyzed.

“I am delighted to have the opportunity to participate in one of Austin’s most important technology conferences,” said Alan Daniel, CEO & Co-Founder, SmartTouch Interactive.  “I look forward to discussing the impact of effective marketing automation and lead management programs as well as sharing some of the successes that our clients have had by employing effective lead generation strategies coupled with the power of marketing automation.”

About SmartTouch Interactive®

SmartTouch Interactive, formerly known as DemandGen Partners, helps firms that require a multi-touch sales cycle create a demand for products and services and grow their business with customized, interactive lead generation programs and a lead cultivation CRM solution. Backed by 30 years of experience in developing lead generation programs for 100s of clients, SmartTouch sets a new standard with lead generation programs and a CRM solution that integrates sales and marketing automation in one platform, SmartTouch. 

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Join Us For Happy Hour At The Oasis

Monday, June 27th, 2011

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SmartTouch Interactive Sponsors HBA Greater Austin 2010 Mid-Year Housing Forecast Event

Monday, July 19th, 2010

Robert Cowes, President & Co-Founder, SmartTouch Interactive, and Jenny Janda, Account Manager

Robert Cowes, President & Co-Founder of SmartTouch Interactive and Jenny Janda, Account Manager

Austin, TX – July 15, 2010

SmartTouch Interactive sponsored the HBA Greater Austin 2010 Mid-Year Housing Forecast Event held July 15.  Ted C. Jones, PhD, Senior Vice President and Chief Economist, Stewart Title Guaranty Company gave an update on the regional housing market and forecast for remainder of 2010.  During the presentation, Jones discussed current market conditions, housing starts, lot availability, regional growth hot spots, job growth and economic outlook.

“According to Jones, the growth of the regional housing market is directly tied to the area’s ability to create and maintain jobs and positive consumer confidence. While the US lost 1.37 million jobs since June 2000, Austin grew 94,700 net new jobs between May 2000 and May 2010. The region has gained 9,900 jobs year-to-date through May 2010 with 1,000 of those jobs gained in May 2010 alone.”

The population of the Austin Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) is forecast to grow by roughly 273,000 people every five years; doubling our current population of approximately 1.7 million by 2035.

One of the most important points made by Jones during the presentation – now is the critical time to buy in Austin.  With record low interest rates, mortgage payments will only remain this low for the short term.  The greater Austin area only has six months of inventory, which means home prices will begin to rise, consequently making the mortgage payment for the same house you could buy today potentially costing 10-15% more as interest rates and prices go up.

“The market is turning around and this is the time to get the sales and marketing tools in place to capitalize on every opportunity,” said Robert Cowes, President and Co-Founder, SmartTouch Interactive. “SmartTouch provides the competitive advantage builders and developers need to generate leads at a lower cost and a SmartTouchCRM solution that enables them to reap the highest possible ROI from their investment.   Now is the time to get these tools in place before the “feast begins” and take advantage of setting up sales conversions procedures that leverage today’s marketing automation technology. Those organizations who adopt the latest technology will recover faster and achieve a greater ROI as the market begins to peak again.”

SmartTouch Interactive is committed to being a partner with HBA Greater Austin and supporting these types of events.

To learn more about the event, visit https://m360.hbaaustin.com/ViewEvent.aspx?id=17803&instance=0.

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SmartTouch Interactive to Speak at Home Builders Association Greater Austin, Sales and Marketing Council Breakfast

Monday, May 17th, 2010

Austin, TX – May 13, 2010 – SmartTouch Interactive announced today that Robert Cowes, President and Co-Founder, SmartTouch Interactive will present at the Home Builders Association Greater Austin, Sales and Marketing Council Breakfast. Cowes, a real estate marketing and lead generation expert, will share tips and tools on how to more cost effectively find real estate buyers online as well as provide the metrics that substantiate the need for CRM tools to improve lead management and increase ROI.

According to the National Association of Home Builders, 90 percent of real estate buyers start their research online. However, only 20 percent are ready to talk to a sales person when they register. How do you solve the mystery behind converting these leads to sales? What are the marketing weapons you need to be successful in 2010? Cowes will share his expertise during his upcoming presentation, “Increase Your Online Marketing ROI: What You Need to Know to More Cost Effectively Find Real Estate Buyers Online and Improve Lead Management,” to answer these questions and more.

When: Thursday, June 17, 2010, 8:00AM – 9:30AM
Where: 8140 Exchange Drive, Austin, TX 78754

What Attendees Will Learn:

  • How to generate more Internet leads at a lower cost per lead
  • Tips and tactics to improve your email and Internet lead generation strategy
  • Dispel Google myths vs. truths
  • 90% of Internet leads are not qualified or go into a black hole. Learn about the latest marketing technology that can help you get a better ROI from Internet leads.
  • How to give your sales and marketing teams an edge with Leads + CRM + Marketing Automation

“As the housing market continues to improve, it becomes increasingly important for real estate builders and developers, to embrace a new approach to marketing automation and CRM – smart marketing automation that connects sales, the website, and day-to-day marketing activities,” said Robert Cowes, President and Co-Founder, SmartTouch.  “We are delighted to be invited to present and share our knowledge on how to leverage the latest technology to sell more real estate.”

About SmartTouch Interactive
Demand Gen™ Partners helps firms that require a multi-touch sales cycle create a demand for products and services and grow their business with customized, interactive lead generation programs and a lead cultivation CRM solution. Backed by 10 years of experience in developing lead generation programs for 100s of clients, Demand Gen™ Partners sets a new standard with lead generation programs and a CRM solution that integrates sales and marketing automation in one platform, SmartTouch™ CRM.

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