Nurture Leads (3 Steps & 15 Tips for Home Builders & Developers)

5 min read

Learn how to nurture leads, how to attract, engage and build trust with your audience.

Getting a new lead is exciting, to say the least. Who doesn’t love new business coming to them? Achieving new leads and developing a strong B2C relationship is not easy. In fact, there is a science behind nurturing leads. In this article, you’ll learn the steps it takes for home builders and developers to nurture leads to grow their businesses.

It’s normal to feel overwhelmed managing your properties and current clients. You spend a great deal of time and energy keeping your current clients happy and satisfied with your product. However, developing new leads is just as important, if not more so. New clients can grow your business, strengthen your referrals, and land you more sales.

Table of Contents

Definition of Lead Nurturing:

To begin, let’s define what lead nurturing actually means. Lead nurturing is the process of building effective relationships with potential customers throughout the buying journey. This means keeping in touch with your target audience in such a way that they will be more likely to purchase your products and services when they are ready to convert.

It’s beneficial to develop a strong lead nurturing strategy because although 50% of leads aren’t ready to buy right away, your target audience will keep your company in their minds when they are ready to move forward. In fact, recent research suggests that lead nurturing can help generate over 50% more sales-ready leads on average. Now that you understand the basic premise of lead nurturing, let’s get started!

How Home Builders & Developers Can Nurture Leads:

Step 1) Attract Consumers to Nurture Leads

The first step to nurturing leads is brand awareness. People need to know about your company first before they will commit to buying from you. The goal for step one is to get new prospects to become aware of your products and services and guide them to your website.

Here are 5 proven tactics you can use to attract more consumers to your website:

Run a PPC campaign – this guarantees you to show up on the search engine results page (SERP). Since 70% to 80% of people research a company online before making a purchase, this is an easy way to get more traffic to your website.
Listing services – there are many online directory services out there specific to the home builder and development markets. By placing your business listing on multiple platforms, you are opening doors for new business.
SEO – this is a strategic way to build your ranking on the SERP organically over time. In fact,organic listings receive 90% of the clicks compared to a paid result, such as PPC above. Keep in mind SEO takes about 6 months to get going and the longer you participate in SEO, the greater the chance your website will rank high on the SERP.
Classic networking – Don’t underestimate the power of traditional networking. Dedicate some time during each week of your busy schedule to get out of your comfort zone and introduce yourself to more people. Attend expos, seminars and pass out business cards as often as you can. Personal relationships build trust.
Banner ads – Consider allocating some of your advertising budget for developing online banner ads. Banner ads will promote your business on frequently visited websites such as news platforms, popular websites and blogs.

Step 2) Drive Engagement Rates

Secondly, this step to nurturing leads is to engage with your target audience. By now your audience has visited your website but may be unsure of their next steps. You need to keep them attracted to your business by starting a conversation with them to learn more about their specific needs.

Here are 5 ways in which you can increase engagement rates:

Chatbot – let the chatbot start the conversation when someone visits your site for the first time. You can program the bot to answer commonly asked questions for you. Plus, they work 24/7.
Social media – not only develop a social media profile for your business but also ask questions in your feed, post relevant information and ask for feedback from your audience. Questions increase engagement, statements don’t.
Interactive tours – get your website visitors to stay on your site longer by adding interactive tours of your available homes. Showcase your products using such tours.
Videos – don’t have the budget to participate in interactive tours? A simple video taken on your phone of your model home will work. Ensure your phone’s camera is high quality and the house being featured is in picture-perfect condition.
Phone calls – if you know of a specific prospect who has expressed interest in your business, a simple phone call can go a long way. Don’t be afraid to strike up a conversation with your new prospects to ask what you can do for them. Build rapport.

Step 3) Build Trust

The third step in gaining more qualified leads is to build enough trust for them to come out to meet you. Have them visit your design studio or tour your model homes or community. This step is one of the most challenging because many people tend to stay in phases one and two until they’re ready to purchase. The goal here is to physically meet with your new potential clients and further strengthen the relationship.

Below are 5 ways in which you can build trust within your target market:

Follow-ups – there’s going to be a sector of your target audience who is still on the fence about your company vs. one of your competitors. Be sure to continually follow up with them through calls, emails and other means to help them make the purchase.
Schedule a tour submission form – many websites have a contact us submission form or a schedule a tour plugin on their website. This helps the prospect follow through with their intention of buying a home.
Reviews and referrals – did you know 97% of people read reviews about a local business? This is important considering 90% of people claim positive online reviews influenced their buying decisions. Gain trust by gaining more positive reviews.
Update your CRM – a CRM is short for Customer Relationship Management and many businesses use this form of tool to manage client’s tasks and needs. Be sure to keep your CRM always updated by adding specific notes about the prospect, such as when the last time you heard from them, what their request was, and anything else that helps you to continually build your relationship over time.
Directions – make it even easier for people to find your business’s physical location by adding directions to your contact us page. You can do this by either typing out step by step directions or adding a Google Map plugin to your site. If consumers get frustrated about where your business location is, the probability of them buying from you diminishes.

Attracting the right consumer, engaging with them on a personal level and building their trust are the three lead nurturing steps in gaining more clients and sales. If you incorporate each one of the tips and strategies into your business and marketing plan, you are setting yourself up for success.

Which strategy is your favorite when you nurture leads? Let me know in the comments.

Above all, head over to the below articles for more home builder marketing tips:

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