Lead Nurturing: 5 Reasons for Why it’s Important (for Home Builders & Developers)

4 min and 30 second read

Learn more about the home buyer’s journey and how lead nurturing makes a difference for improving your sales.

Developing leads as a home builder or developer is far from easy. One of the biggest challenges to this is getting into the mind of the prospective homebuyer to learn what they are thinking. This can take some time considering homes are the biggest purchase someone will make in their entire life. Let’s venture into the mind of a homebuyer:

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Hypothetical Mind of a Prospect:

“I have a growing family and need more space for them. I’m looking at several different options which include custom home building, already built homes, and a newly developing community. I’m not sure about my final decision yet. I need time to think, research, and form relationships with a home builder company.”

Home Buyer’s Journey:

This type of thinking from a homebuyer’s perspective is common. According to a study done by BDX, almost two-thirds of homebuyers surveyed were unsure about when they would purchase or expect to take at least nine months to make a decision. If you’re a home builder who views leads as cold after 30 days, then I want to show you why this is not true.

You should consider lengthening the amount of time that defines a cold lead. Let your prospects take their time when buying one of your products to ensure they feel comfortable with their purchase. In this article, you’ll learn why it’s so important for home builders and developers to build relationships with the prospect through the lead nurturing process.

5 Reasons Why Home Builders & Developers Need to Perfect Lead Nurturing:

1. Impact on marketing campaigns

If you consider a lead going cold as no contact in a month, then imagine the impact that has on your campaigns. Most marketing campaigns last longer than a month and like I’ve discussed earlier, homebuyers take much longer to make a final decision. You can’t blame them either. In fact, the average person moves approximately 11 times in their entire life. So, they want to research their next move thoroughly.

The impact lead nurturing has on your marketing is huge. Think of it this way: lead nurturing is communicating with your client at each step of their homebuying process. From brand awareness, to when the keys are opening the door of the move-in ready residence, each touchpoint is a critical part of successful lead nurturing.

2. Gain significant sales at a lower cost

According to Forrester Research, companies who excel at lead nurturing generate 50% more sales-ready leads, at 33% lower cost per lead. Your sales team relies on leads to maintain a constant flow and to grow your business. The last thing you want is a burnt out sales member who is overworked and does not know how to properly lead nurture.

Lead nurturing techniques revolve around paying close attention to online user activity. It’s also checking in with your prospects periodically, depending on where they are in the buying journey. It’s critical for your sales team to know lead nurturing inside and out because nurtured leads make 47% larger purchases than non-nurtured counterparts.

3. Builds trust with your target audience

Buyers tend to make larger purchases when they are lead nurtured because they have a stronger trust in you and your products. Be sure to be not too pushy or salesy because buying a house is a personal and lengthy decision for anyone. Instead, be a genuine resource of information and guidance for your clients and view them as more of a partner than a lead.

You can be a resource for your prospects by having meaningful conversations about their goals and providing them with whitepapers, blogs or other tips that make the home buying process easier. Keep track of each new lead through a CRM and rating system. For instance, track the last time you spoke to them and monitor their level of interest in your homrd.

4. Lead nurturing emails get 4-10 times the response rate compared to standalone eblasts

It’s common practice, especially in home building marketing, to send a weekly newsletter or eblast. But imagine how successful these email campaigns will be if they were nurtured leads? One of the reasons why this is so successful is because they know who you are. They joined your email list because they want to learn more about your company.

According to research done by Hubspot, lead nurturing emails also have a higher unsubscribe rate (1%) than individual email sends (0.5%). At first, this statistic seems negative but consider the effectiveness of lead nurturing. This is because it’s doing its job which is prioritizing your time with those who are interested and eliminating those who aren’t.

5. Improve your lead nurturing process

If generating new leads was easy, then you would have already surpassed your sales goal for the year. Did you know that 61% of businesses agree that generating traffic and leads is their top marketing challenge? This is important because if you allocate funding and time to improve your lead nurturing, then you are already doing better than most of your competitor’s.

Here is a list of lead nurturing software companies you can explore to surpass not only your sales goals but also your competitor’s:

Ontraport – a CRM platform to manage your leads in one centralized location.
Zendesk – perfect for your sales team to communicate together and to increase productivity.
Salesroads – helps with lead generating for B2B opportunities.
Hello Sales – a 24/7 lead qualification service to help you with inbound and outbound calls.
Belkins – can assist you with growing, nurturing, and delivering sophisticated sales practices.
Leadium – helps with data cleansing, outbound automation, and B2B contact data.
Smith – an AI software used for website chatting and virtual receptions to maintain communication with the consumer on your behalf.
SalesGenie – great for small business home builder firms for CRM integration, direct mail, and email marketing.

These are only a few of the many lead nurturing companies that are out there. You can also achieve more leads through advanced marketing strategies such as SEO, PPC and other paid online digital advertising. A lead can happen at any given moment and having a campaign active, gives you even more opportunities to convert a lead into a sale.

For other resources related to lead nurturing, read the following:

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