How can you create more success from your online marketing in 2012? More traffic, more sales, more closings, more referrals?
It may seem obscenely early to start talking about New Year’s Resolutions when we haven’t even carved the Thanksgiving turkey yet, but I know that for many of you marketing planning for 2012 is already well underway. This is the ideal time to get serious about positioning your online marketing for a strong 2012.
Writing down S.M.A.R.T. goals (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-Bound) is the first step to transforming your online marketing from blah to brilliant. But with so many different tools available online, where should you focus your time and energy to get the most traffic, sales, closings, and referrals all year long?
Here’s our list of 10 achievable S.M.A.R.T. goals to supercharge your online marketing in 2012, along with action items that you can begin today. (Your actual numbers may vary from those provided below.)
1. Double Your Average Monthly Website Traffic
Creating and maintaining a healthy sales pipeline all year long starts with web traffic. Set a goal to double your website traffic (should be a minimum of 1,000 per month) and actively manage this each week, adjusting marketing as needed to reach your goal.
Action Item: Find your average website traffic for the last 12 months (using Google Analytics or other analytics program) and set a goal to double it each month in 2012. Add website traffic as a line item to your weekly sales and marketing meeting agenda to track performance throughout the month and discuss strategies as a team.
2. Increase Your Web Conversion to at Least 5%
Few things will make a bigger impact on your ability to convert website visitors to new homeowners than conversion – or the number of people who opt-in by email on your website. If you have 1,000 visitors to your site each month and you currently have an average conversion of 2%, that’s 20 new leads every month. Boost that number to 5% and now you have 50 new leads every month for your sales team to follow up with. How many more sales would you close every month if you more than doubled your leads?
Visitors can opt-in for a newsletter, to download a brochure, to subscribe to a blog, to enter a contest, to RSVP for an event and more.
Action Item: Budget in a monthly conversion tool including design and development of a landing page, A/B testing of that page, promotion, and design of the download item.
(Shameless plug #1: Need an affordable way to develop home builder landing pages? Check out Home Builder Blog Pro: Design Home Builder Websites, Blogs, and Landing Pages with no HTML.)
3. Lower Your Cost Per Lead by 50%
How much money and time does it take to generate one new web lead? A home builder that spends $2,500 per month for online marketing (including employee time) and produces a 2% conversion rate based on 1,000 website visitors generates 20 new leads. This is an online marketing cost-per-lead of $125 for every visitor who registers on your website.
If your goal is to sell 100 homes in 2012, and you sell 1 home for every 50 people who register on your site, it will cost 6,250 in online marketing costs for every sale, or $625,000 for the year. Ouch, right?
Se a goal to lower your cost per lead by 50% (to $62.50 in this example) and you’ve created a savings of hundreds of thousands of dollars every year in marketing costs.
Action Items: Determine your current cost per lead, then review your marketing processes. Are you spending money in one online marketing area (such as banner ads) that are producing a low return? Are there more cost effective marketing tools (Craigslist, blogs, SEO, social media) that you can use more effectively? Can you save employee costs by automating your publishing across multiple online networks?
(Shameless plug #2: Home Builder Blog Pro features a Social Pro plan that integrates your blog and social media accounts so you spend less time posting to multiple networks.)
4. Lower Your Lead-to-Close Time Ratio by 50%
Of the sales that you make from new web leads, how long is the average timeframe between new lead and sale? How many touchpoints (eBlast, personal follow up emails, calls, and notes) does it take? It it 5? 10? 20? It is three weeks? Three months?
Reducing your lead-to-close time saves marketing dollars, carrying costs on standing inventory, and employee time.
Action Item: Review all of your sales to date in 2011 and determine which started on your website, and how long between their first registration and their purchase date. Also review the number of follow up touchpoints either by a salesperson or marketing (eBlasts, etc). This is your baseline. If you do not have this information, set up a system (a good CRM can do this) that enables you to measure this in 2012.
5. Convert 50% of Your Social Media Audience to Email Opt-In
What is the goal of your social media updates on Facebook and Twitter? Is it to get friends, fans, and followers directly your sales office? If so, you might be missing an important step to your sales funnel – getting email opt-in. Although friends, fans and followers can see your updates on Facebook, email still provides some key measurement tools and another avenue for them to receive updates.
Action Item: If you have a social media following (all in) of 250, make a resolution to get at least 125 in an email campaign. This can be achieved with a social media campaign such as a contest, a download, or other value proposition. Promote your campaign on Facebook (posts and landing pages), Twitter (profile, tweets, personal direct messages to new followers, and custom background) and in your sales office.
6. Above the Fold Search Engine Ranking for 5-10 Relevant Keyword Terms
If your keywords are well researched and relevant, this is a resolution that will bring new leads for months and will be one of your best investments. Choose a mix of keywords including highly targeted keywords and phrases that are easier to to achieve high search engine ranking for (new homes in a specific neighborhood) as well as high volume keywords that may take longer to achieve page one status, but are well worth it (“Dallas homes,” “Portland condos”).
Action Item: Search engines love fresh content. Create a 12 month content calendar for the 5-10 key search terms that you are targeting including blogs, press releases, social media, video, Slidehare, Flickr, and on-page SEO.
7. 2 New Homeowner Testimonials Every Month
Testimonials are the lifeblood of almost any business, especially when it comes to an investment as significant as purchasing a home. Great testimonials start with great customer service, but it also often requires that a home builder be bold enough to ask. Work testimonials into your marketing plan by adding a bi-monthly homeowner newsletter with a “Got a great story about your ABC Homes experience? Tell us!” Create a page on your website that makes it easy for people to write a testimonial, or ask them to post videos right on your Facebook page.
Action Item: Create a monthly line item in your 2012 marketing budget for homeowner testimonials. This can be an email newsletter that goes out every two weeks with tips and neighborhood events. Add a section on each email asking homeowners to give feedback about their experience. Set up a page on your website where they can easily complete a form.
8. 90%+ Homeowner Satisfaction
Homeowner satisfaction is a powerful marketing tool. Even if your homeowners are not comfortable giving a public testimonial, they are still ambassadors of your brand and are spreading the word (good or bad) at the office, at dinner parties, at church, to friends and family. It can take just one unhappy homeowner online or off to undo thousands of dollars of advertising and risk potential sales. Identifying and resolving issues before they become problems for your brand falls directly in your marketing budget, even if you have a dedicated customer service team.
Action Item: Create a monthly marketing budget line item devotes specifically to measuring and promoting homeowner satisfaction (surveys, newsletters, events).
9. 90%+ Post Sales Office Visit Satisfaction
We’ve written about this many times before, but if 50% or more of a prospect’s buying decision is based on their experience with a salesperson, doesn’t it make sense to survey potential buyers before they make a purchasing decision?
Sending a simple survey by email to prospects who register at the sales office is a powerful way to identify problems and opportunities early enough to still win the sale.
(Personally, I think this feedback from real buyers is much more important than a professional shopper.)
Action Item: Create an email survey that is automatically sent once someone visits the office, or manually. Create a team approach by adding marketing, management, and sales to the distribution list for survey responses. If you have multiple communities, consider running a contest for the sales agent who has the highest response rate and highest satisfaction rating.
10. 10 Referral Leads Per Month
Like testimonials, referrals have to be cultivated with an intentional marketing focus. This is about more than a salesperson calling up homeowners and asking for referrals (although that’s important), and it also has to be about more than a knee jerk sales-are-down-let’s-start-a-referral-campaign approach. Referral marketing has to be built into the fiber of your monthly marketing plans and measured for effectiveness.
Action Item: Homeowner email newsletters, homeowner sections of your website (or separate mini-site), direct mail, and more are an important part of keeping your sales funnel full with strong prospects. Measure referrals each month (and consider an incentive program for both sales and customer service team members).
How do each of these S.M.A.R.T. goals stack up with your 2012 planning? Where are you focusing your time, energy and dollars in 2012? Tell us in the comments below.
Was this blog post helpful? If so, share with a friend!
