Monthly Archive for July, 2009

Being Ready for the Bounce: Four Marketing Fundamentals


From the Washington Post:
“The battered housing market appears to be on the mend, with sales climbing nationally and prices leveling off, even rising in some spots….On Tuesday, the Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller price index, a closely watched gauge, showed that single-family-home prices rose 0.5 percent from April to May, the first monthly increase since 2006. Earlier this week, the Federal government reported an 11 percent rise in new-home sales from May to June, the largest monthly gain in nine years.”

So, according to a key indicator of the housing market, for the first time in nearly three years home prices actually rose month-over-month across the nation. Foreclosures have slowed as well as lenders address new loan-modification programs, and economists think there’s now enough data to show that the housing market is  recovering and even bottoming in some parts of the country. Even the conservative Wall Street Journal reports this indicator data as a possible “change in momentum” for the housing market.

Now that reliable data shows that the bottom is being reached across the nation, it’s time to prepare for the bounce in your market. But your budgets are still tight, and you’re not even sure how to prepare after such an extended downturn. Here are the four marketing fundamentals every homebuilder or real estate brokerage should be doing to prepare for the bounce, with little cash expense required:

1.    Follow Up: Odds are, you already know the person who’s going to buy that house. They’ve likely already visited the community if not the very same unit. Go back to your prospect list and follow up.

2.    One Person’s Inventory is Another’s Content: Utilize the free and low-price targeted online advertising available to you, including trulia.com, zillow.com, newhomesindex.com, move.com, craigslist.com, realtor.com, google base, and others to give the right online searchers numerous opportunities to encounter your offerings, all at incredibly low cost or, at some sites, for free.

3.    Reach Out: Nationwide, more than 50% of all new home sales in 2008 were through a realtor. In fact, some builders saw this figure rise as high as 90% in the last year. It’s not enough to have just an introductory event and send out an occasional postcard. Your outreach must be coordinated, consistent, and actually connect—create events that encourage realtors to bring their clients to experience what your products or communities have to offer, stay up-to-date, and boost the frequency of your contact with them. Get more solid advice on Realtor Outreach from the NDG Blog.

4.    Start Listening: All those nifty social media tools like facebook and twitter are just the means to an end. We’re not just using them to be using them; we’re using them to have a new kind of conversation. Social media channels aren’t like the old, 1-way, broadcast channels where you just yelled at people, frequently. Online, people are talking back, and you must hold up your end of the conversation by genuinely listening and honestly responding. Listening will give you incredible insights; not listening will become dangerously reckless.

Commit to doing these four marketing fundamentals, and you’ll be cost-effectively connecting with your prospects and opening new channels in preparation for the rebound.

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Facebook Users Now Exceed 250 Million


Just a few months ago, social networking behemoth Facebook announced that it had reached 200 million users. Now, just over 3 months later, the site has reached 250 million users, acquiring up to 750,000 new users per day in recent weeks.

And though much of this growth (approximately 70%) has come from outside the United States, the site is now the most visited in the United States where it is the undisputed #1 social networking site.

“For us,” says Facebook creator and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, “growing to 250 million users isn’t just an impressive number; it is a mark of how many personal connections all of you have made, and how far we at Facebook have to go to extend the power of connection to the billions of people around the world.”

So, everybody’s jumping aboard the social networking bandwagon, and Facebook is the leading platform, but what about engagement? Facebook reports that users spent an average of 4 hours, 39 minutes on the social network in June 2009, that 20 million users log in at least once a day, and that 30 million update their status daily, making the company’s apparent inability to fully monetize all the more mystifying—though there are hints that the floodgates of revenue may be opening soon.

Read Mashable’s take on this impressive milestone here.

Read Facebook creator and CEO Mark Zuckerburg’s blog post here.

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New Home Sales Training with Myers Barnes


Widely regarded as the authority on new home sales, best-selling author  Myers Barnes is the among the building industry’s most requested advisors and speakers. Now, as the nation’s premier New Home Sales Trainer, Myers has just launched a new page on Facebook specifically for New Home Sales Training, offering valuable resources like training videos, innovative strategies, and the ability to share your thoughts, insights, and success stories with other sales professionals.

There’s a wealth of information, tactics, strategies, and even scripts for success at the Myers Barnes website and at the New Home Sales Training page on Facebook. So take advantage of these incredible, free resources—before your competitors do!

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Applications Going Up, Fed Pressure Moving Down


The Washington Post reports that  loan applications “rose a seasonally adjusted 10.9 percent to 493.1 in the week ended July 3, after slumping the prior week to the lowest level since November.” Mortgage demand has now recovered from seven-month lows last week, easing pressure for more Federal Reserve intervention. Along with signs of home prices stabilizing, this rise in mortgage applications “suggests mortgage rates may not fall much lower.

Read the entire article here.

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Celebrating Independence Day


From all of us at NDG, we wish you a happy and safe 4th of July Holiday. Celebrate our freedom, enjoy time with family and friends, and please remember, if you’re drinking, don’t drive, and if you’re driving, don’t drink.

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