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Continuing our series of posts about real estate and homebuilder online advertising and marketing fundamentals, this week we’ll discuss the basics of e-mail marketing.

You may have heard some rumors about the eventual demise of e-mail, with whispers of Facebook and Google wave-type platforms as the likely successors. The facts, however, show that e-mail is alive and well, and only continuing to grow in popularity and omnipresence.

247 billion emails were sent each day in 2009, and there were approximately 1.4 billion global email users in 2009, according to market research firm The Radicati Group. Even Google’s popular Gmail web-based e-mail served approximately 176 million users all by itself in the month of December 2009 according to the Wall Street Journal. In fact, according to mail2web.com, there were 100 million more e-mail users in the world in 2009 than there were in 2008.

So the number of e-mail users within the United States and around the world is massive and getting even bigger. But best of all, according to the Email Experience Council, e-mail marketing produces an ROI of 40-50% greater than all other direct marketing media or methods. Just like your online advertising, e-mail is trackable and analytics are available for your usage and response that can help you refine and finely tune your messages and approaches to ensure the most response.

And as to the idea that social media is taking away market share and eyes from e-mail, the fact is that many employers are now simply blocking social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter to maintain productivity, leaving e-mail as your primary communications conduit and best option for creating trackable results.

So you should feel very comfortable making e-mail a major component of your new home and real estate marketing—it’s cheap, quick, versatile, and, when executed properly and ethically, produces astounding returns that you can monitor, track, and use to guide your refinement on the path to e-mail marketing success.

Next time, we’ll discuss Website & Online Advertising Analytics and its role in getting the most for your money in your online advertising and marketing.

Continuing our Step-By-Step Process to Staying Focused and On Track in Today’s Market, this week, we’ll discuss how Social Media can help you distribute your content online to help achieve your search engine marketing and optimization goals, as well as help you achieve real authentic customer engagement.

Facebook, YouTube, Twitter—there’s a growing number of social media channels and platforms out there. It’s easy to get overwhelmed and off course trying to be everywhere, so we’re going to set the record straight about what you should, and shouldn’t, expect from your social media marketing efforts.

Make sure to review NDG’s online integration map for flowing data (content) throughout the fundamental online marketing components for Homebuilders, Developers, and Real Estate Brokerages.

NDG recommends that our clients have a living strategic plan for implementing, engaging, and monitoring your social media outreach. While social media can help build brands and maximize publicity efforts, do not expect these marketing components to instantly drive traffic or sales. Social media platforms are recommended because of their word-of-mouth generation capabilities and because of their wide-ranging reach across many varied demographic audiences. Do NOT abandon all other forms of marketing; rather, integrate social media into your current marketing strategy and, most importantly, your corporate website.

As a first, fundamental step, develop a blog to serve as the “content repository” to feed timely, relevant content to your corporate website. This same content can be distributed via a Facebook fan page. Then, you can add other platforms such as Twitter and YouTube to your mix as you develop more content appropriate for these digital meeting places. Your website is the hub of all your marketing and advertising, and from this hub are distributed communications, each tailored to the channel you’re using.

Finally, remember that Content is Queen, and especially so for the social media. If you’re just shouting the same stuff down these channels, you’re wasting your time and money, and potentially damaging your brand and reputation. The ROI on your social media outreach will be directly influenced by your investment in generating good content, because this is what will help your Search Engine Results Page (SERPs) rankings grow higher and higher, and create more authentic engagement with your prospects—not repeating the same weak content over and over, which will just get you ignored by both your prospects and the search engines.

As new home sales expert Myers Barnes often says, “It’s Online or the Breadline.” According to the National Association of Realtors, more than 90% of new homebuyers are starting their research and selection process online, shopping by elimination to determine which communities they will visit in person.

Your goal is to have your website appear on the very first page of search engine results pages (or “SERPs”) when your prospects search under the keywords associated with your website and its content, and have it appear there “organically” — that is, without resorting to paid advertising to help maintain this first-page ranking. This is no easy and simple task, nor does it happen overnight, but with testing, vigilance, and perseverance, you can achieve this goal.

Search Engine Optimization (or “SEO”) refers to improving your search engine ranking via non-paid methods. This is different from Search Engine Marketing (or “SEM”), paid search engine advertising that can help you eventually achieve your search engine placement goals without any financial investment. The most prominent example of search engine advertising is Google AdWords.

Keyword research will help guide the ongoing development of your paid search engine advertising, so that you can allocate minimal funds to test your advertising first. Once you have positive results, roll out your complete, tested & proven paid advertising. Remember, your goal is to have your website appear on the first page of search engine results. With a combination of Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Marketing, you can achieve this goal, and then eliminate the expense of paid search advertising once you achieve sustainable “organic” first-page ranking.

Next week, we’ll discuss the facts and myths of how “Social Media” such as Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter can help you distribute your content online to help achieve your search engine goals.

A huge thank you to all who attended the Red-Hot New Home Sales and Marketing Solutions seminar with Myers Barnes and Jim Adams at this year’s International Builders’ Show in Las Vegas. We appreciate your time, and we’re confident that if you employ the tactics we outlined in the program, your team will achieve online marketing success in 2010!

We know it seems overwhelming but, with a solid plan of action, and a commitment to seeing it through, your online presence will begin to pay measurable dividends.

IF YOU MISSED THIS YEAR’S SHOW: A complete PDF of the Red-Hot New Home Sales and Marketing Solutions presentation is now available for you to download at your convenience here.

And of course if you ever need help, NDG stands ready to create real solutions to your online marketing and advertising problems. You can reach us anytime at our website, on our Facebook Fan page, or by calling (877) 889-1848.

Join New Homes Sales Expert Myers Barnes and NDG Communications President Tom Nelson at the 2010 International Builders Show for a fast-paced, results-oriented sales & marketing download.

Prepare to ignite your selling power with sensible solutions and a bold line of attack for your sales and marketing organization. Learn the techniques that will propel you to success in the new marketplace, along with remedies for overcoming hardship economies.

Wednesday, January 20th at 1:30 pm – 3:00 pm, South 220

Click Here to Learn More about NDG at the 2010 International Builders Show.

On his blog Do You Convert? Mike Lyon dishes the dirt on who’s shopping online for new homes. The latest Pew Research Center study shows that Baby Boomers comprise 35% of the total adult population using the Internet. According to Mike, “they’re wired to the Web and they know how to use it!”

Things are Changing Fast.

Here are some fast facts from the National Association of Realtors on how new home buyers are shopping, and their expectations:

Buyers are now 1000% more likely to find the home they purchase on the Internet than in a newspaper.

Buyers are now 3200% more likely to find the home they purchase on the Internet than in a real estate publication or magazine.

Buyers are doing more research: 16.5 weeks in 2008, compared to 12.1 weeks in 2007 and only 6.4 in 2006.

Buyer expectations for online response have increased: 68% expect response within an hour, and 96% expect with in 4 hours.

The new home shopping and buying experience is now largely an Internet experience. If the experience you’re offering your prospects isn’t clearly superior to that of your competitors, isn’t it time to Get Real about your online sales and marketing?

Data courtesy NAR 2008 Buyers and Sellers Profile

Over at Marketing Sherpa they’ve asked consumer marketers to rank the ROI of various online marketing tactics and published the rankings for Q4 2008. The results? It appears that email, SEO, and paid search continue to enjoy the best ROI. And, it seems no surprise that display advertising is taking the back seat now. Click here to read the whole article.

E-mail marketing is very effective and has a reasonably low cost compared to regular direct mail, but regular direct mail is not going away, and it can be part of an effective marketing mix to reach particular segments of the population who may not be in your e-mail lists. So let’s talk about getting the most from our “land mail” direct campaigns.

The most important thing to understand with regular direct mail is that you must determine your audience first, and then tailor your message to that audience. By getting more specific about your list, about who it is that you should be selling to, you can get better returns from more qualified leads. Conduct better research to isolate your ideal buyer characteristics in your mailing lists to get more on-target.

But direct mail now has a new helper to make your campaigns even more effective. Remember in my last post about e-mail marketing where we talked about a “website landing page” linked in the e-mail where the recipient could go to register for an event, to receive more information, or to receive a gift or a chance to win some incentive? You can do the exact same thing with direct mail by providing the website address for your campaign landing page.

Of course, it’s easier with e-mail marketing because the recipient only has to click a link in the e-mail to go to the landing page, but with a properly targeted list, a strategically crafted message, and an appropriate incentive, you can still push many direct mail recipients to the same landing page where they can provide you with solid contact information for an actionable, and most likely very qualified, lead.

And, variable printing has created the ability to further personalize mailers to each recipient’s name, interests, and correct product categories and thus make your communications more relevant to individual recipients.

If you make sure to follow these essential rules, your direct mail campaigns will yield more results and produce far more qualified leads.

The Nationals is the nation’s largest competition for new home sales and marketing, and is presented by the National Sales and Marketing Council of the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB). This year, NDG received a Gold Award for our work for the Kaine Homes website, in the category Best Website for a Builder.

Prior to the new website’s launch, the previous Kaine Homes website received approximately 3,000 visits per quarter. The new website has been promoted via email, print, direct mail, corporate collateral, and even via social media sites such as Youtube. Site visits rose to approximately 6,000 in the first quarter after launching the new website, and recently measured approximately 12,000 discrete visits per quarter.

We’re happy to share this recognition with Kaine Homes and very proud of our achievement of the Nationals Gold Award.

Click here for a complete list of the 2009 Nationals Awards Gold Award Winners.

NDG Communications, Inc.

Category Archives: new home marketing

Cheap, Versatile, and High ROI: E-Mail Marketing

Pay to Play Until You Can Go Organic: Search Engine Marketing

Get Red-Hot New Home Sales & Marketing Solutions at the 2010 International Builders Show

Boomers Still Booming

Today’s New Home Buyer

The Right Mix for the Highest Digital ROI

Direct Mail Fundamentals

NDG takes GOLD at the Nationals Awards