Build Up is a homebuilder podcast where we interview homebuilders, industry insiders, and experts covering all things branding, marketing, sales, customer experience, and more. A week or so after each episode, we publish the show notes here on our blog. To listen to the episodes right when they're published, subscribe on your favourite listening platform here. To get these show notes delivered straight to your inbox, sign up here.
Here are the top takeaways from the episode:
The consumer journey starts with planting a seed
You have to first plant the seed of brand recognition before you can even think about going after bottom of the funnel leads. The use of mass reach mediums like television spots, online video ads, billboards, or a spot during a sporting event will bring that top-of-funnel awareness of your brand to the consumer.
Having a mix of media in your strategy will only strengthen the consumer journey
When you look at the consumer journey, you want to plan as many touchpoints as you can, especially in the homebuilding market. This is likely the biggest purchase of your customer's life - they aren't going to spend $300k+ on someone they've never heard of before.
More touchpoints = more brand familiarity = more trust.
When a consumer reaches the consideration stage, they'll remember your brand and head to your website. From there, you can start to hit them with retargeted ads to remind them of who you are and why you should be trusted for this huge decision in their lives.
No media option is "dead"
No, newspapers, television, and other traditional advertisements aren't dead. When you understand where your consumer is throughout their day, you can be strategic with your media buys to reach your audience in the most effective and thoughtful way. Big brands like Google, Amazon, and Twitter all use traditional media in addition to digital media to tell their brand stories, raising their credibility as a brand you can trust.
Use media to tell your brand story
Even though Mcdonald's is a household name, we still see their ads everywhere encouraging us to choose them over their competitors. Media keeps your brand top of mind and inspires people to choose you when they're ready. The more types of media you have, the more sides of your brand story you can tell.
But how much money should I spend on media?
There isn't one right answer for how much you should spend on media - it really depends on your budget, audiences, product, campaign length, etc. The general consensus is that you should weigh more heavily towards awareness than activation to try to get as many people into that awareness stage to fill your lead funnel.
Get out of your own echo chamber
When people are in the industry for a long time they start to rest on their experiences. Seeing past your own biases can be hard (we all do it) so getting an objective outside point of view can really help. Trust the experts to be experts.
Here are some relevant resources to the episode to the episode:
- Who is ZGM?
- Follow brand expert, Les Binet, on Twitter. He's great.
- Check out this video from Google with Les Binet and Peter Fields on brand marketing in the age of hyper-targeted messaging.
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