Can Community Events Help Boost Home Sales?
According to Sarah Titus, marketing manager of Eastbrook Homes in West Michigan, and her marketing assistant Marissa Roden, the answer is a resounding yes. Sarah and Marissa have been organizing free community events in West Michigan to get people in their homes and boost their sales. These events include sneak peaks, educational seminars run by their builders, grand openings, summer picnics, and their big annual event — all of which are free, often involve non-profits and food galore, and get community members to come together, have a good time, and in effect, buy homes.
Managing Relationships Between Sales and Marketing
As Sarah remarks, you can’t market anything unless sales is on board. This is why she plans quarterly in-person meetings with each of Eastbrook’s sales agents. This came about in response to sales agents urging her to “get in the field” more to fully understand what it is they're marketing and what the clients want. Sarah says it has helped give her perspective and reduce friction between the sales and marketing teams.
Best Marketing Tools for Home Builders
Sarah and Marissa also share which marketing tools they use to keep things from getting too hectic. They say, Trello for project management, Hootsuite and Later for social media, and Mailchimp as their all-in-one marketing platform.
Sarah and Marissa also give great tips on using video to drive home sales and recommend the the ease of the video creation platform Wibbitz.
Learn all about it here on Builder Funnel Radio.
- 0:27 Episode overview
- 1:24 How Sarah and Marissa got started in marketing
- 8:35 About Eastbrook Homes
- 10:22 Eastbrook Homes’s events strategy
- 16:00 Event themes and types
- 22:18 Event promotion on social media
- 24:00 Measuring event success
- 28:46 Bridging the gap with the sales team
- 34:37 Using Trello for project management
- 42:43 Other tools: Hootsuite, Mailchimp, and Later
- 46:55 Using video to sell homes
- 53:08 How to connect with Sarah and Marissa
- 53:53 Fast Five
- 1:04:01 Spencer’s takeaways
Related Resources
Contact
Marketing Tools
- Canva graphic design software
- Wibbitz video creation platform
- Trello project management software
- Hootsuite social media management
- Later social media scheduler
- Mailchimp all-in-one marketing platform
- Typeform surveys and data
- Zapier automation software
Books
- Presale Without Fail, book by Kevin Oakley
- Is Everyone Really Equal? book by Ozlem Sensoy, Robin A. DiAngelo, and James A. Banks
- F**k It, book by John C. Parkin
- Enchanted Forest, a coloring book (for stress relief during event planning process)
Useful templates and checklists for the event planning process
- Example Presale Checklist
- Event Marketing Template
- Event Process Planning Template
- New Community/ Phase Promotional Checklist
- Event Marketing To-Do List
Bonus: State of Home Builder Marketing Report
We conducted a survey with home builders to learn what marketing tactics they are using, which ones they think are overrated, and what their marketing plans are for 2020. Get the free eBook to learn more:
