The image your customer sees and the impression they get after every interaction with your homebuilding business must be compelling and exciting. Otherwise, they will quickly move to a competitor. Branding encompasses practices aimed at creating the needed positive perception of a company. Home Builder branding allows them to communicate their high-quality services and gives clients a memorable visual impression of their company’s experience, skill, and reputation.
But home builder branding isn’t just about having a stylish logo or launching a creative marketing campaign. It also combines various elements to create a consistent image for your business that clients can easily understand and establish an emotional connection to. With a strong brand, your homebuilding business will get more customers, which means increased revenue and profit. But what does it take to create a home builder brand that customers will love?
Here are seven ways to nail home builder branding.
1. Define Your Audience
Home Builder branding should focus on the client’s needs. Defining your audience will help design your home builder brand around them. You will develop a brand that reflects the values and interests of those most likely to buy your product. With 80% of clients more likely to buy from brands that provide personalized interactions, your homebuilding business cannot ignore the need to fully understand its customers.
A popular strategy you can use to determine your target audience includes analyzing your current customer base, including their interests, age, and where they live. Also, consider the most pressing concerns of your customers and what they are struggling with that you could help them solve. The two help identify your core message and the type of customers you want to attract.
2. Understand Competitor’s Home Builder Brands
To build a brand that truly stands out in the market, you need to analyze how your competitors position themselves. Understand how they communicate their value and reach out to their audience. Researching other home builder brands gives you some inspiration, and you can also identify their strengths and weaknesses and get opportunities to differentiate your company.
Some excellent sources to find information about your competitors include search engines, industry reports, your network, online directories, customer feedback, and social media. Focus on the most similar and relevant competitors and group them into potential, direct, and indirect competitors. Potential competitors are the businesses that could target your audience or enter your market in the future. Direct competitors are the home builders with similar offerings to the same target audience. The final category includes indirect competitors who sell similar products to a different target audience or different products to the same target audience. Collect and analyze information about these competitors to get insights and practical recommendations. Finally, apply the findings to refine your brand.
3. Recognize the Role of Employees in Home Builder Branding
A brand isn’t strong enough unless the employees, from the customer service agent to the foreman, can get behind it and rally around. Customers regard regular employees as more credible than members of the board and CEOs. Besides, these employees can offer some of the best word-of-mouth marketing. Studies show that 98% of employees are active on one or more social media accounts, with half posting about their organization. Employees who understand their employer’s mission are motivated to work toward common goals.
Provide employee training and foster a company culture that sets your team apart. Start by evaluating the customer’s experience journey from the first call to the last handshake and specify what the company offers at every point. You can then develop a training plan highlighting these points for your staff. Customers want to receive similar care at every stage of the construction process. They become more confident in the company when they realize consistency in customer relations.
Another step is ensuring each department is aware of what is happening in the others. Let the builders know what the customers hear when they contact the office. Similarly, the customer service agent should know how things really work at the construction site.
4. Create a Recognizable Home Builder Brand Image
A logo is an integral part of a home builder’s branding strategy. However, ensure it communicates the right message and inspires credibility and trust. Consider elements that communicate similar ideas touched on in the mission statement and market focus. The logo should also communicate a specific message. For instance, homebuilding businesses that focus on homes with a historic feel should have a different logo from those that create modern home designs.
Additionally, you may want to incorporate clever elements to help the name of the business stick to the mind of the viewer. For example, you can choose a wordmark that showcases your brand name or a combination of an image and your business name.
Lastly, choose a typography and color scheme that fits the image. Color choice is crucial since people create emotional connections with different shades. The blue color is a reference to trust and reliability. But you can also use green to signify vitality and a natural world if your brand is eco-friendly and sustainable. Shades like orange and yellow are also a great option, symbolizing energy and creativity. On typography, serif fonts appear more authoritative and sophisticated, while an option like sans-serif fonts appears more modern.
Incorporate all these elements to create an identifiable image for your homebuilding business that customers will learn to associate with you.
5. Build an Impressive Internet Presence
Home Builders need to maintain an online presence. Chances are the majority of the customers will find you by searching online for homebuilding businesses in the area. Therefore, ensure you have a compelling, insightful, and effective website that communicates the core elements of your brand. It serves as the foundation for your entire online presence, giving customers a landing place and a convenient way to contact you. The website should have a ton of information for the sake of clients who find surfing the internet more convenient than making a phone call.
If you don’t have a website yet, find a professional who can develop a site that provides great experiences to end-users. Once you have one, ensure it is easy to find. You can key in several search terms that clients are likely to use and see how close your site appears to the top of the results. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) can help increase the visibility of the website. You can learn how different search engine algorithms work and take advantage of them. But since it is a bit more homework, consider hiring an SEO specialist to do it.
Other aspects of online presence include social media, advertising, and email marketing. Choose at least one social media platform where you can post project photos, industry-related inspiration, and company announcements. Regular posting keeps your business at the forefront of potential customers’ minds. Ensure all aspects of the strategy are consistent with your brand identity.
6. Go the Extra Mile
Create a memorable brand that your clients will happily recommend by going beyond their expectations. For instance, you can send families a special housewarming gift as they enter their new homes. You can even match the gift to the family, e.g., send special extras if they have kids or pets instead of sending a one-size-fits-all gift basket.
You can also extend reach to the whole community. While your business is to create the houses that clients will call home, you can do more to help create a welcoming community. You can sponsor community events such as local festivals or contribute to charitable building projects. Choosing a cause and standing firmly behind it shows that the business cares about the community.
7. Set Your Home Builder Branding Budget
Home Builder branding is an investment. You will need to seek external help when designing a logo, creating an effective website, etc. Therefore, you will spend some cash on these services. While you can handle some tasks with your in-house team, working with a professional is the best decision. You will avoid making mistakes with your home builder branding that may hinder your business from growing as consistently and quickly as you would like.
Set a reasonable branding budget and stick to it. You can research branding companies that offer the services you need and ask them for quotes. Monitoring your expenditures will help ensure your money goes where you intended, and analyzing the home builder branding ideas that work best among your selections becomes easier. Most importantly, when you stay within your budget, you keep your business’ bottom-line figures where you want them.
Elevate Your Home Builder Brand Today
Home Builder branding isn’t without challenges. You must think carefully about how you want your company to look in the eyes of your customers and how you want them to perceive you. The above strategies are game changers and can help you create a solid home builder brand. A more impactful brand allows you to find more clients, convert them into loyal customers, and enhance your company’s presence.
At Atlasrtx, we offer solutions that can elevate your home builder brand. We have conversational AI assistants that improve the home buying experience, increasing leads and shortening your sales cycle. Contact us today to request a demo.
