by Erik Cofield in Articles
11/3/2008 7:24:00 AM
Is there a place on your website (My Portfolio, My Account, Favorites, etc.), where customers can register and save favorite communities and floor plans, searches, etc.? If so, you have a goldmine that may be untapped. This database of information has tremendous potential but is often overlooked, because focus is usually on customer leads. However, you can make money from it. The information in this database is a great pre-sales tool, and can help you with your web development efforts too. It can also help you fine tune your product offering and profit margins. By taking the following steps you can increase the value of this untapped resource.
- Cross reference your lead database with your Portfolio database and find your hottest prospects - If someone has been on your site repeatedly, is saving favorites, and has requested information, they should receive extra attention from a sales associate, or better yet, change their lead type to identify them, perhaps as a VIP lead. One thing to note here - privacy is a huge issue for customers on the web today. While it is appropriate to share with a customer that you are aware of their interest in a plan or community, you don’t want to say that you know they registered at 2 a.m., they’ve visited your site ten times, and they have fourteen plans saved. If you sound like Big Brother is watching them you’ll turn them off.
- Include Portfolio customers in all your marketing efforts – This may sound like common sense, but it’s often forgotten. While you probably only have an email address for contact information, you can still add these customers to your eMarketing programs. If you have a special happening in a community they’ve saved, let them know about it. If they’ve saved a particular floor plan, and you have that plan as a spec, tell them.
- Provide information to your sales staff – If they know a customer who visits the community or calls for more information has already been to your website and saved a favorite community or plan, it allows them to provide relevant information to that customer, and increases the opportunity for a sale. Again, this is a circumstance where respect of privacy is critical.
- Get more information on the behavior of your customers – How long have the customers in your Portfolio database been there? How often are they coming back? Cross reference the information in your sales system with the Portfolio database to see how long it took them to go from visiting you online to visiting in person (you should do this with your Lead database as well). How many of the Portfolio customers convert? If it is a low number, something needs to change. If it is a high number, something else should be changing, such as more emphasis, or more prominence on your site.
- Use the information to enhance and improve your website - Find out what plans and communities are saved the most, and the least. Then go back and compare the level and quality of the content on your site between the popular and not so popular. Is the information complete? Are the descriptions compelling? Are there high quality graphic elements – good clear photos and renderings?
- Improve your product offering – Look at the plans being saved by customers. There will probably be clear favorites within a price point and/or community. Then look at the actual number of a plan sold. If you have a plan that no one is saving, and you’ve only sold a few, then it isn’t appealing to your customers. You may want to consider removing it from your product line up and replacing it with something more popular.
If you have a Portfolio on your website, you could (need to) use the information customers are freely providing. It will allow you to reach more customers with relevant information, improve the product you’re offering and increase the opportunity to make a sale.
Erik Cofield, CGA has leveraged technology and provided business management consulting for all sizes and types of builders, developers and Remodelers since 2000, including volume, multi-family and custom, to help them improve their business. He is the National Accounts Manager with BuildTopia (www.buildtopia.com), a widely used international construction management software company. He can be reached via ecofield@buildtopia.com.
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