With a strong market, many builders have stopped producing content for their blogs, social media, and even website. But what are the long-term consequences?

A lack of content is a missed opportunity to connect with prospective customers. Consistently telling your company’s story through high-quality content is a  more effective way of connecting to consumers than traditional forms because it allows for an interactive experience.

In the latest episode in our latest series called “The Cost of Poor Communication”, Carol Morgan from Denim Marketing discusses how potential leads feel when they encounter a website or social media page that’s outdated, and explains why it’s important to put your company’s brand story into the hands of potential leads.

Watch/Listen to the latest episode to find out what pitfalls you need to avoid in your marketing content.

Builder Lead Lead Converter frees up time for home builders & remodelers so they can grow sales revenue and margins. Find out how https://www.builderleadconverter.com/

For more information on Denim Marketing, visit https://denimmarketing.com

Transcript:

Today on conversations that convert. We’re gonna talk about marketing pitfalls for builders in 2022. So let’s get started.

Welcome to conversations that convert every week, we’ll spend about 10 to 15 minutes tackling relevant lead generation marketing and sales topics for remodelers, home improvement companies, and home builders, Conversions that Convert is brought to you by builder lead converter, your perfect sales assistant.

And now here’s Rick and Daiana. 

Rick: Hey, welcome back to conversations that convert Diana is off today, but we have a special guest. We’ll introduce you to you shortly. We’re gonna, our topic today is marketing content pitfalls for builders in 2022. And this is part of our, cost of poor communication. So without further ado, let’s introduce our special guest here. This is Carol Morgan from denim marketing, Carol, welcome to Conversions that Convert.

Carol: Thank you so much happy to be here with you, Rick. 

Rick: Well, it’s great to see you again, and I’m really excited about the expertise that you’re gonna share. You always have great stuff, and especially as it relates to the housing industry, in which I know you are a specialist. so our topic today is marketing content pitfalls for builders and, and. 2022, but before we jump into it and we have some great questions and insights, why don’t you give us a little bit of background on who you are? How are you where you are, and what’s been your journey through life to land you here, talking with me on conversations that convert?

Carol: So I’ve been doing this a long time, so it’s a little bit of a long journey, but I’ll try to make it short.  I’m a Knoxville native. I attended school down here in Atlanta, Georgia. In my senior year, I did an internship in PR. Back in the dark ages when there were no real computers. I shouldn’t confess that loved the internship in PR. So spent my first, about nine years out of college in public relations, for both the zoo Atlanta and the Atlanta Botanical Garden. So really heavy-hitting really fun,  PR stories from there. I went to work for a small marketing firm that had a specialty in retail and real estate. So started working in the real estate industry and, and loved it. Got pregnant, and had a baby fussiest baby known to man. So decided to, you know, just go freelance and start my own thing to keep,  Mr. Fussy out of daycare, probably the best thing that, you know, I always say that people are like, which man was the most influence influential in your life. I’m like probably my son.

Rick: Sure. 

Carol: Who just was just a terrible baby, but anyway, a great kid. And, so started my company 23 years. 

Rick: Wow. Congratulations. 

Carol: Yeah. Thank you. I’ve been through a different few different, you know, ideations of name and, you know, kind of brand, but, it’s been the same company, since for 23 years. So started my company as a freelancer and kind of went out on my own. Got busier and busier and busier and kept hiring other freelancers to help me. And, oh gosh, I guess sometime in the early two thousand finally had to admit that I was a small agency and take all those freelancers and make them employees. And, the rest is kind of history. It’s just grown every year and it’s- It’s a lot of fun and we, you know, grew as the market grew. As different opportunities came online in digital marketing, we started blogging in 2000, you know, five, six. I started podcasting in 2011. You know, have just embraced all the change out there in the market. And we’re a pretty full-service content shop. There are a lot of things we don’t do, but,  if it relates to content, we probably do it. 

Rick: Absolutely. And now of course, which is our topic today, which I’m really excited about, and just full disclosure to the audience, I have had the opportunity to work with you through, a mutual client. So I really got your experience firsthand as the expertise you guys bring to the table. This is what I, when I thought about this topic, though, oh, I need to go to Carol and just find out what’s going on today. and of course, everyone knows in the last two years, our industry has been turned on its head. I mean, we went from remembering March 2020, all of a sudden it’s like everything shut down. And we like went to zero. We’re like, how are we going to sell homes and remodel projects? And then sort of, we came back to this virtual marketplace, and then demand went through the roof. And here we are two years later in this crazy environment, the supply chain, problems, labor shortages, and huge demand and price volatility are all over the place. So it’s been, I, I, I think, and I’ve seen it with a lot of, of, of my clients and also prospective clients is, is a lot of people said, well, I don’t need to do this. because people are banging down my door, I can just stop. And, as we’ve been around long enough, like you and I have, you know, that markets come and go, and of course, one of the dangers is, is that you rely on the markets to make your sales for you. And then when that market changes and oftentimes they change quickly, all of a sudden we’re like, we’re stuck. We’re like what just happened? okay. I need to start doing things again. So let’s just jump right into it. And you, you mentioned in, in the overview, talking about your brand story and what impact, it, it does have, but could you, you know, first of all, this is defined brand story and talk about specifically for home builders and remodelers, how it impacts them, 

Carol: You know, the brand is where everything starts. You and I talked a little bit, you know, off air about how you can have Def, you know, a brand defined 22 different ways, and I’m sure I’m gonna add 23 to your mix, but, you know, I define it as what’s unique about that company. So what’s your unique selling proposition? What at your core really makes you different? You know, what are those three things that you wanna be known for? And then taking that and you know, flowing it through everything. It should be evident on your website. It should be evident by how you answer your phone and your email marketing. You know, everything you do is influenced by the brand. It’s not just that fantastic logo and mark, you have, although those are important. I have one I’ve got showing mine off. You’re gonna come so, you know, so yes, that’s important, but it’s much more than just that. Everything else that supports that, you know, including the experience they have in your sales center with your sales team, it’s all part of the brand. It’s really, you know if you think about it and you think about it in terms of, you know, target or apple or Coca-Cola or hello, Harley Davidson, it’s the feeling you get when you look at that logo and you think of your interaction with that company. 

Rick: You know, it’s, it’s interesting,  that you mentioned those, so those big names, those, when we think of brands, when we think of Nike, Coke, you right, know of Harley Davidson. And I heard, I heard, and I think there was a Seth go that I was reading once. And, you know, he talked about the brand of these. Big huge, multinational corporations and how to spend millions and millions of dollars each year just to reinforce their brand. And for the typical small business owner, obviously, we don’t have advertising budgets to do that, but what he, he equated it to was you build a tribe. 

Carol: Right. 

Rick: And that tribe is roughly a thousand people that are aware of you that know you. And what do you mean to those 1000 people? Do you agree with that? You know, I guess the analogy between a small company and a big one. 

Carol: I think it’s a good analogy. I would say it might not be a thousand people for a small company. It might be 10 or 20. And to always start with your employees and there’s so much you can do, you know, to kind of level the playing field. And the digital world really did level the playing field for the little guys versus the big guys. But, you know, just think in terms of brand, we’re actually running a little,  branding campaign on social media right now for one of our clients.  You could find them on Facebook as ranch, and cottages for rent. And what we’re just reinforcing is, you know, low maintenance.  

Rick: Sure. 

Carol: You know, fantastic amenities lock and leave, you know, all the different things that they wanna be known for, you know, related to their brand and why you should buy from them. And, you know, it’s other than creating the graphics and, you know, our time to post it and create it, you know, they’re not spending any money on advertising and we might be boosting a post here and there, but, for the most part, it’s pretty much a free campaign. 

Rick: So yeah. Or organically, would you define awareness and branding as roughly the same thing? Okay, so you agree with that? Okay.

Carol: I would agree with that. Yeah. 

Rick: Okay. All right. 

Carol: So is that something one of the other 22 people said? 

Rick: I was just thinking about it. As you were talking about your campaign, it’s like. Yeah, you have to remind people, Hey, this is what we have. This is what we’re doing. And, you know, as a, I-I ‘m, I have a sales background, you know, so I’m always looking for, what’s the call to action. What’s the call to action, you know? Right. But I also understand that the awareness and public relations, and just sort of keeping top of mind, right. With your tribe, how important that is. And in this industry, I know you’ve done other industries too, besides this, but in this industry, as we have. Incredibly long sales cycle, right? When somebody first starts thinking about it to the time they actually take action and how important it is to be able to meet them early in that sales cycle and be able to come to a trusted source, especially a local source, which we are, we are all local businesses here in this industry. So when they are ready to pick up the phone or walk into the sales center that, you know, they say, Hey, I know about these people. I trust them. I see the value in what they’re doing. Let’s see what they have to offer. 

Carol: Yeah, you’re absolutely right. 

Rick: Yeah, well, very, very good. Okay. So we got the brand story down. So now let’s, let’s get into the nitty gritty here of what’s going on. So the strong market was, you talked about the last two years.  how has it affected, in your case, the quality of marketing content? 

Carol: Oh, golly. It’s been kind of interesting. It’s run the gamut. Most of our clients have understood that they need to continue to market. You know, we have had a few, we had one early on that let every single person in its marketing department go. And canceled all of its marketing budgets. And, you know, I think they’ve been okay because the market’s crazy, but you know, what happens when the market’s not crazy is anyone can remember who they are if they’re not spending any money out there. And that’s the concern, you know, and the whole, you know, 180 is that that’s a brand new builder in Texas. That ramp ramped up their entire company during COVID and you know, all we’re doing for them in the market takes off again. 

Rick: Sure. I, I talked to a client. Beginning of the year, who was he, he said he was an I’m a year out and I’ve heard this story too. Some builders like, Hey, we’re, we’re, we take we’re, we’re doing 2023. I’ve heard one builder that was building, they were taking orders into 2024. They were literally two years, of backlog, but I was wowed. Talked about one client and he says, I’m a, I’m a year out. I have a year backlog right now. And, and he said, there are two ways I can look at this. The first way is. I’m a year out. I don’t need to do anything, you know, I’m good. And the second way is, is I’ve only got a year’s worth of business. You know, a built, built up here in my pipeline. And, I thought that was really insightful, you know, is that he, he goes, I’ve been around, I was around in 2008 when the market crashed, I had to learn how to market my business. And, you know, so we’ve been through good markets and, and, and tough markets, but there are still people, ironically, that he is talking to that are willing to start in 2020. There are still people willing to wait. And he brought up an interesting point. He said when people find out that he is a year out, it almost makes him more desirable. Because it’s like, they think like, Hey yeah, you got, you obviously are the guy to choose because these other people are telling me they can start right away, but everyone wants to work with you. So there’s something to be said about that. So, and it is, and I don’t know how you coach your clients through that when they come to you and say, Hey, Carol, do I really need to do this anymore?  Because we’re so busy. We’re so backlogged, how do you, would you answer that? 

Carol: You know, you wanna keep that you don’t wanna keep a backlog. Obviously, all these builders would like to work through their backlog and it’s scary for other pricing concerns and all sorts of other issues. But, you know, most of our clients get it, you know, they knew they needed to stay in front of potential buyers. They know that even though they have these VIP lists that may have a hundred or 200 people waiting for a certain community, most of those people are probably on four or five other builders, VIP lists, too. Very, you know, that doesn’t mean that they’ve handed anyone a check.

Rick: Right. Very true. 

Carol: And most of our builder clients, aren’t taking checks right now. They’re not doing presales. They don’t want to be in. You know, scary place where they’re not sure what everything’s gonna cost and pricing at home. So, you know, if you’ve gone to kind of an inventory-only sales model, you’ve gotta keep marketing cause. Though. 

Rick: Absolutely. 

Carol: Yeah. Even if you have a great VIP list, they might not be ready to buy or they might have already bought, or they might have given up, or they might be renting. 

Rick: So that’s, and that’s a, I guess, a follow-up question of that is that you, most of your clients have shifted doing spec only and gotten away from presales, just because of the volatility and with schedules supply and all that. Yeah. 

Carol: And, and the few we have that are still doing, pre-sales have gotten really savvy. They’ve added lumber clauses. 

Rick: Yep. 

Carol: They’ve added allowances for all sorts of things, cuz they didn’t have allowances before. And they’re trying to be really careful and really savvy cuz we have one builder that’s I call ’em semi custom that they really, stood by their product. They delivered all those homes, even as prices went up. But I think they took money to the closing table on a few of them. Oh yeah. So they’re trying to be super cautious now.

Rick: The market flipped, right? The spec loans became the most profitable product. Yeah. And the pre-sold became the worst because of the clauses. Yeah. And of course, it took you a year to build a spec home, and now your home is worth that much more, you know, 20% more a year later. Right. In, in, in a lot of markets. Yeah. So, so anyway, the quality of marketing content, you just said your best clients have continued to do it to be consistent.  Let, let’s talk a little bit more about it. The ones that may be the pitfalls, obviously the title of our program today is content pitfalls for builders in 2022. But what are you seeing out there with content pitfalls? 

Carol: Just, I mean, it’s just gotten sloppy. So, you know, you might go to, a builder’s Facebook page, and it’s, you know, got very scattered posts, and the posts that are there have no real call to action. You know, seeing a lot of that, of going to blogs that haven’t been posted on in two or three years which of course during the great recession, pretty much meant you were out of business now. Hopefully home buyers. Know that it means you’re really busy, but they might not. So, that’s a pitfall, just not keeping that content flowing because when you start neglecting your blog and you start neglecting your content, really what you’re doing is neglecting your SEO program. And you’re gonna need that organic search when the market starts to turn. So if you’ve neglected that for months and months, and months and months, you’re gonna end up spending an awful lot of money. Getting that back because you’re gonna have to hire an SEO term, you know, the team too, to fix it. You’re not gonna be able to do it organically. Like you could do with your blog and some of the other things. So to me, it’s just, it’s a spiral effect, you know?  Stopping the marketing, stops a whole lot of things, including those leads coming in, ultimately, and, you know, great. Maybe you’ve got enough leads now, but what happens in 2023 and 2024 and 2025, when the markets get a lot tighter because I mean, Hey folks, we’re running out of, lots to build on. So. 

Rick: Yeah. You know,  go, I’m gonna go back to your brand again, you know, talking about that brand story is you you’re and you mentioned it already, but I just wanna reinforce your point. It is so imperative that you are able to use your organic social media, your blog, and your Facebook, to continue to reinforce your brand story. And, the one thing I look at this industry and I look at is what is a miss where I see so many builders missing and its case studies. 

Carol: Oh yeah. 

Rick: It’s like, yeah. It’s like, seriously, you’re in this business. Is there an industry that is more visually impacted than our industry? I don’t know that there is because everything is all about that beautiful exterior facade or that kitchen or that great room or that outdoor living space. We, all we produce are visuals. And, but what about the people behind them? What about the clients that you’re serving and telling their stories. And of course, that can turn right into your brand story, as well as like, you know, organically, when people go and they follow you on social media.  what are they looking for? They’re looking to see, do you, do you serve people that are in the same situation as me, right. You know, in this community that wanna build this type of home or remodel, this type of doing this type of remodeling project. I don’t get it, Carol. I’m like dumbfounding it and I don’t know if it’s just cause it’s too much work or why it doesn’t happen more, but these case studies are everywhere, but nobody does ’em well, 

Carol: You know, it’s interesting. I think it’s true for a lot of companies, you know, if you’re a smaller builder, you know, maybe you don’t have in-house marketing, or if you have in-house marketing, you probably have one person who is the slammed. And there’s not a process in place to get those testimonials or get those case studies. Sometimes there’s not even a process in place to get a good video or get finished photos of homes or finished photos of developments. We’re working with a developer for that we scored a big placement for a local paper. The paper was asking for, you know, completed, developed lots with homes on them, even though, you know, the developer doesn’t build the homes and they don’t have really anything, cuz they’ve been so busy developing, they haven’t really thought to document it.

Rick: Sure. So, yep. 

Carol: You know… 

Rick: It’s like you get so caught up in working in the business and you forget to work on the business.

Carol: On the business. Correct. 

Rick: Where we are focusing is okay, how do we make this better? And I think you’re so right too. It’s so, so short side. Say I’m busy now, but again, going back to that sales cycle, I, I see it all the time. People take months, if not years of where they first come into a funnel before they actually do anything. 

Carol: Absolutely. 

Rick: It’s like right now, our content stopped a year ago, so we haven’t done a blog post. We haven’t done Facebook posts. Our Instagram is essentially done. And then we go a year from now, we realize, okay, now we need to start doing this again. We got a two-year gap. Right? How many of those people are going, oh, what happened to these guys? And yeah. 

Carol: What happened to the twos? Well, and one of the things I am seeing some of the custom builders do that makes me applaud cuz yay. I think they’re starting to get it as they’re completing some of these homes, they’re starting to get Matterport tours of them. Oh smart. So even, yes. So, so I think there are things you could be doing right now. So even if you stopped the marketing machine. And you know, you shouldn’t have, and you know, you need to gear it back up. You know, it’s a great time to go through and why you’ve been, you know, feasting take pictures of everything that you’ve created. Take pictures of your work, get streetscapes, get interiors, get exteriors, get drone footage, get, you know, your matter porch ready to spend some of that money that you haven’t spent for the last couple of years, getting ready to market again, because you know, you can go through and backfill some of that on blogs, you know, go back and do a, you know, blog every other month or something, just so it doesn’t look like you completely fell off the cliff and didn’t work for three years.

Rick: Yeah. So, yeah. Right. So, and for anyone that doesn’t have a Matterport tour, can you give us just a quick definition? 

Carol: So a Matterport tour, Matterport’s actually pretty cool. So what they do is they come in with this big giant kind of 3d camera and. Images from every single aspect of the home and then put together in what we call a dollhouse tour. So somebody can click the dots and walk through the whole home step by step by step and see every room from every angle. It’s really amazing. And they’ve, you know, they’re not that expensive. There are lots of people who offer them now. And you know, to me having that or having video, especially if you’re a custom builder and you know, what I hear a lot is, oh, well, It was a custom home for that family, you know, I’ll draw something different for the next one. Well, it doesn’t matter. It still shows the quality of your work. Yeah. Which is ultimate, if I’m gonna buy a custom home from you, I wanna know the quality of your work. Yeah. 

Rick: And most custom builders, it seems like they kind of fit into a certain architectural style or motif and that they’re sort of known for. And, those Matterports yeah. There’s, that’s a great way to showcase it. Yeah. So very, very, very true. And, and they’re the, of course, custom builders. There is no model. Right. I, I don’t have a model home, so, okay. Guess what? I’ve got these virtual models now that live well, and…

Carol: I’ll tell you, they’re the ones that I think have done really well throughout. This is if they’re on a true cost-plus model. Then, you know, it’s cost plus their fee, you know, or cost plus a percentage in their fee. So they haven’t gotten hit at all during this crazy downturn, so, yep. 

Rick: Yep. And they are smart. 

Carol: Yeah. And we know the cost of materials has gone up, so their percentage has gone up of what they’re making. So, you know, a great time for them to reinvest some of that. 

Rick: Yeah. So let’s, let’s talk about high quality. So the effects of high-quality content, in marketing today, what is that doing for your clients or others you’ve seen in the industry? 

Carol: Yeah, so we have two or three new clients who have just seen their traffic and their leads. Their organic search, everything. Just go off the charts since starting a regular stream of content. And I think that’s the biggest thing that people see is you start to see those, you know, organic numbers and, you know, and we usually include paid with Facebook, especially as well, but you start to see those numbers really go up in terms of engagement and following on the actual sites. And then you start seeing that traffic come through to your website.  And you can see, you know, with a strong blogging program, you start to see your organic search and your blog post,  the numbers of people coming to see those blogs really start to increase. So I think those are the biggest things you can see and start to see with typically within that first 90 days,  you know, whether you’re starting a new program or whether you’re making a major change, you know, if you’ve got that right, you’re gonna be getting people who come and spend, you know, two to four minutes, you know, I like to see at least a minute, minute and a half, if they’re coming to a blog, cuz that way, you know, they’ve at reading part of it before they’ve either clicked back or clicked on through to your website. Mm-hmm.  But those are the kind of results we see if somebody’s really not been doing anything for a while. It’s the, it’s a super quick way to boost that organic SEO. 

Rick: Quality of content since we’re on that topic. So when you’re doing these posts, these organic posts for blogging and Facebook, Instagram, perhaps, what do you see? What, would you say is really high-quality content? Then, one that gets the most views or the, you know, the most likes. 

Carol: Well, that’s gonna vary. So when you’re thinking to blog, it’s probably gonna be new models, new communities, you know, completed projects, or the kinds of things that do well in organic search and the kinds of things people will spend time on your website and on your blog reading, as far as social media, they like to see pictures of people. You know, obviously, they like completed homes, interiors, and exteriors, but if you can focus on your team, your team, your happy home buyers. You’re with those little for sale signs. And there’s a reason everybody posts that. And it’s because they get about a thousand times the engagement of anything else. So, you know, finding ways to get people, to engage and get them to stop and look at your content because mm-hmm, even if let’s just say you’ve got your typical brand message going out, you’ve got your sales message going out. So maybe every fourth or fifth post, if you have a person in there, They’re gonna click on that post. They’re gonna go to your page. They’re gonna scroll back and look at your other stuff too. 

Rick: So, so if to summarize the strategy for blogging is really you’re trying. Index that blog for your local search. 

Carol: Yep.

Rick: So that’s your, your locations, your floor plans, your designs, your project types, that sort of thing. And then for social media, that human interest side of things really kind of [absolutely] gets things moving or gets more attention. 

Carol: You can certainly do human interest on your blog as well. And we do a lot of that too. Cause especially, you know, you’re gonna take that blog post and you’re gonna post it on Facebook. You’re gonna post it on Instagram. You’re gonna post it where people click back through to it. So, you know, you can use your blog to do the heavy lifting for a lot of your social, as well as your newsletter. If you’ve planned your stories correctly, so. 

Rick: Yeah. You could just certainly do a blog index for your newsletter. Yeah. Repurposing content is huge. and that’s the neat thing about it. What you do too, is that you can, you can produce something and then you can use it three or four different ways. So you’re not recreating the wheel all the time. I, I, I, and you probably get this a lot too, but I think a lot of clients or a lot of builders, sort of don’t know what to post as far as content. So then, do nothing. And, and I know that’s really the benefit of you guys is that you are the creative aspect of it, and you can come in and you can do multiple different,  things as far as content and sort of help keep that flow going well, you know, and you’re absolutely right. A lot of times somebody will come to me.

Carol: Oh, you know, we know, we know need this. We don’t really have any stories to tell it’s because, you know, again, it’s their business and what other people are gonna think is fascinating and interesting. It’s just what they do every day. And they don’t find it fascinating and interesting anymore. But, you know, there’s a million different stories to tell and telling them well, and, you know, writing well and painting that picture. And, you know, you know, that’s what we do. We write original quality content. You know, my goal is to write a piece of content that can only be on that one. And only one blog it’s written for that builder. You can’t copy and paste it and post it to 50 other sites. It wouldn’t make. And unfortunately, you know, when you were talking about quality content, I kind of chuckled cuz you know, I think of these content farms that are, you know, writing content that, you know, I call it, you know, a no offense to better homes and gardens, but kind of that, you know, feature fluff that you could post anywhere and it would be fine. You know, that’s not what you want on your site. That’s not why people come to learn about you. You know, they want to know, you know, why should I buy from you? Fine. Just, you know, fun that…

Rick: Generic content that you could post at any builder’s site, out there. Alright, so let’s, let’s talk about, I’m a, I’m a home builder. I haven’t posted for a year. Okay. Now I’m noticing maybe my market’s slowing a little bit and I’m not in full-blown panic mode yet, but I’m thinking, oh, I need to start doing something. So if, if I am bleeding right now, where, because I haven’t posted anything, where do I start? 

Carol: Golly. I would start with a blog strategy. Just because it’s a good way to get the traffic back to your website. The other thing you could start with, and I guess, you know, there’s no right or wrong, the real answer to this question. There are a lot of ways you could start.  But if you have people on a VIP interest list who haven’t bought, you can always take those folks and retarget them on Facebook. Through Facebook advertising, you can do a lot with retargeting with the list you already have. So if you’ve already, you know, got a newsletter out there and you know that you’ve got this group of people who have clicked, click, click, click click on that newsletter, but not bought. And you know, the people who visited your website, you can create lookalike audiences, but I would look at what you already have that you can remarket to, to really jumpstart that pipeline immediately. If you’re kind of a little bit of a bigger builder and you’ve neglected realtors, maybe start with a realtor focus. 

Rick: Sure. 

Carol: You know, maybe a realtor of the month or maybe some function for realtors. So, you know…

Rick: That’s a good point too. And that’s actually a program I have got coming up, which is, you know, rethinking your realtor strategy. Because I know. a lot of builders. They got to the point. I’ve never seen this before in this marketplace. So let me preface it with this. I’ve never seen a marketplace where the realtors needed builders more than the builders needed realtors. Right. Because there was no inventory, right? Yeah. So what do the realtors do? Well, we’ll go to the builders. Can we get some inventory there? And so I know a lot of those relationships have gone dormant if not, we’re cut off together. Right. But what, as it relates to realtors right now, Are you doing anything differently than the tried and true stuff as far as these relationships? Or are you just kind of sticking with the… 

Carol: Just going back to the basics? You know the thing we saw is that you know, over the last three years, again, just to your point, builders didn’t really need realtors, realtors needed builders. So a lot of builders stopped all their realtor relations and their realtor programs. And just again, that was part of what you did. Got cut and went to the wayside. Cause they didn’t have time for it or didn’t need it or just refocused and some of them even cut realtors, and commissions. So, you know, starting to reinstate some of that and treat them like the team players that they are and you know, they’re. They’re a big part of what we all do in homebuilding. So… 

Rick: One of the questions, on realtors in the church you’ve seen, is that I saw over the years, that it was getting more and more difficult to actually get realtors to an event. Like if you wanted to showcase a community or new model home, that sort of thing. And so there were lots of different things I know that was, we’re done online. Like I, I know, I think maybe you told me this realtor responds really well to Facebook. That’s where they’re trying to get a lot of their business on Facebook. But as, as far as those realtor things that you see that are, you know, quite effective. So if I’m a builder, I, I’m like, I haven’t done anything. I wanna like reengage realtors right now. Would, would you suggest that I go target them digitally or try to do something on-site or something different? 

Carol: I think maybe a combination of both. One of the things onsite that have worked really, really well in multiple markets is hosting CE classes. Cause they always need that CE credit. So, you know, have a little lunch, invite them for a CE class, make sure they get their credit, get them to tour the community while they’re there, you know, hosted in a model or hosted in your sales center. That has worked really well. And we’re starting to see that gear back up a lot in the Southeast. So…

Rick: Yep. That’s a, I think that’s a great, great point. I used to do that when I had, I would license to teach CE and I would go in and do it at, my client’s, locations. Yeah. Very, very good. Okay. So last question here. This has been really helpful. Final thoughts, best practices for content marketing today, you know, so I guess let’s give us the must-dos.

Carol: Must do well, I would start by refocusing and going back to the basics, you know, making sure that, you know, you’re updating your blog and updating your website and that you’re gathering all the imagery that you can use moving forward. So, you know, blogging, social media, I guess probably the most overlooked thing that we do, for almost all of our clients. And we don’t seem to find very many other people doing it in public relations. So writing a press release, sending it to the media, you know, finding the right angle, getting them to cover that and, you know, run the photo, run the story. It’s great. Third-party endorsement. And that’s why the most overlooked thing I see. And that’s nationwide. 

Rick: Yeah. You know, the thing is today, you know, back I, I, when I graduate. College many, many moons ago, but I had a, I had an emphasis in, in PR public relations, you know, and of course back then it was all about, it was the press. It was the paper, the print. And I think today when we say public relations, we still think of that, but there are so many online mediums. That you can back that will backlink to you and really help you with your search and, and just getting more eyes on your, on your website and people forget about that with PR. 

Carol: I mean, even just, I mean, take your podcast for instance. I mean, this is a great opportunity, the podcast or good opportunities, writing byline, blogs for other people, you know, again, just anything that you can do to get the word out there in a positive way. And as you said, you know, if you can get a link back to your website, even better, 

Rick: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Well, Carol, it has been absolutely so fun catching up and hearing about your expertise again. I really appreciate you coming on. If somebody wants to get ahold of you, where, where can they find you? 

Carol: I am pretty easy to find. So, denimmarketing.com and we are at Denim marketing on every single social media site. And you can email me carol@denimmarketing.com

Rick: Fantastic. And we’ll put a link for your website right below the video here today. So, thank you so much for your time. And your expertise has been just lovely catching up with you and for everyone, else that’s been watching. Thanks for, thanks for watching and we’ll see you next time on Conversations that Convert.