Effective tracking of Web leads is said to boost closing ratios.

Rick Centra, president of Advantage Homes in Montgomery County, Md., equates managing his homebuilding company without a solid lead-tracking system to “trying to drive a car without a steering wheel.”

Advantage Homes is like a growing number of builders recognizing the need for some way to stay on top of Internet leads by translating them into sales while expending minimum wasted time and money. With proper reporting functions, builders find quality lead-management software systems allow them to increase closing ratios, manage sales staff more efficiently, reduce wasted advertising/marketing dollars, and recognize buying trends among potential homebuyers.

Use the Web or Lose Business

The Internet has dramatically changed the way new homebuyers get information on builders in their community. Instead of driving around and looking for new developments, serious homebuyers now begin their search online, identifying builders, providing information about their buying preferences through a builder’s Web site, and requesting additional information.

Online leads for builders have proven to be the most significant and profitable, with research showing that a customer is twice as likely to buy a home if he or she inquired via the Internet first. According to the National Association of Realtors (NAR) over 70 percent of all new homebuyers use the Web in their search for a new home; these buyers are historically twice as likely as walk-ins to purchase a new home. This would imply that builders who can maximize their Web leads should have shorter sales cycles or lower cost of sales. More profitable sales are one significant way to increase a builder’s bottom line.

However, research also shows that as many as 70 percent of homebuilders never respond to the leads they receive through the Web because they don’t have good strategies and systems in place to do so efficiently. This, of course, results in builders losing their leads to the few competitors who are using comprehensive systems to prioritize and to follow up with their leads.

While builders may not feel a burning need to attract new customers today, losing future business to competitors is clearly not a wise business strategy for even the most successful builder. The ability to identify and to respond immediately to the hottest online leads can give builders a competitive advantage and allow more targeted outreach to the right customers with fewer marketing dollars.

A builder can also increase his bottom line by reducing operational costs. Examples of ways a builder can increase profitability include more-efficient sales teams and fewer marketing dollars with more impact.

A relatively simple way to do this is by using an online software solution that can effectively manage all of a builder’s leads, allowing that builder to close sales faster than ever before. Builders should look for an online lead-management and business intelligence tool that will automatically:

• Aggregate lead data.
• Rate and rank each lead according to those who are most qualified to buy and looking for what the builder has to offer.
• Respond to inquiries with a pre-determined message or builder brochure.
• Distribute leads from the Web and other sources to the appropriate sales agent or location.
• Generate e-marketing templates for builders to launch for promotional campaigns or simply as a way to stay in touch with their contact base.

Once the data is aggregated, senior management will want to generate custom reports in their lead-tracking software on key sales, marketing and operational metrics to cut costs and improve the efficiency of the company. For example, sales performance reports can tell builders which salespeople are performing and which are not. Shopper profile data reports can tell them what shoppers want to buy, where they buy and how much they can afford to pay.

Tracking Cuts Marketing Expenses

Centra uses a lead-tracking system from BeHomeWise. An important facet of the management system for Advantage Homes is the software’s ability to provide important business intelligence data and marketing information. The real-time sales and lead data collected can help builders to reduce operational costs and to make more profitable sales.

A system that can analyze and track sales traffic is also valuable, allowing builders insight into the effectiveness of their marketing initiatives. Management can have an ongoing real-time view of its operations and sales efforts. This gives builders the ability to adapt advertising and marketing efforts and scale up or down as needed.

Losani Homes, a builder based out of Toronto, is currently using the BeHomeWise system to manage leads in communities where it builds as many as 300 homes a year. With such a large inventory, Losani must simultaneously manage up to six different sales offices at any given time. Losani Homes uses the software to deliver targeted marketing campaigns and announcements on special events to only its hottest prospects.

For Losani, one of the most important aspects of a lead-tracking system is the online accessibility. When software is accessible via the Web, the company’s agents can log onto the system at each sales office, or other remote location, view important details on each lead, and generate targeted email campaigns and messages directly to prospects, making real-time lead outreach easy, efficient and extremely cost-effective.

Robb Cohen is CEO and president of BeHomeWise, a Northern Virginia software provider.