HousingZone
Building Green in a Black and White World-- Chapter 5
David Ritchey Johnston -- 1/1/1900
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Marketing is the process of getting your customer through the door. It is the "make it or break it" component of business today. Good business is a lot more than building a good product at a reasonable price. You have to be different and better than the competition in order to get buyers’ attention. That means you can’t rely on the real estate section in the local paper alone. You have to look for unusual opportunities to get your message out to the public.
Vernon McKown, the largest builder in Oklahoma, says, "You have to be creative in your marketing. You don’t have to be the greenest builder in America. You just have to be greener than the competition. Start with the greatest point of difference. Give it 24 months. The competition will follow, then you have to start something new. By 36 months everyone will be doing it."
"Our sales grew faster than average based on the quality of our homes. We saw a 65 percent increase in our sales last year, while building permits were only up 20 percent." The key to cornering the market is to be one of the first to make the switch, then you will always be a step ahead of your competition.
Marketing Green in a Black and White World means that you are not only building quality green homes, but you are marketing more creatively than your competition, who are building and marketing in traditional ways. You are cornering a market by finding new avenues to reach your buyers and creating a positive community-minded image of your company.
-------The Basics of a Good
Marketing Plan-------- |
For an excellent reference on developing a good marketing plan, refer to the book published by Home Builder Press called Marketing New Homes, written by David F. Parker and Charles R. Clark. Parker and Clark identify the three M’s of marketing as Manage, Market, and Monitor. They also provide a checklist of marketing activities that fall under each subheading.
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Manage |
The manage portion of marketing is focused on developing a marketing plan. Here are key steps:
Conduct Market Research. This important topic was discussed in chapter one. Market research provides you with facts about your most likely consumers, their preferences, the needs of their lifestyles, and what they are willing to pay for green features.
| Manage |
Get Market Information on Your Competition. Are they are using green to market their homes? Where are their strengths? Knowing this information will augment your own instincts about what the market needs and wants.
Define Your Product. The combination of facts and intuition will guide you in deciding which green features to focus on in your homes and developments and let you know which consumer groups to target with various green packages.
Develop Your Marketing Plan. The first two steps of market research and product definition lay the groundwork for developing the actual marketing plan and budget. This plan aligns your promotional activities with your budget. Such a plan should take into account the sale of your entire development or span at least a year for multi-site builders.
Develop Your Marketing Team. The final step in managing your marketing plan is managing your marketing team. Your marketing team includes your staff along with outside consultants. Determine which roles people on your staff can fill and which roles need to be filled by outside consultants. Also, develop criteria to determine who will perform specific functions such as public relations, advertising, and educating community members on green building issues.
Coordinate Your Team. Create systems of communication and policies that will promote the coordination of your team.
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Market |
The market phase implements all the research and planning done in the manage phase. Choose your marketing objectives. Then determine the actions and team responsibilities for meeting them.
Create Your Green Market Identity. One of the first steps of actively marketing is identity creation. Choose a name, a logo, and possibly a tag line--perhaps your mission statement--that will appear on all your stationery, advertisements, brochures, etc. Make sure your commitment to the environment is an integral part of the identity you are creating. This may mean changing your previous logo or mission statement. Use this change as an opportunity to communicate that it is not just your logo that is changing, but that your whole company is inherently different because you are choosing to build green.
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Develop a Public Relations Strategy. Public Relations is a key component in marketing. It is far more cost-effective than advertising and brings the credibility of the media that is covering you. Public relations involves finding ways to both inform and involve the public in what you are doing. Present your choice to build green as a choice to promote the well being of the community. Plan events that will enhance your image with consumers, local government, business executives, and real estate agents.
Advertise. And of course, you will want to advertise. The key to advertising is discovering the most cost-effective method. As Chapter 1 explained, those most likely to be interested in green homes don’t watch a lot of television; so you probably want to look into other options such as radio and print. Formulate a creative strategy to promote the benefits of green homes.
Merchandising Your Homes. The last step in the market phase is merchandising. Merchandising is all about presentation. From the time the customer first enters the development sales office or the home, until the time they leave, every aspect--from landscaping to identification signs to the interior and exterior of the information center—should focus on creating a desire in the customer to live there. Green building, however, can put a positive spin on this typical approach. Since most green features are not visible when the home is complete, part of your merchandising could include opening the home to prospective buyers while it is still under construction. Another option is to have green product samples and displays visible in the office. Also, while the home is being shown, a great merchandising technique is to label and explain the green features with signage to highlight the features.
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Monitor |
Monitoring brings this marketing approach full circle by analyzing the success of the marketing phase and making suggestions for the next management phase.
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Get Consumer Feedback. To evaluate the success of your marketing get consumer opinions. You can gather this information easily by engaging prospective buyers in conversation as they tour your homes. Or they can fill out surveys which ask for their feedback on the home, as well as, what they consider to be pressing residential environmental concerns.
Keep an Eye on the Competition. Stay updated on the competitive traits of other builders. As you lead the way in green building, others are likely to follow suit. If you stay abreast of the green features and sales approaches your competition is using, you can more easily differentiate your homes. Your sales representatives can gather this information by using forms provided by a market research consulting service.
Evaluate Your Progress. Another element of the monitor phase, which is particularly important for green building, is performance evaluation. Since green building often uses many innovative products, it is crucial to go back and check the products’ performance. You want to offer your homebuyers products that are not only healthy for the environment, but also of high quality and value to the buyer. Also, get continual feedback from your sales representatives on the effectiveness of your marketing and sales approach. Hold sales meetings regularly to evaluate what works and to strategize with your team on developing effective and creative marketing plans.
Modify Your Plan. Finally, all this information should result in modification and improvement of your original management plan.
Green marketing can enhance all of the steps listed in the sidebars. The section in Chapter 1 regarding doing your own market research, offers guidelines on answering the questions under the "manage" section. But the simplest advice for finding out what your customers want is to ask them. Product definition is deciding what approach to green building will be most successful in your market.
The end of this chapter gives some examples of how to combine green features to enhance overall benefit.
Continue to Develop an Innovative Marketing Strategy
Would you like to purchase this book?
Building Green in a
Black and White World
by David Robert Johnston
Also See:
I. Marketing Strategies Introduction
III. Media Relations
IV. Brochures
© 2009, Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All Rights Reserved.