Creating a marketing plan for custom home builders

Every good marketing plan for a custom home builder will include a few key marketing assets, strategy and execution. Today I’ll break down the key components you must include.

#1 Marketing Assets

It’s vital that you correctly budget for your marketing assets in your marketing plan.

Key areas are;

  • Website
  • Brochures
  • Designs & Floor Plans
  • Photographer
  • Brochures
  • Business Cards
  • Printing Costs

Some of these will be 1-off setup costs. However some will require maintenance and updates.

Your website as an example should include updates over the course of the year.

As you complete homes, you’ll want to photograph those and add them to your website and social media.

You may want to budget for 3 homes every year, so you know the money is allocated for that expenditure and you can cherry pick the best three homes each year.

#2 Advertising

The biggest enemy of home builders is obscurity.

If people don’t know about you, they will never build with you.

Scaling your building company requires spending some money on advertising. While everyone loves referrals, there’s only so much business you’ll get using that avenue.

If you’re just starting out, choose one channel that is best suited for your building company.

That might be choosing a local newspaper in a key area that has an older age demographic. It could be buying billboard space near new development areas. It could be choosing to focus entirely on Google Ads or Facebook Ads.

Once you saturate your first strategy and make it profitable, choose your next channel and work that till it’s profitable.

#3 Budget

Your budget as a home builder is essential to your survival.

Without it, you’re guessing what percentage markup you need to include on your homes to profitably run your building company.

So, work out your budget.

The key metrics you MUST include in your marketing plan are;

  • Target Turnover
  • Average House Price
  • # Sales to achieve Turnover Target
  • $ Cost of Advertising per sale
  • # Leads you need for each sale

These numbers will help you calculate what you need to include in your advertising and marketing budget so you add that to your percentage markup.