A few weeks ago I had a chat about what blogs can do for business with Dean Chudasama, the MD of a small new build developer called Damson Homes.
They where about to buy some land for a new development of three houses and I suggested he set up a blog to inform potential buyers and neighbours about the progress of the build.
They did. I was happy he was open to the idea (so many builders are set in their ways).
They set up a basic, free blog with blogspot. It has been running a few weeks and Dean has now given me some feedback.
The blog is performing really well for them. It has generated interest and they have already sold two out of the three homes (they’re not even half built yet).
Comments they received about the blog included:
“It’ll be great to see the day by day, how my new home is being built”
“As a neighbour, I was naturally worried how the build would affect me. It’s nice to see you care enough to inform people what you are doing”
The key to the success of this blog for them is the willingness to be open with the people interested in their product.
I’ve spent 10 years in the ‘new home’ business and one of the main grumbles buyers had against the builders was the lack of communication between the the buyer and the builder.
Many builders took an arrogant attitude. They would say ‘thanks for your deposit, we’ll let you know when your house is finished.’ That’s it.
It’s fair to say, if you’re a buyer of a new property, getting to know exactly what stage of the build your new home is at is like getting blood from a stone.
Damson have knocked this particular brick wall down. Now their clients can look behind the scenes.
This has a knock-on effect…
- They (the buyers) get more more excited about their new home (they see it being build bit-by-bit, day-by-day)
- They tell all their family & friends “They’re up to the second floor now already, I can’t believe it’s going up so quick!”
- All their friends & family say “that blog’s a good idea, isn’t that nice..” – they then tell their family & friends
- All of a sudden, (if Damson play this right), they can get themselves a little tribe going around saying how great they are and ‘how different’ they are to other builders.
This would create a local brand, to a community of say 500,000 (South Birmingham & Solihull, UK). Using the 3% principal (3% of the average population has a need to move at any certain time) Damson can easily (and for practically free) get their message out to 15,000 people whom would want to buy their future products.
It just goes to show, even in a market as damaged at the UK property market is right now, success stories need not be fiction.
All Damson have done is created a good product, been open about how they are progressing (they even show pictures of each stage of the build so you can see what type of lintels they use, etc.), and have provided a platform where anyone and everyone can see what they’re doing.
There was not a hole in the market they’re in, the hole was in how the market markets itself. This blog plugged that hole – http://pipersgardens.blogspot.com/
