Our latest home builder ebook concept and what it accomplishes

We work with a lot of home builder clients. Most of these folks are selling between $3 million and $5 million in multiple home communities every year. They also tend to be in competition with other good home builders, which is why they work with me and my marketing agency partner to support an inbound marketing strategy.

In the past we've designed custom ebooks that speak to very specific elements within the entire homebuilding process. For example, we have one ebook that focuses just on kitchen design, and another only on master bathrooms. We design our ebooks in this way because we understand that few of their clients ever wake up saying, "Today, I'm going to spend $400,000 on a home." No, they research and ask questions; they look at their finances; they talk with family members about potentially building a new house; and they ask friends for referrals. By creating niche ebooks, we give our clients a chance to be with those potential home buyers through the entire buyer's journey. 

Why this new ebook concept was needed

It goes without saying that few things remain static. The same goes for design trends. After working with the account managers on the pros and cons of this concept, we arrived at this home design guide for a few reasons. First, most of our clients build in several different communities and we wanted to employ "tabs" in an effort to make such content interchangeable. Sometimes ebook design is restrictive in its customization, and this one we wanted to be pretty flexible in terms of changing out the order of information. There is a page dedicated to builder communities in a non-salesy or pushy sort of way.

Second, the tabs let us incorporate campaign-specific information about each community and/or builder. Some builders have year-long green initiatives they want highlighted, while others have a financing option they recommend to all their buyers. The tab lets that information rest side by side with unaggressive design information.

Third, the design is flexible enough that a junior designer could update the community information in just a few minutes in InDesign. There wouldn't be hours of re-working copy and photography.

How home builders + realtors can use this ebook

If a home builder is working with an integrated marketing strategy, this ebook would likely be part of a campaign to capitalize on a few things: interest in design trends and a new year usually means looking at budgets and spending. This ebook would likely be delivered to a potential website visitor after a form was filled out. Since the content in this ebook is pretty evergreen (general home design topics don't tell us very much about the psychology of the reader), a home builder would likely use this to grow his or her email list, and later employ a more detailed email lead-nurturing approach that tries to open the door to more discussions around home building and a person's interest (or lack thereof).

Realtors or home sales associates are often left empti-handed when it comes to digital sales tools. Just a few months ago, I visited a "low maintenance" building community where the homes ranged in price from $250,000 up to $475,000. When I walked in to see the model home, there were piles and piles (and more piles) of paper: paper packets, paper floor plans, paper financial stats -- but nothing digital. I even asked the very lovely woman who was hosting the home for the builder. She said they had ZERO digital products.

How could this be, I wondered? She said most of her clients prefer paper, which is likely true to some extent. But I was a potential home buyer, and I didn't want a 40-page packet of information. I would've gladly handed her my email address to receive all that information electronically. But, she had no such system in place. I think this home design guide works well as a follow-up tool for realtors or home builder representatives.