In the first part of our Buyer Journey Breakdown blog series, we took you through the most effective ways to meet your buyers at the top of the sales funnel, the specific point where they discover and research your product. Now that you’ve introduced yourself and built trust, the buyer mentality shifts from curiosity to intent — which is where the middle of the funnel comes in.

When a buyer is committed to finding the right builder and eventually making a purchase, your job is to continue to build trust and provide the information that your potential buyers want (and need) about building/buying a home with you. This is the part of the buyer journey where you prove why you stand out from your competitors (both builders and used homes) — and why you would be the best choice to build a buyer’s new home. 

Meet Your Buyers in the Middle

Once you have a sales funnel that’s properly laid out, you know exactly when and how to interact with buyers at different points. This means avoiding overt, target-based sales tactics at the top and middle of the funnel, when you’re still convincing your buyers that you’re the best option. While you still have to build trust in the middle of the funnel like you did at the top, your biggest objective now is to educate buyers about your unique product and process, and compare your strengths to what other builders (and used homes) don’t have.

Remember, buyers shop via exclusion — at this point in their journey, their goal is to rule out builders and homes as quickly as possible in order to make their final decision. Look at this challenge as an exciting opportunity to really showcase what makes you unique, and win buyers over with your product, personality, and promise.

Strategies at the Middle of the Funnel

While the middle of the funnel utilizes similar marketing strategies to the top, there’s a significant difference in the messaging of these strategies. But despite the variation of messaging, you’re still meeting buyers where they are — which means that you should have content rolled out for all three stages of the funnel at the same time; not in a sequence. As you continue to ease buyers further down the funnel, make sure that your messaging is engaging and educational at the same time.

• Social Media: daily organic posts with clear calls to action, i.e. “Featured Floor Plan,” “This or That: Kitchen Edition,” and “Why Build With Us”
• Paid Social Advertising: ads i.e. MIR homes advertised to CRM list/retargeting and cold audiences
• Facebook/Instagram Live: do a home or community tour to showcase best features
• Blogs: inform potential buyers about any sale or incentive that’s happening and pique interest with featured homes and communities
• Google Ads: drive traffic though concise, appealing ads that promote featured homes, communities, and incentives utilizing intent-based search keywords
• Pinterest: drive traffic to the website through paid ads that inspire home design
• YouTube Videos: educate buyers about your specific process and team, i.e. “Introducing Our Homeowner Portal,” “The (Builder) Difference,” “Employee Attitude and Company Culture,” and virtual tours and walkthroughs of homes and communities 

There’s an End in Sight

Your potential buyers trust your product, and now they’re retaining valuable information from your knowledge and expertise. They’re getting an inside look into your homes, communities, and products, and experiencing what it is exactly that sets you apart. You may build similar homes to a competitor, but your approach to how you build them differs. In the end, this difference is what may make all the difference… 

Now that you’ve both created trust and educated your buyers, you can begin to look ahead to the end — where your content is geared for conversions, and buyers are getting ready to make the big move. In the next blog in our Buyer Journey Breakdown series, we’ll take you through the process of seriously convincing your potential buyers to build with you. Stay tuned!