Marketing Blueprint

For Builders
The Ultimate Guide To Advertising
A Building Company

Association of Professional Builders | Marketing Blueprint For Builders 1

 Dear Custom Home Builder
Immediately you’ll notice this guide is different to anything you’ve seen
before.

Ultimately this is for 2 key reasons:

The first reason is that the Association of Professional Builders only

deals with custom home builders, therefore, everything you’re
reading today has been tested and proven to work for building
companies just like yours. We won’t tell you what works for trades,
commercial builders or carpentry teams… just residential building
companies.

Secondly, everything we teach is proven. We work with hundreds

of custom home building companies across Australia, New Zealand,
Canada and the United States on a monthly basis. We have had
the pleasure of training thousands of builders on our systems and
processes either at our live events, or streamed online.

Inside this guide you’ll discover the blueprint to marketing your

building company and the simple structure you can deploy instantly to
generate quality leads.

To your success
Association of Professional Builders

Association of Professional Builders | Marketing Blueprint For Builders 2

 Step Step

1 Identify Your Avatar 2 Create The Perfect Offer

Before you can even begin to spend money on advertising your building
company, you need to first identify your avatar (your ideal client).
To identify your avatar you need to know several things:
Create the perfect offer by using a lead magnet.
A lead magnet is a guide or checklist that is offered in exchange for an
email address.
The goal of a lead magnet is to maximise the number of leads you can
generate from your website and advertising.

How old are they?
Do they have kids?
The most effective lead magnets for custom builders provide valuable
information that relates to where their prospective clients are in the sales
process.
Are they married?
The best lead magnets we’ve seen in the
residential construction industry are:

What exact geographical How much are they willing to spend

area are they located in? on building their new home?
Plan Range Price Inclusions Checklists Consumer
Download Lists Lists Guides
By identifying your avatar you can be more specific in your advertising.
You will be able to write more relevant content and ensure you are
targeting the correct location and channels to attract more of your ideal As a rule of thumb, the perfect lead magnet will offer tremendous value
clients. within 5 minutes of the opt-in.
So get very clear on who you are targeting, the service they need, and the Your lead magnet should solve a specific problem by providing a specific
obstacles they are facing. solution that relates to your niche and ideal client. When you do this, you
When you understand those things, you will have a very powerful will generate high quality leads that are highly likely to progress through
marketing message that speaks directly to your ideal client. your sales process and into a building contract.

Association of Professional Builders | Marketing Blueprint For Builders 3

 Step

3 Determine Your Budget

One of the biggest mistakes new home builders make is that they Some builders will scrimp on advertising and instead reduce their
become too reliant on referrals. To avoid stagnating or going backwards margins to increase turnover believing that they’ll make money if they
you need to invest enough money into advertising and marketing in build more homes, but that never works out the way they expect… In fact
order to sustain your business when the referrals dry up. it’s what stops a lot of builders from growing their businesses profitably.

If you want to grow your building company beyond the current limitations
that restrict a referral business, you need to stop relying on referrals
and create more demand than supply in order to increase revenue or
margins. And that means you need more leads.
Success, is all down to supply and demand.
To create demand and acquire more leads you need to determine an
advertising budget based on your business goals and objectives.
So, although 1%-3% may sound like a lot to spend on advertising, when
you consider the benchmark for markup on new homes is 33% and the
average for fixed expenses is around 15% (including advertising and
marketing), then you’re still left with over 10% net profit! In reality it’s a bit
like putting money into a machine that spits out 4-10 times the amount
you put in!

As a guide for a new home builder, between 1% - 3% of revenue needs to be reinvested back
into your business in advertising spend.

If you’re happy with your If you are looking to increase or more - If you want to

1% margins and the size of your

business. 2% your margins or grow your
revenue. 3% increase margins and grow
your revenue.

Association of Professional Builders | Marketing Blueprint For Builders 4

 Step

4 Consider The Marketing Channels

Online advertising is the most cost effective way to invest in advertising, bar none.

Facebook and Google are responsible for over half of all online advertising. Which is why you need to
be advertising on Facebook, Instagram and Google Ads (formerly known as AdWords) and start Search
Engine Optimisation (SEO) to rank in Google.

Thanks to the internet, advertising a building company has

completely changed...
There has been a switch from a ‘traditional outbound approach’ of blasting a message advertising your
company, to an ‘inbound approach’ where you become a provider of information online that builds
trust, authority and rapport with your prospects.

Consumers want to buy from people they know, like and trust so an inbound strategy is about building
relationships with your prospects and changing the way you present your building company to
consumers who are considering building a new home.

By using an inbound approach you become a trusted advisor offering a valuable service rather than a
commodity business competing on price. Competing on price is how margins come under pressure.

As part of the marketing process you first need to gain the attention of your prospects through
channels such as Facebook and Instagram. It’s important to make your prospect aware of and address
their pain points and fears so you can then offer solutions to those problems through education, tips
and valuable information.

And when your prospect is ready to build their new home, you become their ‘go-to expert’. This not
only makes it much easier for you to convert the sale, but because your client sees you as an expert
providing professional services rather than ‘just another builder’, they will be less likely to expect you to
compete on price.

Association of Professional Builders | Marketing Blueprint For Builders 5

 Step

5 Results

If you have been used to relying on referrals you should be aware that an As long as your sales and marketing processes are up to scratch, 100
‘advertising model’ is very different to a ‘referral model’. leads generated should give you 1 highly profitable building contract.

The number of leads required may seem high, but when leads only cost
So expect the 100:1 ratio. $50 and can go on to become a $500,000 contract, the investment is well
From our experience this is generally what you can expect from worth it!
advertising:
The best advice is not to worry about the 99 that don’t sign a contract
and instead look after the one that does. A $5,000 investment for a
$500,000 contract is good business.
100 Leads
Let’s break it down further….
20 Conversations Say you’re earning 10% net profit per contract - that’s $50,000.

So if you are generating 100 leads to sign one contract, that’s equal to
$500 profit per lead.
10 Qualified Opportunities
So if each lead cost you $50 then you’re actually making 10x the money
you invest.

3 Concept Agreements
Advertising is an investment.
Like a pharmaceutical company investing in Research and Development,
2 Preliminary Building Agreements they invest millions first to get back billions later.

A custom home building company is no different. You need to spend $50

per lead first to get back $500 per lead later.
1 Contract
Every lead you acquire is an asset that will deliver a return in the future.

Association of Professional Builders | Marketing Blueprint For Builders 6

What Does The Marketing Funnel For
A Building Company Look Like? Pictured: Second
Landing Page - thanking

Facebook Lead Generation Ads visitor for requesting

download and offering
a complimentary phone
consultation

Pictured: Facebook Advertisement -

promoting a lead magnet

Pictured: Landing Page - requesting name and email

address in exchange for lead magnet

Pictured: Final Thank You Page - with button to

schedule a requested call via online calendar
Association of Professional Builders | Marketing Blueprint For Builders 7
 Pictured: Second
Google Ads Landing Page - thanking
visitor for requesting
download and offering
a complimentary phone
consultation

Pictured: Google Ads Search Advert -

promoting lead magnet

Pictured: Landing Page - requesting name and email

address in exchange for lead magnet

Pictured: Final Thank You Page - with button to

schedule a requested call via online calendar
Association of Professional Builders | Marketing Blueprint For Builders 8
Email Marketing
For Builders Lead Magnet
Delivery Email
(Instant)
Landing
CRM/
Page/
Database
New Contact/Delivering Form Indoctrination Email +1 +1 +1
Content (Welcome To [Your
Building Company])
Day Indoctrination Day Indoctrination
Email 2 Email 3
Day Indoctrination
Email 4
(Instant)

+1 Week

Goodwill Email 1

+1 Week

Goodwill Email 2

+1 Week

Goodwill Email 3

+1 Week

Goodwill Email 4

+1 Week

Goodwill Email 5

+1 Week

Goodwill Email 6

+1 Week

Goodwill Email 7

Association of Professional Builders | Marketing Blueprint For Builders 9

What Is The Lead Magnet Delivery Email?

The lead magnet delivery email is the email responsible for delivering your lead magnet
(design range, free guide, etc) to the lead.

The email copy should affirm your prospect’s decision to give you their personal details by
outlining the benefits and value offered in your lead magnet. It must be delivered instantly
(within seconds) in order to represent the professionalism of your building company.

What Are Indoctrination Emails?

Indoctrination emails are a sequence of 4 emails that introduce your building company to the
brand new lead entering your database.

The first email should start with a short reminder of who you are and what they did to receive
this email. Next you want to thank them for getting in touch with you and reinforce that they
made the right decision by contacting you over a competitor and let them know what you will
be doing next (sending them another email).

It is important that at all stages your lead knows exactly what they can expect from you and
more importantly demonstrate that you will deliver on what you say.

Your first indoctrination email should also include a task for your lead to complete before the
next email arrives. It can be as short and straightforward as requesting a reply to a simple
question such as, “What type of project are you planning?” It doesn’t matter what you ask
them to do, the goal is to start building trust and get some interaction happening quickly.

The timing of the indoctrination sequence of emails is important with the first email being
sent immediately when your lead joins your database for the first time. The following 3 emails
that are sent 1 day apart are designed to over-deliver some valuable information and build
rapport quickly as you share your background and the story that lead you to become an
expert in your niche.

Association of Professional Builders | Marketing Blueprint For Builders 10

 What Are Goodwill Emails?

Goodwill emails are a series of helpful and valuable emails that contain
tips and advice for building a custom home (or whatever your niche is).
Each content email must be sent a maximum of 7 days apart (any longer
and the lead will forget who you are and simply unsubscribe).

Goodwill emails are designed to elevate your status to that of an industry

expert by providing relevant and helpful information that sets you apart
from your competitors.

Avoid talking about yourself in these emails. You don’t need to self
promote every week in order to demonstrate expertise, instead focus on
helping your leads solve their problems.

By imparting your knowledge regularly and consistently, you build trust

with your prospect and position yourself as the ‘go-to’ builder. This series
of emails provides plenty of opportunity for your prospect to reply and
engage in conversations with you through strategically placed ‘Calls-To-
Action’ that prompt for and encourage your prospect to make contact
with you.

Customer-centric companies are 60% more

profitable compared to companies that were
not focused on the customer.
(Source: Deloitte and Touche)

Association of Professional Builders | Marketing Blueprint For Builders 11

 The Big Picture
Content Videos

Lead Magnets

Database / CRM Free Download

Indoctrination One Time Offer Goodwill

Association of Professional Builders | Marketing Blueprint For Builders 12

 Are You Looking To Grow Your Building Company?
It’s All About Utilising Shortcuts And Templates Rather Than Trying
To Figure Everything Out On Your Own.

Join APB today risk free so you can grow your building company in the next 12 months…

Here’s everything you’ll get inside your membership:

ü Monthly business coaching covering

​ ü Ongoing support from your own
​
self-improvement, business operations, personal membership specialist
construction financials, marketing a who will be there to answer any
building company, closing high-dollar questions and to make sure
sales, and setting up systems for a you get maximum value from
residential building company. being a part of the Association of
Professional Builders.
ü
​ Professional Builders Training Portal filled
with 36+ courses containing step-by- ü
​ Downloadable templates, calculators, Click the button below and join the
step video training and workbooks that cheat sheets and checklists that short-cut Association of Professional Builders today!
provide you with the blueprint for scaling the learning process and allow you to
your construction business. experience results in a fraction of the time
it would normally take you to implement
ü
​ A one-on-one private onboarding
these new strategies and tactics into your
session where you will be shown around
your training portal and given expert
building company. Click Here
guidance on where to get started first. To Join APB

Association of Professional Builders | Marketing Blueprint For Builders 13