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Maximizing Home Builder Marketing Assets - Greyson Miller

This week on The Home Builder Digital Marketing Podcast, Greyson Miller of Landmark 24 Homes joins Greg and Kevin to discuss how home builders can maximize the home builder marketing assets they have available to be more effective and efficient.

Not all digital marketing strategies are universally applicable to every home builder. Success begins with knowing your own business and market. Greyson says, “It's understanding your own business and market to begin with. You kind of have to assess that, I would say, first and foremost. Not everything's going to be replicated from one builder to another. That's really just understanding your own business. You don't have to copy every single thing.”

Understanding local markets can help home builder digital marketers integrate and balance digital capabilities and traditional marketing techniques. Greyson explains, “The road signs or billboards, it's those things that, you know, a lot of people hold near and dear to their heart because they've known that for 40 years, but then also knowing the digital side of things, the capabilities, the tracking, the retargeting, the geofencing, all these other things, you see so many other possibilities. And so, it's kind of weighing the two and trying to do it in an appropriate manner. That's not to say some of those old-fashioned techniques are useless. That's far from it, but it is kind of a balancing act.”

Home builder marketers should leverage current resources before chasing new opportunities for growth. Greyson says, “Just be resourceful. I think a lot of marketers maybe will get intimidated at the big guys, the big builders. There's always a bigger fish at the end of the day. Don't stretch yourself too thin. Embrace everything you already have. Use it a hundred percent before you start trying to worry about expanding too far. That has been one challenge of mine every time of growing and learning. Use a hundred percent of what I already have before I start trying to do something new.”

Listen to this week’s episode to learn how home builders can get the most from existing marketing resources.

About the Guest:

Greyson Miller is the Marketing Manager at Landmark 24 Homes, the largest private builder in the Savannah area. With a background in tourism, Greyson began his career in Branson, MO, before earning his MBA and returning to the Southeast to work at the luxury resort Montage Palmetto Bluff. He later joined Landmark 24 Homes, a company founded nearly 20 years ago by his grandfather and great uncle, which has grown into a top 200 builder. Passionate about innovation, Greyson focuses on integrating technology into the homebuilding industry, with an emphasis on RevOps while implementing a new CRM, and leveraging data analysis for ROI, CPL, and marketing-driven revenue. He leads a team that includes a marketing coordinator and an online sales consultant.

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Transcript

Greg Bray: [00:00:00] Hello everybody, and welcome to today's episode of The Home Builder Digital Marketing Podcast. I'm Greg Bray with Blue Tangerine.

Kevin Weitzel: And I'm Kevin Weitzel with OutHouse.

Greg Bray: And we're excited to have joining us today, Greyson Miller. Greyson is the Marketing Manager at Landmark 24 Homes. Welcome, Greyson. We appreciate you being with us today.

Greyson Miller: Hey, Greg and Kevin, it's awesome to be here. Very, very excited to see something that I've seen on LinkedIn for months and months and months now. So, I'm glad to be a part of it.

Greg Bray: Hey, Kevin. Somebody actually looks at our stuff on LinkedIn. How about that?

Kevin Weitzel: So, well, he said he has seen it on LinkedIn. He [00:01:00] didn't say that he actually listened. Have you listened to a few episodes at least?

Greyson Miller: I got a couple of episodes under my belt. I do, I do.

Greg Bray: All right. Well, Greyson, for those who haven't met you yet, let's start with a quick introduction. Get to know a little bit of background about you.

Greyson Miller: Yeah, I'm the Marketing Manager at Landmark 24, like Greg just mentioned. Homegrown here in Savannah, Georgia. Got some college experience at Kennesaw State, and then I have my master's degree from Mercer University. Kind of trekked around the country a little bit. Spent some time in Branson, Missouri, as my first job. Came back home, worked at Montage Palmetto Bluff, and now I'm here at Landmark 24.

Kevin Weitzel: All right, so first off, what does the 24 stand for?

Greyson Miller: Fun fact is the 24 squares that were originally here in Savannah. So, we're known for all the different squares we have here. Twenty-four squares.

Kevin Weitzel: I knew that, actually, and I didn't put two and two together.

Greyson Miller: They've eliminated a few here and there.

Kevin Weitzel: That's where Forrest Gump's bench is. But from what I understand, the Forest Gump bench actually isn't there.

Greyson Miller: But he [00:02:00] did sit in one of the squares. He did. Yeah.

Kevin Weitzel: That's it. Alright, so before we get into a little bit more about you and Landmark 24, could you please tell us one interesting factoid about yourself that has nothing to do with work, family, or the home building industry in general?

Greyson Miller: Oh man. I mean, there's a couple. It could be the Lego obsession I have. It could be that I am just an absolute geek and like to build my own computers. It could be that I watch every movie that comes out. I mean, I'm a little bit of everything, I think, but a nerd and geek down to my core, a hundred percent.

Kevin Weitzel: Love it.

Greyson Miller: Yeah.

Greg Bray: Awesome. Well, Greyson, tell us a little more about how you ended up at Landmark 24 and kind of your path into working with a builder.

Greyson Miller: Yeah. So, this company was founded by my uncle. He was originally a home builder, so he knew that side very well. And then my grandfather happened to be an accountant by trade, so he joined forces with him some years ago, and they've created Landmark 24 for what it is. I didn't start off on the home builder journey.

[00:03:00] I wasn't destined to say I'm going to end up there, but as time has gone on, going from tourism to hospitality and then a position opening up here, saw a growth opportunity. I was invited over here by the director of operations, and I found my way in the home building space. I had spent some time during my high school summers cleaning job sites, picking up what I could, doing whatever I could as a 16- 17-year-old during the summers. So, I'm definitely used to the environment. I love it here and I wouldn't trade it for anything, I think.

Kevin Weitzel: The plus to doing all those little side jobs is it teaches you grit, it adds fiber to your being. So, you bring a lot more to the table working in customer service and stuff. You bring more to the marketing side than what somebody fresh out of college brings; that just says, Hey, I studied marketing and I'd like to work in the home building industry.

Greyson Miller: It's really cool, too, because I have my parents that work here. My great uncle founded the company, but I have my uncle here also. Uncle is in development, Dad does procurement, Mom does design. So, we have just [00:04:00] like the whole wheelhouse kind of going on. So, dinner table conversations, very rarely it's, what did you do today? It's, let's talk about Landmark. It's a great way to absorb as much information as I can about the space, really, so.

Kevin Weitzel: Perfect.

Greg Bray: Well, give us a little more background about the company. You already mentioned Savannah, but tell us where you guys are building and the type of buyers that you are targeting with your products.

Greyson Miller: Yeah, so we started off in Savannah. As time gone on, the area's grown significantly. We've seen just an absolute uptick in population here the past seven years, I would say. But with the company being around 20 years old, Savannah, greater Savannah area was kind of our bread and butter. Hardeeville, South Carolina, we've grown over across that border, over there, all the way down near the Florida border into Golden Isles, Brunswick, and St. Mary's.

We do around 350 homes a year. We've really increased the volume we're doing. We have 65 people on our team, [00:05:00] so we have a big company of employees, I would say too. We do homes all the way from 300K all the way up to around 700K. So, every kind of buyer that's out there, we try and grab them in the net. We don't do townhomes right now, unfortunately. That's beyond our capabilities at this moment. It's a little bit more with the city that we're kind of hoping to get some townhomes going on, but just some single-family homes, build-to-rents. We try and cover the whole gamut, and we're maybe kind of stretching over into build-on-your-lot coming soon. So, we'll see where that goes.

Kevin Weitzel: Out of curiosity on the build-for-rent side, are you guys just contracting, building out the homes, and then turning it over to a management company, or are you self-managing those properties as well?

Greyson Miller: No, we turn them over. With some projects, too, we might take some of the land for our own, some of the units, and we'll just keep them on our own. We have a little rental side as well that we don't necessarily advertise as much. But we do have a rental division, and sometimes a lot of those deals, we'll just take a few for ourselves, so.

Greg Bray: So, Greyson, the family [00:06:00] connection is interesting to me. I didn't know that about you until just now. So, you've got uncles and parents and everything. So, you're the young guy. When you bring marketing ideas, what type of generational view do you have that might be a little different on how you should approach some of this? And now granted, I don't want to get you in trouble with anybody. Okay. So, so, so, so we can talk very carefully here. But what is it that maybe some who've been doing this a little longer are kind of comfortable with that you're trying to say, you know what? Let's try it different. Let's do something different.

Greyson Miller: Yeah. I think, you know, it's always the tangibles, you know, collateral for example, or the road signs or billboards, it's those things that, you know, a lot of people hold near and dear to their heart because they've known that for 40 years, for example, you know, some of the veterans that grew up around that space. But then also knowing the digital side of things, the capabilities, the tracking, the retargeting, the geofencing, all these other things, you see so many other [00:07:00] possibilities.

And so, it's kind of weighing the two and trying to do it in an appropriate manner. That's not to say some of those old-fashioned techniques are useless. That's far from it, but it is kind of a balancing act. And also being able to convey to different people in your company what you want or what you want to push for digital marketing-wise wise and kind of speaking in layman's terms. I know I'm the same way when I hear construction talk. I'm like, all right, y'all got to talk to me like I'm just a complete novice over here, almost. And so, it's kind of breaking it down to a digestible form for a lot of people, I would say.

Greg Bray: When you first came to the company, was there an invitation saying, Hey, we want to get more digital, or was that something that you've kind of had to advocate for and really push to try and drive that direction?

Greyson Miller: Yeah, so our director of operations he came over from Pulte actually about a year and a half before I came over here, and he's the one that kind of recruited me, actually. He was a big fan of the digital space, but also understands [00:08:00] the physical side as well, the tangible sides, like I mentioned. And so, there was definitely a strong investment into the marketing side that wasn't ever happening before then in terms of the budget, I mean. I mean, it was doubled, tripled. It's five times what it was at this point now. And so, it wasn't a hard battle at all because that was kind of the consensus we wanted to go in, the pathway. So, there wasn't really a battle, I would say, thankfully.

Greg Bray: When you look at that roadmap over the last few years that you guys have been working on, which tactics were kind of top of the list to start with, and then how did you kind of decide where you wanted to layer in the next piece from your digital growth?

Greyson Miller: Yeah, I mean, I think that is the pro and the con in the sense where sometimes you know, you want to ramp up marketing, and it's like, all right, I want to spend five grand this month extra. Let's do it. Let's do something with it. And sometimes maybe a knee-jerk reaction is to not strategize and maybe just throw it to something. So, I think [00:09:00] sometimes it's trying to be patient a little bit and take the time to best utilize that money. One of the big ones is like SEM, just paid search, for example. That's something we're big fans of. We keep close tabs on that.

We have a lot of nationals in our market, a lot of nationals, and so we constantly have to kind of assess and monitor what they're doing digitally in our market. We have the number two market share month in and month out against these nationals. And so, we know that paid search is kind of a priority for a lot of their digital space as well. So, we try and manage that. Also, the listing sites, that was a big one too, getting on listing sites like Zillow and doing Builder Boost and participating in those. We were only paying for leads at one point. I would say really just diversifying kind of our marketing spend a little bit more even too.

Greg Bray: So, for these other mid-size builders who are saying, Man, I've got a lot of nationals I have to compete with too. When you guys are learning, we won't call it spying on, [00:10:00] we'll call it learning from.

Greyson Miller: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Greg Bray: How do you decide when to copy and go, oh, that's a good idea, let's do that too, and when to go, oh, you know what? We can do something better than that because they can't pivot or change or evolve as quick as we can. Where is that flow when you guys are looking at those opportunities?

Greyson Miller: I think it's understanding your own business and market to begin with. You'll look at Savannah's track record the last couple years and how booming our market was at one point, and now it's cooled off a little bit rather. Some markets now are booming that weren't seeing that same level of boom that we got during 2001, for example. And so, you kind of have to assess that, I would say first and foremost. Not everything's going to be replicated from one builder to another. That's really just understanding your own business. You don't have to copy every single thing.

There's some processes that we have that we prefer a certain way too, with our sales team, for example. Some people might want you to do an online [00:11:00] consultation first before speaking with the salesperson. You call my OSC, he can schedule a meeting with you this afternoon with them in the field. We just want to get you in the agent's hands, for example. So, just because, you know, one national does it, it doesn't mean it makes sense for us, or we want to even go about it in that same way, I would say.

Kevin Weitzel: So, being a self-admitted nerd techie, do you appreciate the older techniques, like maybe newsprint or billboards as comparatively speaking? Because all markets are different and there's markets where you can put a billboards and have people in droves come into a community. So, are you still watching the old school stuff, or are you just purely, what is the newest, latest, greatest tech, and how can I implement AI? And where are you at on that spectrum?

Greyson Miller: Hundred percent. We're kind of a balanced company where, you know, we try and integrate as much technology as we can while embracing our roots of just being kind of a traditional production builder. And in our market, we have an array of billboard opportunities. That's no stranger in our market, unlike some others [00:12:00] maybe. And so, you can't just shy away from something that is very prominent in our market, for example.

We try and balance it in all honesty. You got to respect it at the end of the day, like I said earlier, I mean, you can't just throw it out just because it's old school. You have to embrace certain things. Just like you ask people that like the older things to embrace the new things. That's the same vice versa for me, I would say. I can't just only love new stuff. I have to embrace traditional marketing tactics, no matter how difficult it might be to see an ROI on a billboard, for example. So,

Greg Bray: Being able to track is definitely one of the perks of the digital side compared to some of those others for sure.

Greyson Miller: Yeah. Yeah.

Greg Bray: So, speaking of tracking, Greyson, what are some of the metrics that you check in on on a regular basis? What are those top KPIs that you're watching all the time?

Greyson Miller: Conversion rates on our sites is a big one. Obviously, click-through rates, the impressions served. But then, like also our OSC, we look at the lead conversion [00:13:00] rate that he has, lead to deal, follow-up response time, that first response time, trying to aim for under five, 10 minutes. So, we try and assess that too. And with HubSpot that we're kind of onboarding with right now, a lot of that will be more trackable to help also determine ROI, cost per lead, revenue driven, all these other sorts of, you know, numbers and metrics that I haven't been able to attribute anything to previously. But in the coming months with HubSpot, hopefully, we'll be able to kind of flip over a couple more stones and see what's really benefiting us at the end of the day.

Greg Bray: No, that's awesome that you're recognizing. Hey, we want to track more and do more. You need to get the data first, right? You can't do anything without the data.

Greyson Miller: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's really cool because, like on HubSpot, you can just pull all your Google ads, all your Meta ads over, and you can see what's being attributed to what. We're trying to work out the phone systems too, where, you know, whatever phone system, Air Call, CallRail, whatever it is, we can have that integrated as well for even [00:14:00] further step of attribution. I want to like be able to attribute every conversation my OSC has at the end of the day to some sort of source. Whether we spend marketing dollars on it or it's just organic, I want to do my best to figure out where is it coming from at the end of the day, and it's hard.

Kevin Weitzel: Let me ask you this. When you're looking at those metrics and you're looking at where these different leads are coming from, do you turbocharge the ones that are more successful, or do you bring up some of the other ones that are less successful, maybe that they just don't have the right dollars behind them?

Greyson Miller: I think it depends on where they're positioned in the funnel, so to speak. If it's intended for, you know, a high funnel kind of approach as a brand awareness play. Like our Meta ads, I'll just use this as an example. Like our Meta ads, we have a lot of community-driven ads, high funnel. We're just trying to get into our site so we can retarget them later. And then we have incentive ads. We spend all different dollar amounts across the board on all of these, but then with our retargeting efforts, we kind of double down with the [00:15:00] incentives because we notice a high conversion rate with those, but a lower click-through rate. But then our community ads, we notice a higher click-through rate because they're pretty and cool, but then a lower conversion rate. So, we get them to the site, retarget them, bring them back with our incentives, and then we notice a decent conversion rate. So, that's kind of like an example of how we analyze some of the creatives and data right there.

Kevin Weitzel: Are you A/B testing as well, or are you just, let's try this lane, then try that lane, then let's try this lane?

Greyson Miller: Yeah. We definitely try and do A/B. I think I fall victim to this, and maybe more marketers do, where sometimes I'll be like, let's A/B this, let's A/B this, and then you do it, and then you don't learn much. You forget about it after the fact, months later. You did it, and you're like, That was cool. Good to know. A year later, it goes by, and you do the same A/B test you did before.

One of my favorite A/B tests is we usually run a couple different incentives. One's like a general markdown, and then one's like a buydown rate. And [00:16:00] when we do our email campaigns, where we place the two, and if they get to the bottom, where we have one incentive versus another, trying to understand which one got the most clicks, which ones people gravitated to more quickly. Also, whether or not we put a home exterior or an amenity shot on a graphic, those are always nice to see too, which ones people gravitated more to. But that's about like the extent of our A/B tests, I would say.

Greg Bray: Greyson, I'm going to go on record here and say, I think that's significantly more than a lot of builders do with A/B testing. Don't discount yourself there, man, because you are asking the right questions. And when you're talking about which image in the ad performed better or not, that's amazing.

Greyson Miller: Yeah, like the Meta Cara cells, we were doing it at first, but just homes and exteriors and interiors, because you always want to put the home, and I know not every builder has an amenity center. That's kind of a luxury for some builders to be able to have too. And so, if you have it, I think just taking [00:17:00] advantage of it as much as you can because that's what the nationals do at the end of the day. Like, you know, you talk about copying some strategies, you find like a programmatic display ad from Pulte Homes or something, and bam, like it's going to be their biggest amenity center with a lazy river.

Kevin Weitzel: I don't think that's def though, that's just, you know, featuring the benefits of living in that community. I don't think that would be considered a lift or even in the lightest fashion.

Greyson Miller: Yeah.

Kevin Weitzel: Can I ask you one really dumb question out of left field?

Greyson Miller: If you're going to ask me a dumb question, I'm scared what my questions are to you.

Kevin Weitzel: Alright, so let me ask you this, only because this more of a curiosity, is going to kill me. Because I went through one of those bus tours downtown in Savannah. I love the place. Matter of fact, if I could relocate there today, I would do it. Does Spanish moss only grow like on the trees, or do they be become part of houses too? Is this something you have to like, clear your gutters of Spanish moss?

Greyson Miller: Yeah. I mean, if you've got some great oaks stressing above your house, those things will get all stuck up in the gutters. They'll get stuck in your driveway. Some people would call it intrusive. Some people think it's absolutely beautiful. You [00:18:00] got the bugs on your shoulders from that Spanish moss. You learn to appreciate it at some point.

Greg Bray: Kevin's moving to Savannah. All right.

Greyson Miller: When was the last time you've been to Savannah?

Kevin Weitzel: Well, probably two years ago, and I did one of those bus tours, and there was a little lady on the bus that said, Ladies and gentlemen, you'll see this stuff hanging from the trees. And she had this really like smoker's voice, and she goes, It is called Spanish moss. It is neither Spanish nor is it moss. It comes from the pineapple family. And I cracked up. I will never forget her or that quote, because of her just raspy voice. She was a beautiful lady. Not beautiful, good looking, beautiful, just a beautiful soul. She was not pretty at all, but awesome human being.

Greyson Miller: It's all dry out there in Phoenix. You don't have much out there, right?

Kevin Weitzel: We have cactus. Things that you can fall on and hurt yourself. That's really about it.

Greg Bray: I just want to know how many other things are in the Pineapple Family. I didn't know there was a family, so.

Kevin Weitzel: I didn't know there was family either. It blew my mind, and it's not Spanish, nor is it a moss.

Greg Bray: All right, Greyson. Well, back to home building.

Kevin Weitzel: Yes. [00:19:00]

Greg Bray: Oh, man. When you guys are trying to track all this data, all this information, how do you keep from getting stuck in kind of that information overload where you've just got so much data that you can't even, you know, figure out what to look at next or how to use it to make a better decision? Is that something that you run into, or are you guys pretty good at figuring out what to do with it?

Greyson Miller: I think I ran into that at first because, I mean, when I stepped into this position, there was a lot of digital marketing spend, but very, very, very high-level analytic analysis, I think, taking place. As time went on, the more the person understands myself in this example, the more I understand it further down the rabbit hole I can go. But I think also understanding everyone else's level of that knowledge is also pretty important. Because if you're the only one in the room that might know that on your team, I think it limits the strategizing that can take place, too.

What I [00:20:00] understand, I try and also translate it in a sense where others on my team can also understand it, to where we can better all make decisions. Just because I know what I'm looking at with the data doesn't mean I can make the best decision all the time. So, you know, I try and translate it to like, again, our team and where we can all kind of collaborate and understand, okay, here's the goals for our business, and this is the data being translated. Let's make this decision. I think you just limit how much you get at first if you don't understand it, and slowly progress as time goes on. You just got to learn it and learn it and learn it.

Kevin Weitzel: And you said you guys do about 300, 350 homes a year, right?

Greyson Miller: Yes, sir.

Kevin Weitzel: So, you're in one of those limbo categories, and it's not a good or bad thing; it's just the fact. The nationals have everything. They try to do as much in-house as they can. Mm-hmm. And you have the small builder that they just don't have the staffing; they have to bring in agencies. You're in that kind of weird middle ground where you can use agencies, you can do it internal. When do you determine what's the best time to partner with an agency versus trying to tackle it yourself?

Greyson Miller: You [00:21:00] got to look at your team size first and foremost. I mean, it's just myself, an OSC, and a marketing coordinator, three people, and one of them doesn't really do digital marketing, so it's just two people then. And you know, I think an agency helps out a lot of people at the end of the day. And I think really, I think a lot of builders could underestimate how else big a builder needs to be to get an agency. I feel like I'm on one end of that spectrum where, like you said, like you're in the limbo. I think the limbo stage is fairly wide for builders to jump with an agency, I think. I think you could do 50 homes a year and jump with an agency, and you don't have to spend a billion dollars a year. You don't have to, but you have that assistance and that expertise at your disposal. But then, like you said, once you get to a certain echelon, like yeah, bring it in-house, of course, you know, if you can.

Kevin Weitzel: He said you don't have to spend a billion dollars. Do you have any clients that are spending a billion dollars? I don't have any.

Greg Bray: A billion?

Kevin Weitzel: Billion with a B.

Greg Bray: I think he said a million. [00:22:00] I think. I think he said a million.

Greyson Miller: I don't know if, yeah, even DR Horton spends a billion.

Kevin Weitzel: Well, you know.

Greg Bray: If there is someone listening who's ready to spend a billion dollars, please call right now.

Kevin Weitzel: I'll jump through hoops.

Greyson Miller: I mean, what do y'all see? What kind of builder accounts do y'all typically see? What's like maybe the lowest end and the highest end of people kind of willing to commit versus bringing it in-house or keeping it in-house?

Kevin Weitzel: Well, you know, it really depends on the product line. You know, because when it comes to websites, when you have my nephew Steven, he knows how to build a website, you need to stay away from that like it has the black plague on it. Because all they're going to do is do a very basic page. It doesn't have any data-driven aspect to it. It doesn't have any feed capabilities. It's just a placeholder. A couple of pages. I'm sure Greg has a lot more to pontificate on that subject.

But when it comes to the digital assets side, there's a lot of things that tools allow things to happen. You know, like renderings, you can learn some basic, you know, Studio Max and Studio S Max and, and do some pretty [00:23:00] decent renderings. Now you have to train yourself how to do it. You have to bring it up to speed, and can you scale? Those are the kind of things you have to consider. So, I think it just really comes down line and what you're looking at and what the service is.

Greg Bray: I would just add that it's really about what are you good at and what can somebody else do more efficiently and effectively, so that you can be busy doing something else. Because at the end of the day, what you mentioned in one or two people, there's only so many hours, and it doesn't matter how good you are at all of it, there's only so many hours. So, you've got to find partners to get some of it done, and just kind of, you know, leveraging the expertise and the experience is powerful.

Greyson Miller: I think some people could, like, if they have the opportunity or their management team or whoever says, let's go get a couple agencies, let's go get some partners to help out with these things, I think some people, if they're not careful, they can let a bunch of other people do a lot of their businesses work for them at the end of the day too. I think just marketing teams, being able to hold themselves accountable and embrace their [00:24:00] function, you know, take ownership over a lot of it. Even if you have a marketing agency, take ownership over that, treat them like it's your team, and communicate. As long as you don't let your hands get too far off it, in my opinion.

Greg Bray: I would agree that the best relationships are when you treat that agency like a member of the team and have that conversation level and that strategy discussion, and not just the implementer and the order taker, where you are just telling them everything to do. You're missing out if all you do is say, go do this, go do that, and just have them do it for you, and miss out on tapping into their experience.

Greyson Miller: Because they don't know your business at the end of the day.

Greg Bray: So, Greyson, as you've gotten into home building and you look back at some of the other experiences you had before, what's something that you understand now about home builder marketing that you wish you had known on day one?

Greyson Miller: I think there's probably a series of them. I think the financing piece is something that I really, really learned a lot about the past couple years. I mean, that's the climate we're in, [00:25:00] for one. But you can really do a lot with just the financing messaging, whether it's buying the rates down, estimated payments, whether it's a mortgage calculator on your website, how you integrate that with your follow-up process with your OSC. If you have a lending partner or you have your own mortgage company, how much you can integrate those individuals into your sales meetings that you have with other brokerages, I mean, there's just endless opportunities to include financing inside of messaging, and your outreach, really, I would say.

As I've grown and learned more about that world, it becomes a lot more easy, I guess, to relay to buyers at this point. But at one point, it really was not easy. All these other things that were just really, really difficult to relay versus look at my pretty home. So, it is trying to relay some of the financing jargon, I would say.

Kevin Weitzel: How about this, on a scale of one to 10, one we don't know anything about it, 10, we've implemented so much of it that we could give classes on [00:26:00] it, where is Landmark 24 in AI implementation into your daily activities, and

Greyson Miller: I would say probably somewhere around like a five or a six. I think AI can be a buzzword with some circles and some people, where it's like, we got AI. They use ChatGPT or they use Google's Gmail thing to just rewrite their email. You know, doing yourself justice and understanding really how involved AI is with your company is important. We use it for day-to-day tasks more than anything.

Like an AI chatbot, like an agent that HubSpot might offer, I'm kind of wary about. I don't know if I trust it to do things after hours with the risk of misinformation, for example. But I think things like an ERP have endless opportunities with AI and all the data an ERP absorbs, for example, I think those have endless opportunities to grow a business's revenue, cost savings, everything. And then HubSpot though too with the marketing data coming [00:27:00] inside of it and what you see with your buyers, and the audiences, I think, really as time goes on, we'll be able to integrate a lot more. We're just using it, I guess, in the baby stages, I would say. We do have one application, though. I know this is a long answer for you, Kevin. We have this application called Rilla that we just brought on.

Kevin Weitzel: They're fantastic.

Greyson Miller: Yeah. That's really phenomenal. I mean, summarizing conversations with buyers and being able to tell the strengths and weaknesses of your sales team. Buyer feedback, all of it.

Kevin Weitzel: So, depending on how long you've had it. Did you get the instantaneous pushback from sales thinking, Oh, you're spying on my calls? Or do they look at it as an opportunity to learn and grow, and improve their process?

Greyson Miller: With something like that, you're always going to get that, that first week or two. Like you'll always get that no matter what. But as time's going on, they have bought in entirely. We use it through and through, and we've heard their feedback, and they appreciate it. I mean, you know, it might have a bug here and there, but it just allows an opportunity to self-reflect, really, at the end of the day. [00:28:00] It's hard for people to self-reflect after, you know, meeting someone for two hours and remembering everything you did and said. So, I think it's really benefiting them. It will continue benefiting them in the long run without a doubt.

Kevin Weitzel: I agree.

Greg Bray: Well, Greyson, thanks so much for spending time with us today. Do you have any last thoughts or words of advice you'd like to leave with our audience before we wrap up?

Greyson Miller: Oh man, I don't know. Just be resourceful. I think a lot of marketers maybe will get intimidated at the big guys, the big builders. There's always a bigger fish at the end of the day. Don't stretch yourself too thin. Embrace everything you already have. Use it a hundred percent before you start trying to worry about expanding too far. That has been one challenge of mine every time of growing and learning. Use a hundred percent of what I already have before I start trying to do something new. So, that would be my word of advice.

Greg Bray: Well, Greyson, if somebody wants to connect with you, what's the best way for them to reach out and get in touch?

Greyson Miller: Yeah, you can go on LinkedIn. Greyson Miller on there with Landmark 24 Homes, or you can email me at [00:29:00] gmiller@landmark24.com. I'm happy to lend a hand or provide any feedback in any way I can.

Greg Bray: Well, again, for being with us, and thank you everybody for listening today to The Home Builder Digital Marketing Podcast. I'm Greg Bray with Blue Tangerine.

Kevin Weitzel: And I'm Kevin Weitzel with OutHouse. Thank you.

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