This week on The Home Builder Digital Marketing Podcast, Don Dykstra and Cassius Adkison of Bloomfield Homes join Greg and Kevin to discuss how the one-house rule can help home builders look at digital marketing as more of an investment rather than an expense.
Many home builders view marketing as an expense rather than an asset. Don says,
“They don’t see it at all because everybody comes from different backgrounds, but a lot of people come out of a construction background where it’s all been about controlling costs and beating down costs. I come out of more of almost a land acquisition, capital investment background. Exactly like you said, marketing is an investment. We certainly expect to get a payback for our investment, but we look at it as an investment.”
A more enlightened marketing approach is one that Don and his team call the one-house rule, where selling one house pays for an effective digital marketing strategy. Don explains,
“We have something we call the one-house rule where you go try something and you figure it’ll sell at least one house that’ll generate say 50,000 of net income. So, if you throw 25, 50,000 at some idea that maybe you haven’t ever done before, we use what we call the one-house rule and we’ll go do those experiments and do those things that maybe no one has done before.”
Metrics can help to determine which digital marketing tools a home builder should continue to pursue. Cassius says,
“We want to track pretty much everything…Every interaction we have on our website, every signup, we want to be able to say, okay, these customers, this traffic to this community came from our Google Ads or came from Facebook… being able to track those leads and track conversions really put us in a place to see…this is how much traffic, this is how many sales our investment is generating.”
It’s beneficial to understand how all marketing investments work together and not get solely focused on only digital marketing. Cassius explains,
“That has been that shift in mindset. Instead of, ‘Hey, let’s run as many digital marketing initiatives that we can easily track’ to ‘Let’s consider everything as a whole.’ And now my focus is store visits, is getting people to our communities, getting people to our model homes, and seeing that traffic increase rather than seeing our online lead forms being submitted more. It’s really looking at the company as a whole rather than just our digital marketing initiatives.”
Listen to this week’s episode to learn more about how to make digital marketing an investment, not just an expense.
About the Guests:
Don Dykstra
Don co-founded Bloomfield Homes in 2004. Bloomfield Homes has grown rapidly since its formation to $ 1 billion in 2022 sales. Approximately 2200 homes in 50 neighborhoods will be delivered throughout the Dallas / Fort Worth Metroplex this year. Builder Magazine twice named Bloomfield Homes the “Most Productive Big Builder in the Country” and once the “Fastest Growing Private Builder in the U.S.”.
Don, along with wife Debbie was the Greater Fort Worth Homebuilders Association Developer of the Year in 2018 and Builder of the Year in 2021. Don was also a Finalist in 2018 for EY Entrepreneur of the Year.
In 2013 and 2017 Sumitomo Forestry Group purchased 65% of Bloomfield Homes and the Company is now a consolidated subsidiary of this publicly traded (Tokyo Exchange) 300-year-old forestry and homebuilding company.
Don currently serves as Chairman and spends most of his time on land acquisition and community development. Bloomfield has accumulated a portfolio of approximately 25,000 lots to support future expansion.
Previously, Don worked for Pulte Homes for 16 years in California and Texas, and as a CPA with EY & Co in Southern California for 6 years. Don is a graduate of California Polytechnic University with a degree in accounting.
Cassius Adkison
Cassius is a Strategic Marketing Professional with over 13 years of success in developing, implementing, and managing vital marketing strategies for small to mid-sized businesses. In 2008, he was recruited into corporate sales where he was key in growing and managing a sales team of over 50 agents in residential sales for a Fortune 500 Company. That success led to the launching of new sales markets across the country, in states such as Florida, California, and Indiana.
After a couple of years in the sales industry, Cassius leveraged his experience and success to lead him into the world of Marketing and Advertising. Looking for a way to help small businesses in the Dallas area attract more customers and grow sales, in 2010 Cassius launched AdLo Marketing Group- a strategic marketing agency that specialized in developing custom, innovative marketing strategies designed to promote and increase brand awareness, customer retention, and sales for local businesses. As the marketing industry moved into a primarily digital landscape, AdLo’s focus and specialty evolved into working with companies in Website Design, Seo/SEM, Social Media Marketing, and Paid Online Advertising. Throughout AdLo’s tenure, Cassius was able to work with and manage marketing strategies for, over 100 companies and brands all over the world, in almost every major industry, and partner on large-scale marketing projects with companies such as Google, GoDaddy, and Microsoft, just to name a few.
In 2018, newly married and planning on starting a family soon, A shift in personal priorities caused Cassius to step away from running a business full-time and look for more opportunities that would allow him to provide the same value and expertise but allow for more time with his new family. Eventually, in 2020, that opportunity presented itself at Bloomfield Homes, one of the largest Home Builders in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. Having had some experience working with real estate companies, brokerages, and investors with AdLo, Cassius was instantly excited and eager to learn and utilize his skillset to help the growth of this brand. Today, Cassius handles most of the major advertising initiatives for Bloomfield, from billboards and the annual company brochures to Google Ads, SEO, Video Production, and Social Media Advertising.