WHY TARGET WOMEN?
It’s no secret that women are the driving force behind most consumer purchases in our marketplace today, especially new homes. In fact, 90% of women in the United States control the family ’s finances, and 80% of women initiate all consumer purchases, according to a study by Mature Marketing & Research.

Women are also spending more time online than watching television, and 92% of women use to shop for homes, making them the powerful online audience of home buyers. ( “Multitasking Women, #8221; Building Women, Summer 2005.)

With these facts in mind, homebuilders can reap huge returns by earmarking their first marketing dollars for a female-friendly web site. But these web sites don’t happen by chance. An exciting online experience that reaches your women home buyers is developed with woman-centric strategies in mind and created with an entirely new web site or by adding woman-centric features to your existing web site.

HERE ARE FIVE FEATURES FOR REACHING WOMEN ONLINE:

INFORMATION - Men tend to go for facts, numbers and charts. Women focus on lifestyle benefits that fit into more holistic values (family, health, safety, environment, balance, relaxation, personal time, value over cost, convenience, etc.).

EXAMPLE: Quanta Basics developed an interactive floor plan application for Wausau Homes that allows visitors to see colorized “lifestyle areas” of the home, view how the floor plan could easily be changed (a bigger garage, a bay window in the master bedroom, etc.) and see exciting home exterior options. Visit www.WausauHomes.com to experience this fun tool for choosing a home design!

DESIGN - Women prefer ample white space, less animation, less clutter and fewer graphics.

EXAMPLE: Visit Her Home magazine’s home page at www.HerHome.com to see an open design with plenty of white space to appeal to women readers.

RECOMMENDATIONS - Recommendations from friends influence 70% of new product trials, and women often start the purchase decision process by asking for the input of friends.

EXAMPLE: Offer site visitors the ability to send an article to a friend and to rate the usefulness of specific information.

DETAILS - For women, details add fullness and richness and are necessary to understand the full value of a product or service. Women look to add information, not cut it away.

PRIVACY - Safety and security for herself and her family is a woman ’s number one concern.  Because privacy is more important for women than for men, you should make it a priority to ensure your female site visitors safe on your web site.

EXAMPLE: Make it easy to find your “privacy policy! ” Also, include a statement reassuring her that you will not sell her information to third parties and that it will be kept confidential. In addition, emphasize the safety features of your homes (gated communities, neighborhood watch groups, home security systems, etc.).

 
HOW DO YOU KNOW IF YOUR WEB SITE IS SUCCESSFUL?
Review your web site traffic. Your hosting or web company should provide a “web statistics package ” to view traffic info. If quite a few people are visiting your web site but you get few responses, you may want to consider a site redesign. Chances are, people don ’t like what they see on your home page. They may not be going to any of your interior pages before leaving to visit one of your competitors ’ better designed web sites.

Check to see if your web site can be found in the search engines. A simple way to do this is to go to Google.com or Yahoo.com and type in your location, along with industry key words (i.e., “Dallas home builder” or“ Pennsylvania new home ”). If your web site is not listed within the first two or three pages, most users will never see it.

Evaluate your number of form submissions.  In other words, review how many people fill out your “Contact Us” form each week. If it’s a low number, add an incentive to your site’s home page to entice visitors to submit your form.  An incentive could be as simple as a free brochure or the ability to immediately download homebuying tips and home design related articles.   Her Home articles are supplied at no extra charge when you purchase a web site with Quanta Basics. Visit www.QuantaBasics.com/builder to see how this works!

Ask customers how they found out about you. It sounds too easy …but just ask your potential home buyers how they found out about you. This could either be a standard question on your application or something your realtors and sales agents are trained to ask every potential buyer. Find out if they visited your web site to determine if new sales are originating from your online efforts.

BEYOND YOUR WEB SITE:
It’s important that the design and features of your web site are consistent with the rest of your marketing materials. This creates a powerful synergy that captures the attention of your potential home buyers and ensures that the entire home buying experience is complete and effective! (See “Setting Yourself Apart: Woman-Centric Marketing” on page 10.)