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Home Builder Digital Marketing Podcast Digital Marketing Podcast Hosted by Greg Bray and Kevin Weitzel

257 The 2024 Home Buyer Conversion Report - Jimmy Diffee

This week on The Home Builder Digital Marketing Podcast, Jimmy Diffee of Bokka Group joins Greg and Kevin to discuss the 2024 Home Buyer Conversion Report, a detailed analysis that will help home builders understand the key influences that cause home buyers to take action. 

Home builder digital marketers have endless questions about how to spend marketing time and money effectively. Jimmy says builders ask questions like, “…?what should we invest in to get more visits to our website? Likewise, what should we invest in on our website to get more leads? And then once we have those leads, what should we invest in to nurture those leads to get more appointments? And then once they're on-site, what should we invest in technology-wise, specifically in content, to convert those to sales?”

Home builders should have timely and trustworthy resources to make informed and effective marketing decisions. Jimmy says, “?I think that just knowing that whenever we're collecting this, we're doing it to give it to other builders. We need this data to be accurate and not anecdotal. Even though this anecdotal evidence, it's our gut and it's usually correct, I don't feel comfortable being able to put that out to the public to say, you should go out and do this Because it could vary based on market. There's so many just variabilities that come along with giving anecdotal data that we've tried to eliminate by including these things in the conversion report.”

The main purpose of this report is to support home builder success and to improve the home buyer journey. Jimmy says, “And so, then we were really able to, in my opinion, give something actionable for the builder that's looking for the one place. If they only can invest in one, which should it be? They have that answer. They can look based on demographics. Ultimately the goal is spend your money the best that you possibly can to get the best return on that investment and to deliver the best customer experience.”

Listen to this week’s episode to learn more about key insights from the 2024 Home Buyer Conversion Report.
 

About the Guest:

Jimmy is a customer experience expert and keynote speaker for the home building industry. He also provides workshops and customer experience management services for leading builders in the US. Jimmy's passion is utilizing technology to create a better, more effective home buying process (and most importantly, a better customer experience). He has a background in user-centered design and possesses an intimate knowledge of research and technological tools for creating memorable user experiences. 

With 20 years of experience, Jimmy uses customer data to improve home sales, reviews, and referrals through user-centered programs. As the author of the Home Buyer Conversion Report, he's responsible for conducting usability research at Bokka. As Creative Director, he turns this data into customer experience strategies that work.

He also has been responsible for award-winning campaigns for a variety of industries outside home building. For the past 10 years he's applied cutting-edge technologies & best-practices from these industries to new home sales programs. Jimmy also serves on judging panels for national builder-industry award shows, determining the best of the best in new home sales, design and marketing throughout the world.

He is the author of the annual Home Buyer Conversion Report, the industry's leading research showcasing technology's influence on new home sales.

He is also the visionary of BuilderCX, the most advanced customer survey solution available for the construction industry.
 

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 are excited to have joining us on the podcast today, Jimmy Diffee. Jimmy is the co-founder of Bokka Group. Welcome, Jimmy. Thanks for being back with us today.

Jimmy Diffee: Yeah, it's my pleasure. 

Greg Bray: Well, Jimmy, I know a lot of people already know you but give us that quick overview and intro just for those who haven't had a chance to meet you yet. 

Jimmy Diffee: Yeah. So, my name is Jimmy Diffee. I'm a co-founder of the Bokka Group. We've been in business since 2001, been [00:01:00] in home building specifically since 2007, because we have impeccable timing. We are a customer experience agency for builders, which might sound like an oxymoron in some cases, but everything that we do is focused on improving the customer experience.
A lot of times that's at odds with selling homes for this industry in particular. Kind of dangerous for us to go all out on that because there's a lot that goes into building a home. It's an extremely complex process, setting a high bar for customer experience is a lot of times asking for trouble for a lot of builders.

So, we understand why it's a difficult thing to do and to deliver on, but our mission as a company is to help builders deliver on that, whether it be through sales, marketing, surveys, research, you know, a lot of different ways that we can affect that customer journey. Our mission is to do everything we can to make the home buying experience better [00:02:00] than we found it.

Kevin Weitzel: Well, I can tell you that I am 100 percent in appreciation that your team brought back the Home Buyer Conversion Report. I love it. I earmark it. I make it ready to go for clients whenever they have questions. So, I think it's fantastic. But before we jump into that, our listeners need to know something interesting about you that has nothing to do with work, our industry, or family.
What do you got? 

Jimmy Diffee: Oh, come on. So, and I have to say the first thing that pops into my head, which I don't want to, because it might be funny at a party, but now, you know, with a professional audience of home builders, I have to tell everyone on here that I can actually stick my tongue up my nose.

Kevin Weitzel: Hey, Greg, another first.

Greg Bray: Hey, and we're audio only, so nobody gets to see it, but 

Jimmy Diffee: Actually, and we're on the call here, but you guys can see it. So, now I probably have to back it up. So, I'm sure whenever you edit this, you can put in some slurping [00:03:00] noises as I do this.

Kevin Weitzel: That's crazy. 

Greg Bray: I'm gonna, I'm gonna say that's a first, Kevin. I do not think we've had that one yet on the podcast. 

Kevin Weitzel: Nope. We have not. 

Greg Bray: Well done, Jimmy. Well done. Well, like Kevin mentioned, we're excited about the Home Buyer Conversion Report. You guys did it for many years. It took a little bit of a break and now it's back. Before we kind of talk more about what you found, just tell us why you guys have been doing this, the background of the study, and what you're trying to achieve with it. 

Jimmy Diffee: Yeah. great question. So, many, many moons ago, whenever we first started, or even before we did our first conversion report, which was in 2012, we were making recommendations to builders on improving their customer experience, and by doing that, you look at the sales funnel, right? And so, as a strategic partner, at Bokka with builders, we really focus on dialing in the sales funnel and helping improve the conversion rates at each of the different [00:04:00] stages of selling homes for the buyer. 

So, from first impression, what influences home shoppers to go from an impression like on, you know, video or like an ad or broadcast or whatever to a visit, which is clicking through to your website? Builders come to us and say, what should we invest in to get more visits to our website? Likewise, what should we invest in on our website to get more leads? And then once we have those leads, what should we invest in to nurture those leads to get more appointments? And then once they're on-site, what should we invest in technology-wise, specifically in content, to convert those to sales?

And what we found was there really just wasn't any data that existed about homebuyer preferences or prospect preferences on what influences them to move throughout the funnel. So, for us at Bokka, to make the recommendations on how to best spend your budget on technology, we found that we didn't have any data to back it [00:05:00] up. So, we decided to just go out and create the data.

And so we partnered with the Home Innovation Labs, which was who NAHB used for their research, partnered with them, to field the first Homebuyer Conversion Report, which does exactly that. It asks questions at each stage in the process, what was influential for you to move to that next step. We put it into a booklet, we got it out there, and it really stuck, and no one else has done anything like it since that we've seen.

We did it every year up until 2017, so about 7 years ago we paused it and we were going to start doing it, you know, every couple of years, and then COVID happened. And so, this is something that we don't make any money off of, but we invest in, you know, paying for the study and putting everything together.

So, it's not a profit center for us, but it really helps us make better-informed decisions, and that's our mission. Let's put this out to the industry, give all [00:06:00] builders this data so they can see what buyers prefer, and in that way, it improves the home buying experience, and it also gives them a better sense of where to spend their money when it comes to ROI.

Kevin Weitzel: So, this is gonna sound crazy, but my brain is just wondering how you got to all the clients, the potential homebuyers or existing homebuyers that you use in the study or how did you get this data? Like, did you stand outside of model homes and just shake people down and say, fill out this form?

Jimmy Diffee: Oh, man. That probably would have been easier. Herein lies the problem, this is why people aren't doing it, it's because getting access to actual homebuyers is not really an easy thing, when it comes to collecting data from them anyway. We have a lot of homebuyer preferences for home shoppers, is pretty easy to come by. But actual home buyers that are vetted that they have purchased a home, that's a little bit more challenging. 

So, we reached out to existing clients and other relationships that we had in the industry to start. And so, that gave us a pretty good starting point. And then, we [00:07:00] supplemented with NAHB s Research Center had this omnibus study that they did. So, they had access to some buyers, and we purchased that list from them. Again, we have to pay for that, so we have to pay per respondent. By doing that, we're able to get really good data. 

One year we even went to a different data source and we found that a lot of the responses didn't seem to be coming from actual homebuyers. And so, data integrity is really, really important to me and to us in the study. And so, you know, we had to put some pretty rigorous filters in place whenever people are trying to take this study, some screener questions that prove that they actually bought a new home and weren't just faking it to, you know, get a $5 certificate or whatever.

Greg Bray: So, Jimmy, in this year, you haven't done it for a few years, you get your data, you're looking at it for the first time, what was like the big surprise? You're like, Oh man, I wasn't expecting that.
 
Jimmy Diffee: Out of this report? 

Greg Bray: Out of this new one.

Jimmy Diffee: There wasn't a whole lot of [00:08:00] really unexpected things. I mean, we live and breathe this stuff all the time. And honestly, when we first started this, these things really reinforced what we already believed, some commonsense things that okay, younger buyers are using more live chat, younger buyers are using more social media, older buyers are not. They prefer some of these other old-school methodologies.

But what I didn't realize this year was that we now have Gen X. This demographic shift that's happened since seven years ago, we did this, has been huge. Now we have millennials are actually the biggest demographic, right? That's what everybody had been talking about leading up to this. And then Gen X is now approaching retirement. It's not so much the data itself that surprised me, it's how we read the data. 

So, for example, for active adult home sellers, you know, builders that are building an active adult communities, they're used to targeting this kind of old school buyer, which is the baby boomers, [00:09:00] because they're the ones that have been this, you know, retirement age. Well, now 59 is Gen X. Gen Xers, you know, 44 and 59 years old now. They're looking for active adult communities. The old-school way that these other builders have been really approaching their sales and marketing and targeting, really needs to change. 

And I was just like, wow, which I'm Gen X. So, I mean, that was kind of a shock to me as well. We're approaching retirement and we have different needs when it comes to buying a house. So, we're looking for, you know, like maybe the Epcon type builders or these active adult communities, but we buy completely differently than baby boomers do. So, how builders can use this data has changed significantly since the last time we fielded this report. 

Kevin Weitzel: It's kind of weird that we're approaching retirement because I think all three of us are Gen X. I met with my financial advisor and he said that, Hey, you can retire tomorrow. You're only going to get to live for another three or four days, but you can retire tomorrow if you want. So, that's where I'm at. But Hey, [00:10:00] let me ask you this, not necessarily any surprises from the results of the study. However, cause I read through that thing cover to cover. So, are you as surprised as I am how many builders don't have systems in place to accommodate the findings that you have in the report? 

Jimmy Diffee: No, I'm not surprised at all. 

Kevin Weitzel: Oh, I see. I see what you're saying. Yeah, you're not surprised. Yes. 

Jimmy Diffee: I'm not surprised. I mean, been in this industry long enough nothing really surprises me about this industry. And I don't mean that in a mean way. I love this industry. What we do is noble work. Selling homes is really, really important. Whether it's, you know, giving someone another chance at, you know, moving from their family home that is no longer fits their needs. It's really important to get them out of that and into this new fresh start in retirement that they deserve and been working their whole lives for. It's really, really important work that we're doing.

Or getting these first-time buyers out from under a landlord and realizing that they can start to build wealth and, you know, invest their money in something that's going to work for them. [00:11:00] I mean, these are all really, really important things, not just to me, but to everyone that's in this industry. So, I think very, very highly of everyone in this industry. I also know that it's really complicated to put the customer first because they need to build homes, it's manufacturing. It's out in the field with weather as an environmental factor and lots of trades and lots of moving parts and suppliers. I mean, all the things that make buying and building a home complex are just kind of amplified. 

So whenever we approach a builder that doesn't, let's say invest in live chat, even though their demographic may say that 90 percent would convert to a lead if they used live chat, I understand. I get it. Like they may not have the resources to man that live chat, so they're hesitant to move into it. You know, they just need to keep building homes and making sure that they're clean and complete and on time and that's hard to do. 

So, I don't question any builder that they don't invest in all of these other things when it comes to these [00:12:00] tools because they've got a lot on their plate. Our sweet spot in terms of the ideal relationship with Bokka are these middle tier builders, small to middle builders, doing like a hundred homes a year and are wanting to go up to two, 300 homes a year. It takes a lot of infrastructure in place on the sales and marketing and technology side to help get to that point.

And so, those things are really, really important. And without that infrastructure in place, it's really hard to just go and say, all right, I'm going to invest in live chat, or I'm going to invest in virtual reality, even though these stats say that I should. 

Greg Bray: You know, Jimmy, you mentioned that there were things that were just obvious to you when you saw the data. I think it's important to remind everybody that that's still a valuable finding in a research report, right? Because we run around with these preconceived notions and assumptions that we start to just believe just because it seems obvious to us. 

And then you get a report like this and you guys do the heavy lifting and the deep work to go actually ask and [00:13:00] find out and the data says, yes, they do like it that way. And we go, well, of course they do. I already knew that. But in reality, we didn't really know that, we were guessing until we have the data to tell us that we knew that. So, thank you for putting that data out there, even if it's something that everybody goes, Oh, well, that's obvious.

Jimmy Diffee: No, thanks for that. I mean, I 100 percent agree. You know, several years into it, we were starting to see, I'll use an actual example. So, marketing channel influence in attracting buyers to home builder websites. So, which marketing channels were most influential or were influential in attracting you to their website. Did you find them through independent listing sites? Did you find your builder through organic? Did you find them through paid search? Was it from banners? Because, you know, builders would say, well, should I invest in banners? Should I invest in social media ads? You know, do they work? 

And so, the question is, well, you, homebuyer, was this influential to you in your home buying process when you found your builder, you know, top of the funnel? Did you find them through this? Was it [00:14:00] influential? Yes or no. And we were starting to see that it the discrepancies were like 5, 10 percent because a lot of them were like 80%, 85 percent said it was influential and that's helpful to know. Okay, as a builder, I know if this was 85 percent said this was influential, then I should probably invest in it. 

But whenever all the other tactics were also like 75, 80%, how does a builder know which one? Because they can't always do them all. So, this is about best return on your investment. Which one should I invest in the most? And so, we altered that question, added another question that was, okay, we know that these were influential. You said that, but of these, tell us which ones were most influential. And that's a rank order question where we said, you know, rank these or slide them around, you know, was independent listing websites like Zillow, Or Zonda, or Livabl, was that the most influential thing, or was it the banner ads that you said were influential? How do they compare?

And so, then we were really able to, in my opinion, give something [00:15:00] actionable for the builder that's looking for the one place. If they only can invest in one, which should it be? They have that answer. They can look based on demographics. So, if they're an active adult builder selling to one of these two demographics, then, you know, look at that data. If they're in one region or another or selling a higher price point versus a lower price point, we have those demographic breakdowns that you can really start to see how this influence can affect their particular buyer. Ultimately the goal is spend your money the best that you possibly can to get the best return on that investment and to deliver the best customer experience. 

Greg Bray: Jimmy, as you look at that kind of data, do you ever wonder if the buyers actually remember some of the things that they saw along the way? You know, is it possible that they forgot that they went on Zillow to start, or they forgot that they saw this banner ad at some point, but yet it's still subconscious? A lot of marketing sometimes is that multitude of impressions and exposures that [00:16:00] happen over time. Do we need to take some of that with a grain of salt or do you feel like you were able to filter some of that out in the way you guys did the questions? 

Jimmy Diffee: Any time you look at data, you have to take it with a grain of salt. As someone responsible for maintaining the integrity of this data, I believe very strongly in that. At the same time, some data is better than no data, and some surveys are better than others. We really are intentional about giving examples. Is there going to be bias? Yes, there's always going to be bias in a situation like this, any survey, especially a process this long, but we try to eliminate that bias as much as possible by giving examples. 

So, for example, we don't just say, you know, how influential were independent listing websites. We'll say independent listing websites, such as Zillow, you know, and give these examples for paid search results. We really try and stay away from things like industry terms and say the sponsored results at the top of your Google are being searched. 

I think we do everything that we can to maintain the integrity of that [00:17:00] data and to eliminate the bias. But to your point, there is going to be bias in this, and you know, we understand that. You know, what we have here is plenty to be able to make informed decisions about where to invest based on this data. I feel very, very confident in that. 

You know, we've had builders, just like you had mentioned Kevin, you know, at the top that builders have reached out to us and said, this is my Bible, and these are big builders that have used this as their Bible and have gotten results from it. So, we've gotten really good feedback about how builders are using it as well. I feel pretty confident that that grain of salt should always be taken, but it's still very actionable. 

Kevin Weitzel: I can tell you firsthand and this isn't just Jimmy blowing smoke into the report they did. At OutHouse we received permission to give away a certain number of books at various events that we went to, and I can tell you that people would literally kill themselves to make sure they got one. Because it really is, they would call it their Bible. They would say, this is my plan of action for this next year is to study this and then, take out my tidbits [00:18:00] and then figure out what I need to implement. So, I can tell you firsthand it's the case.

But let me tell you one other thing about the whole data gathering. In person, people are much less likely to tell you how they found things. You know, in the motorcycle world, you gotta remember this is 10 to 13 years ago, we would have to enter in the client's information. Hey, how did you find out about us? They're like, oh, I was just driving by. Okay, that's fine. So, we enter them into the CRM. 

And then, lo and behold, they'd been on the website six times. They'd filled out a credit app. They had called in four times because, you know, obviously we were tracking their phone numbers. We were tracking their email. I mean, the whole works. So, yeah, what they can tell you in person is nothing like they'll tell you in an actual respondent survey. 

Greg Bray: Well, Jimmy, let's dive into some of the digital tools, right? We're the digital marketing podcast. We got all these marketers listening in. Compared to last time you guys did it, what type of evolution or change are you seeing in the need for the digital engagement with the buyers, the buyers desire to engage digitally with the builder? Is it what we expect and it's growing? Is [00:19:00] it not growing? Is it way more than we thought? What'd you find? 

Jimmy Diffee: That's a good question. I have to take my own kind of perspective out of it since we're living and breathing this. So, really it's affirming a lot of things that we've already guessed, you know, cause we always want to make the best recommendations for our clients for return on investment and whenever we make those recommendations and we see that they don't work, I think we learn before we collect this data. That's not really data that you can hang your hat on, right. That's just what we've experienced. 

I think that just knowing that whenever we're collecting this, we're doing it to give it to other builders. We need this data to be accurate and not anecdotal. Even though this anecdotal evidence, it's our gut and it's usually correct, I don't feel comfortable being able to put that out to the public to say, you should go out and do this. Because it could vary based on market. There's so many just variabilities that come along with giving anecdotal data that we've tried to eliminate by including these things in the conversion report.

So, I think that another part of your question was, [00:20:00] you know, okay, it's not surprising. What did surprise you or what was reinforced that you knew before? I would say that some of the things that I probably expected to see more was on the virtual reality, augmented reality, and I know that was a big push. I feel like it's waned significantly, like the new, the shiny has worn off and builders, probably only the bigger builders are using it and they're using it in a different type of way than whenever it first came out. Which was, Oh, this is it. You no longer need models, right? We've got virtual. 

Like Oakwood Homes has this product called On2 here in Denver, where I can go into the strip mall and view their models and view it virtually. And it was pretty cool. They didn't have to build a model for that, so they saved some money. But it was a little buggy. It was a little awkward. It's not the same experience as walking into a model. Now, if you don't want to build that many models and furnish them and staff them, then, yes. [00:21:00] You can do the virtual, but is virtual going to be the right answer for every builder? Probably not.
 
And so, I think that was one of the findings. You know, augmented reality and virtual reality, they have a time and a place. But as far as it being the most influential digital content available at a sales office on a person's decision to buy from that particular home builder, we saw that it's really not the most. It can be influential, but it certainly might not be worth the investment.

Kevin Weitzel: I 100 percent agree. I think augmented reality is great for on your lot builders. So, you know, buyer can go see what their home would look like, that feel and what their view would be outside of every window. But, I think that, and I've actually had this opinion for quite some time, is that instead of it trying to replace the physical, I think it just needs to be a supplement to the physical. So, for a builder that has 7 models that they're selling in the community and they only want to build 3 physical models, well, there's 4 that they can do in VR, and then that will actually increase the sales of those units versus the majority of people only buying those 3 that you actually have models of.[00:22:00] 

Jimmy Diffee: Yeah, and you know, there's a big thing that's not really in here. It's alluded to, but will be added I think for the next one. We did a little bit of research in here but what about the self-guided tours that are available now because we're starting to see that now that's it's a thing right and it's super popular. People are using them. I don't even think we need to have the data in here right now to know whether we should invest in it or not because people are using them. You look to what's being done out there and some of the data that is provided around those tours with access anytime, self-guided access. So, I think we probably will add that to it in a future version. 

The up-and-coming things that are not included in here, definitely that one I think is missing. And then AI just came so fast and hard. I don't know how many buyers are using AI, or how they're using it, but as agentic AI really starts to hit the mainstream and AI is in more smart home devices, and you're [00:23:00] asking your Alexa device, Hey, where's the closest new home community near me? It will be able to actually give you the directions and be a little bit better at that because right now I think they're still not really smart speakers. They're still kind of dumb and keep making the same mistakes, but we're seeing that change really, really rapidly. 

Greg Bray: Well, Jimmy, my big question then, for the builder who, can't do everything, if there's just one piece of advice that comes out of this study, what is the one thing that you think builders should be paying attention to as they look at this data?

Jimmy Diffee: Hire a photographer. 

Greg Bray: Pictures.

Jimmy Diffee: Hands down. I mean, photo galleries and visualization is critical. Most production builders build the same model. So, there's no reason once you photographed a model one time, you can't use it representationally for future models or to sell that plan. Builders just don't invest in photography the way that they should or could. It's the low-hanging fruit. And honestly, it's been in the study [00:24:00] since the beginning, and we still see builders that do not have high-quality photography. I mean, renderings a little bit different because it's a little pricier to invest in renderings. Although that's come down significantly. 

So, I would say, you know, investing in a photographer. If you're a custom builder and you're building a couple of homes a year, you can contract a photographer. But if you're in-house and you're doing 250, 300 homes a year, that's a lot. If you can get those homes photographed, you're building models and communities, multiple models each year, get those photographed, add them to your gallery, use that. It's going to level up your perception for these buyers that are doing all the research before they ever walk in.

You compare yourself, who maybe doesn't have very many high-quality renderings or photography to a builder down the street that does, you may not realize it, but most buyers now are looking at that before they ever come in and deciding whether or not to come in. So, yeah, everyone that walks in says they [00:25:00] saw you, they walked in because of the sign that was out front. Okay, so keep investing in those signs. Right. 

Well, what about all the people that never walked in because you didn't have what all these buyers throughout the country are saying are really influential across all age groups. I mean, I think that's the message there. Low hanging fruit is high quality visuals are absolutely critical to keeping buyers from checking you off the list because that's what's happening.

Kevin Weitzel: I wholeheartedly agree. If you are Carl the Builder and you've got a nephew with a phone, well, sure, those photos are better than having nothing, but hiring a professional photographer that takes well lit, well staged imagery with the right framing is far superior, vastly superior to nephew with a phone.

Jimmy Diffee: Absolutely. That's the easiest, right? That's the lowest-hanging fruit. Next to that renderings, visualization, Matterport tours, you know, do a Matterport. Is that as influential as photo galleries? Not quite. They're getting to be, you know, comparable in price. You get a Matterport. You also get a photo gallery. [00:26:00] But do we go all the way into video? Yes. There's value in that too. But if you haven't done the photos and renderings part first, then start there for sure.

But the more you start to build that library, the more you can use it and reuse it and really just increase that perception that these are the types of homes that we build. Don't put your worst foot forward. It would be like having an unfurnished incomplete or dirty model is what I would compare having a website without good photography and visuals. If you have a bad website that has bad, ugly renderings, then that's similar to having just a model that really doesn't show what you're capable of. 

Greg Bray: Well, Jimmy, I do have to say, in the interest of complete disclosure, I have used screenshots from your report in some of my presentations. So, thank you for providing that data and how much you share. 

Kevin Weitzel: And if you're one of those companies that are doing that, which they don't frown upon, but make sure you give them a note credit in your findings that that was from the [00:27:00] Bokka Group's study.

Jimmy Diffee: Yep. That's all we ask. Just credit the Bokka Group. You can link to download the report, which is quite simply conversion-report.com. That is the URL for downloading the report. Any one of you users, you can download this for free. We'll also be at IBS with physical copies and, you know, I'll be on tour throughout the country, different conferences giving away copies, promoting this. 
But really this is a free tool. We want to level up everyone's game. It's a really important thing. So, thank you for using it, Greg, Kevin. Take screenshots. Do whatever you want. There's some important pieces in here for a lot of other companies as well, like let's say Zonda, Livabl, or OutHouse.

They build interactive floor plans. Right? So, OutHouse has an interest in saying, look, this is most influential. These are why buyers care. It's important for you to spread that not just because you want to level up everyone's game, but it's relevant to your business, right? 
Greg Bray: Well, and Jimmy, we've barely scratched the surface on all [00:28:00] the data that's available and then all the insights that are in there. So, I would highly encourage everybody to go get your own copy, download that for free, take a look at it. Some great information there. And we really appreciate you guys making that available so readily and so freely to everybody. Any last thoughts or insights you wanted to share today before we finish up. 

Jimmy Diffee: You know, I think back to when you had said, you know, how much of this do we take with a grain of salt. And while we have high confidence in our data samples, the one piece of this that's new that we put in here that I will say to be wary of, and maybe take the mentality that some data is better than no data, that's the information on the Gen Z, you know, these 18 to 27 year old buyers, only 3 percent of the survey. There aren't that many buyers, so it's hard to find them. Right? And so, we included it in here anyway, though, just for a basis of comparison.

It's such a small number and not everyone completes every survey. You know, some of that data, they may say it's 100 [00:29:00] percent of Gen Z recommended this or thought this was influential, take it with a grain of salt because there might not have been very many people that responded to that because it is so small. There's so few of them in the market. So, yeah, do take that with a grain of salt. 

I'll throw out one other little quick thing I debated on whether I should say this or not, because it's not really ready for prime time. And we talk about data accuracy, but we built a GPT based on the data that's in the conversion report, and you can find it in the GPT store if you just do a search for anything home builder related, or you can go to homebuildermarketing.ai.

I think a lot of people aren't really using ChatGPT in this industry nearly as much as I feel like I am, or, you know, they should be. But if you wanna, you know, try and pull some stats from that. And just keep in mind that AI is wrong. It's trained on the data from this, but it still makes mistakes. But, yeah, if you want to play around with it and, you know, ask us some questions about, you know, either return on investment or what you should invest in, you can ask it. You know, tell it that, you know, I'm an [00:30:00] active adult builder in this area, what should I do when it comes to nurturing and follow up and it will pull data in there and give you some good recommendations. It's homebuildermarketing.ai. 

Greg Bray: Awesome. We'll put some links to that in our show notes for sure. Well, Jimmy, if anybody wants to reach out and connect with you, what's the best way for them to get in touch? 

Jimmy Diffee: You can search for me on LinkedIn, at Jimmy Diffie, J I M M Y D I F F E E, or you can just search for me there and, you can find a lot of my content on Bokka.You can go to bokkagroup.com and I get notifications there anytime someone reaches out for any inquiry on Bokka Group. If you just say, Hey, I'm trying to get ahold of Jimmy, that's a good way. And yeah, I'm always available. Anyone has any questions about any of this data in the report, let me know. Always open to hear feedback. 

Greg Bray: Well, thanks again, Jimmy, for spending time with us today and sharing the report with us. And thank you everybody for listening 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. [00:31:00] 

 


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