263 Initiating Home Builder Digital Marketing - Dani Cook Apr 9 2025

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 today, Dani Cook. Danny is the VP of Sales and Marketing at Scott Communities. Welcome, Dani. Thanks for being with us today. 

Dani Cook: Thank you for having me. 

Greg Bray: Well, let's start off by just getting to know a little bit about you. Give us that quick overview and background about yourself. 

Dani Cook: Sure. I grew up in the suburbs of St. Louis, moved out to Phoenix, Arizona to go to ASU for college. I thought I wanted to [00:01:00] be an architect. So, that's what I started doing and still live out here today, and I've been in the home building business for 21 years now. 

Kevin Weitzel: So, first off, go Devils. Two, now, when you say suburbs of St. Louis, is that your secret way of saying East St. Louis? 

Dani Cook: No, no, no, no, no. Not East St. Louis.

Kevin Weitzel: Oh, okay. Just checking. Just checking. So, let me ask you this before we get into the juice that is Dani Cook and all of your industry knowledge, please let our listeners know something personal about you that has nothing to do with work, family, or the home building industry.

Dani Cook: At the heart of it, I'm just a nerd. I love to read and do crafts and cook, and do puzzles, and that's basically how I spend my downtime. 

Kevin Weitzel: Most recent read, is it industry related or fun reading? What was it? 

Dani Cook: It's always fun reading, usually fiction, sometimes true crime, sometimes autobiography. I do a lot of audibles, so I'm listening to a book by Colleen Hoover right now. So, yeah. 

Kevin Weitzel: That's great.

Greg Bray: What pivot happens when you start in [00:02:00] architecture and end up in marketing? How does that journey wind its way around? 

Dani Cook: Sure. So, it's a bit of a journey, but I'll take a step back. In about middle school, I would go with my mom to model homes and I would take all their floor plans home, and I would get graph paper and I would start designing my own floor plans. So, by the time I hit high school, I was like, I need to design houses. So, that's where I got into architecture. 

Within my first semester there, I realized it wasn't quite for me. It was a little bit more artsy and whatnot than what I needed. I needed something a little more structured. I'm more of a math side of person, Excel spreadsheets, and not as artistic as architecture needed to be. But ASU at the time offered a degree called Housing and Urban Development through the School of Architecture.

And when I found out about that degree, I immediately switched my major over to that. So my degree is from the School of Architecture, but it's called Housing and Urban Development. And it was basically a mixture of some construction management, a little bit of architecture, urban planning, business [00:03:00] management. It's like a little bit of everything, which I really liked. So, that's how I ended up with that degree. 

Greg Bray: Awesome. Well, tell us a little bit more about Scott Communities. Where do you guys build? What types of buyers are you working with and serving? 

Dani Cook: Scott Communities is a small family owned business. We build in the greater Phoenix area. Currently, we have two communities in Peoria, one community down in Casa Grande, and then we have a fourth community opening next year out in Goodyear. So, it's kind of the fringes of the Phoenix Valley, which is where most of the new home builders are. We mostly sell to move up buyers and some first-time buyers. 

Greg Bray: So, Dani, tell us a little bit more about how you guys have your sales and marketing roles and responsibilities split out and how the team is structured.

Dani Cook: Sure. We're pretty small right now with hopes to get bigger. The company was bigger, maybe a decade or so ago, well before I was here. As things shifted during COVID and whatnot, they ramped things down. And now we're back in the process of trying to grow. [00:04:00] We closed 68 homes last year, hoping to do in the eighties this year, and we'd like to get up to 200 homes over the next couple of years. And then we'll probably plateau around there. 

So, I have four sales agents that work under me at three different communities. So, we are our own in-house realty company. I'm their designated broker. They are purely commission-based and they sit out at our model homes. I'm primarily in our corporate office. I make sure they're doing their job. I'm also making sure all the marketing is getting done for our company, as well as some general, just high level business stuff. Wherever I can help out. We wear many, many hats when you're a small company. Wherever you bring value, you dig in and you do it. 

Kevin Weitzel: Well, speaking of many hats, in full disclosure to our listening audience here, I actually met Dani many years back when you were at Mandalay. When you have such a diverse background of architecture, sales, marketing, working for a couple of different builders and seeing how other people have done it, do you feel that you're bringing [00:05:00] literally everything to the plate where you're kind of a vital part of the whole team there at Scott?

Dani Cook: Yes. I like to joke that I'm a Jack of all trades and master of none, just because I have been involved in every part of this business at some point in time. Some parts more than others, of course, but being with small home builders throughout the majority of my career, it definitely gives me the opportunity to see how every department operates, how every position operates. It's just been the most awesome educational experience for me. I've learned so much over the last 20 years. 

Kevin Weitzel: And not to quote Ego Nwodom from SNL, but question for you, being that you have an architectural background, do you ever look at some of your guys's plans and just go, I don't know about that? 

Dani Cook: All the time. I'm working with an architect right now to design a whole new plan set for that future Goodyear community I mentioned. Since that was my first passion of getting into the industry, I just love it. It's so fun to work with [00:06:00] her. She's a great architect. She listens to my input. You actually know her, Jessica. 

Kevin Weitzel: From J Corp. She's absolutely amazing. 

Dani Cook: She is. So, I'm doing my first plan set with her literally right now. It's really fun for me to be involved in that side of the business. 

Greg Bray: Yeah, I think we've had her as a guest on the podcast previously. 

Dani Cook: Yeah, I think you have. Yeah. 

Greg Bray: So, Danny, as you are juggling so many different balls in the air trying to keep it all going, how do you stay focused on moving the marketing message forward when you're trying to deal with the leads, you're trying to keep the sales team moving, you're designing plans. How do we make sure that all of these things that need to happen, happen? 

Dani Cook: That's a great question. I'm just a very hard worker. I just dig in and whatever seems to be the highest priority, I make sure I attack that first. And then, I try to make sure that every day I'm focusing on something marketing related. So, whether that's improving a page on the website, [00:07:00] posting some social media, designing a new interactive floor plan, probably with OutHouse, whatever that looks like, I make sure that I'm giving a portion of my day to that and try not to get caught down in the weeds of administrative work or emails or whatever. So, it's just kind of trying to divide my day up and make sure I'm giving every facet some attention. 

Kevin Weitzel: Let me ask you this because being that you are a smaller company, and not to speak negatively of subordinates, but do you have any minions or are you literally tackling all the marketing stuff on your own?

Dani Cook: Currently no minions and I would love to have one, so that is the future goal. So, I do everything I can possible in-house. I use YouTube and ChatGTP to teach me things I don't know, which is kind of fun. I do have some consultants I work with a little bit on the outside of the company. They don't directly work for me, but they're consultants. My budget isn't huge, so I kind of use that sparingly where I really feel like I need the help. Outside of that, I muster through it [00:08:00] myself for now. But the hope is that we will grow and I will have at least one minion, if not more than that. 

Kevin Weitzel: Yes. Love it. 

Greg Bray: So, Danny, where do you feel the website fits in your sales process as far as lead generation and how you help support your sales team? Because with your, how should we say it, fingers in all the pies, you can see very clearly, I think, compared to some builders where they have to like seek out the data. You can kind of see, gosh, I know these leads, I know who's dealing with them. I know where they came from and have a much more holistic view of that whole process. So, help us kind of understand how the website helps or maybe could work harder for you.

Dani Cook: Yeah. So, interesting, I've been here about 18 months. When I came on board, the website was in its infancy. It was barely being used. No SEO optimization, no interactive anything. In fact, the addresses to our model homes were missing. So, that was the first [00:09:00] thing I made sure got done. So, I've really got to build the website basically from some very beginning stages up to where it is today, and I still have a lot of dreams and aspirations of where to take it further. But again, you can only work on so much at a time.

Adding interactive floor plans and interactive maps has been helpful, and you can see when people are saving those floor plans, and you get the lead from that. We've added some forms to our website in different places and different types of forms. So, one might be, Hey, would you like to download a guidebook about the Peoria area? The next might be, are you interested in our homes? We'll reach out to you. So, trying to be creative with how we ask for people's information, so that we hit a wider pool of people willing to give us their information is one of my theories.

 I added photography on our website, videos on our website. Almost none of that existed before I got here, or very little did. I don't want to talk negatively about my predecessors, but they had done a lot of work to [00:10:00] just get the website launched in the months prior to me coming here. So, the groundwork was there and then it was just really fun to build on top of it.

Greg Bray: Hey, I do need to say though, everyone listening, please hit pause and make sure that the addresses of your model homes are showing clearly on your website before we continue. When you come back, we will hit play and we will continue. People need to know where the stuff's at so they can come visit. I'm sorry. You just have to. 

Dani Cook: I know. It's funny. So, when I was interviewing for the job, the first thing I wanted to do was go visit all their model homes just to kind of learn a little bit about them on the down low before people who knew who I was or whatever. And when you go and you're like, I don't even know how to get to these models. I don't know what hours they're open. It actually made me really excited because I was like, there's so much I can do here. I can help. I can bring value to this company, and it got me really excited about my interviews and moving forward.

Kevin Weitzel: Wait one minute. Did you seriously just say interview? I have a hard [00:11:00] time believing. I think you might be lying on this one because I'm pretty sure that that company sought you out, hunted you down. You don't interview for that. Come on now. 

Dani Cook: Yes and no. A mutual connection knew I was leaving my previous job, and as soon as she learned about that, she reached out to my current job and said, Hey, you need to talk to this gal. And so, that's how it began, but I did interview a couple of different interviews with a couple of different people. 

Greg Bray: I think though, Dani, you're highlighting something that, not to harp on it too much, but sometimes we put stuff out on the website and nobody ever goes back and looks at it again. We kind of throw it out there and it takes that fresh review to go, wait a minute, there's some critical stuff that's missing here. You know, I just want to visit the community and I can't find an address or directions on how to get there. 

I seriously doubt somebody put that web page up and said, no, we don't want anybody to visit, so let's not put the address on there. It was just a little oversight that happened, and nobody was [00:12:00] really stepping back and looking at it closely. And that's an important part of review and getting some other folks to check in. It's a good reminder about paying attention to some of those details. You know, because sometimes we look at it so much when it's ours, we just skip right over some of that stuff. 

Dani Cook: And to this day, I continue to try and improve it by feedback. Sometimes I can hear some phone calls that get recorded and I'll hear a customer maybe say, I couldn't find the hours. So, I'm like, okay, it's not in a prominent enough spot. I need to move it. So, I definitely take all the feedback I can and within my realms of ability, try to improve it. That's something you have to continually do. You cannot let it be dormant. You have to continually work on it and improve it. And things break over time too. The internet is weird that way. So, you have to make sure you're fixing the weird things that just somehow seem to go wrong for no reason.

Greg Bray: Yeah, we call those gremlins in the tech world. So tell us, Dani, when you are checking your numbers and the reports and things, what are some of those key indicators and metrics that you kind of [00:13:00] look at first? Maybe every Monday morning type of a thing, that you come in. Okay, let's see where things are at. What's performing? What's not? What's kind of on that top list for you? 

Dani Cook: I wouldn't necessarily say I look at some of these metrics every Monday, but definitely at least on a monthly basis. Again, our metrics were so low at the beginning. My goal the last year has just been to watch them, make sure they're increasing. So, being able to see that 50 people used to see our website and now 5,000 are seeing our website or whatever those numbers are, are super exciting for me. 
Because I'm kind of working on a lot of things at once, I'm kind of at a very high level right now of making sure I'm improving our impressions, improving our views, improving our clicks, getting people to submit their name to our website so that we can then market to them. My goal is hopefully in the next couple of years to get more refined on what those KPIs really look like, and probably am looking at them every Monday morning. But right now it's a little bit more high level for me.

Greg Bray: We all have to balance all of that, like you were saying, and [00:14:00] figure out the right cadence that works. But even if it's monthly, which is great, that still gives you that opportunity to recognize when something is an anomaly. And go, wait a minute. Something strange is happening. I need to dig in deeper, but if you don't look at it often enough, those things kind of come and go and you can miss out really easy.

Dani Cook: Right? Yep. Yep. So, yeah, right now tracking that everything's just moving in the right direction shows me something's not completely broken. 

Kevin Weitzel: Now, with as many years as you have in the industry, especially working for some very venerable companies, it's very easy to get stuck in a box of, here's how I've done it in the past, here's how we're going to do it moving forward. Obviously you're making a lot of the right steps that a lot of builders still aren't doing, which is crazy. But let me ask you this, where do you look outside of our industry for inspiration, for ideas, or cultivating new thoughts and processes within Scott Communities?

Dani Cook: That's interesting because I would say first and foremost, I look at our industry. I love to creep on other [00:15:00] builders' webpages. You know, I sign up for all their marketing emails. I try to tour model homes when I can. So, first and foremost, I actually do creep on our industry, it's, and you know, find what I like. And if I can have a conversation with somebody and see what works well for them, then see if I can implement that on my side. 

When I look outside of the industry, I'm a sucker for marketing. You know, I get an ad that says, do you want to buy this thing? And if I do want to buy that thing, I stop myself and say, why? What attracted me to click that button or sign up for that newsletter, and try to internalize that and use it how I can in my industry.

Kevin Weitzel: Follow up to that. Obviously you've got realistic renderings, you've got inner floor plans, you've got site maps, you've got a fantastic website. Are you utilizing some of those other tactics like retargeting, geofencing? Are using into those tactics as well? 

Dani Cook: Not right now. I have used a little bit of geofencing in the past. I wasn't the one that managed it. I had a guy that did it. But maybe in the future, we'll be able to implement that more. 

Greg Bray: [00:16:00] So, Dani, with all the things that you've been adding and improving on the website over the last year and a half, as you've had your opportunities to incrementally improve it, is there one thing that at the beginning, you're just like, look, we have to start with this, this is what we're missing and we need to go big here, forget the budget, we have to have this, boss, come on, let's get moving? What was kind of at the top of your list there to move things forward?

Dani Cook: I would say photography. We had no photos of our actual houses, or actual things we're offering, or their actual communities. They had done a photo shoot with some models for just some like generic lifestyle photos. We had that, and we had a little video made out of that, which was great, but of what we were actually selling today, there's no photos on our website. Even the inventory houses the sales team were listing on MLS, they were just snapping a few photos with their cell phones. So, introducing professional photography was really important to me. That was really the first low-hanging fruit I [00:17:00] grabbed. 

Kevin Weitzel: Greg, if you look at the conversion report that Jimmy's team over Bokka does, what was the number? Like 91 percent of all new home buyers expect, not just like, expect high quality photographs of what they're looking at buying. 

Greg Bray: Yeah, it's a powerful tool for sure. And I completely support that as being a number one place to start. Hopefully, they're photos that can get a longer life out of even when that particular home is sold and use those in other places and things too. Because it takes some work and some effort for sure. 

Dani Cook: You know, I just focused on how could I build my photography library. So, even a buyer's house that was about to close, I would go get photos taken of it. You know, even though we weren't listing it for sale, just kind of add it to my arsenal.

The second thing I attacked was improving the renderings because some of the renderings were just done a long time ago, and that technology has changed a whole bunch. One particular floor plan that we had no photos of because we had never built it, I actually did some virtual renderings of what the interior looked like in a little mini virtual tour of, it was [00:18:00] all fake, but, you know, just to give us something to show everybody what that house was like. 

Greg Bray: And were you able to then connect some responses and results from these efforts right away, or did it take a little more time for that to kind of percolate through the system? 

Dani Cook: I can't say I can like put my finger on one particular person that said, Hey, I saw this photo, or I saw this map and then bought from you. But again, the people coming in the door that seem to be more educated because they've educated themselves before even walking in our door tells me that they're spending time on the website. Looking at those metrics that people are literally spending more time on the website, more people are getting to the website, they're clicking around more pages, coming back to certain pages, definitely tells me that there's information there that they're consuming. So, I know we're moving in the right direction. The sky's the limit. There's so much more we could do. 

Greg Bray: So, if there's somebody listening today, who's also working for a small builder and there may be struggling to get some executive buy in for some of these changes [00:19:00] that they want to do, you know, it's like, gosh, I want to do that too, but they don't want to let me for whatever reason, what suggestions would you give them for kind of getting the budget police to lighten up a little bit and let some of this happen?

Dani Cook: Yeah, that can be hard. That's for sure. I would say reach out to people in the industry that you respect. So, if there's another small builder in your area, or even it could be a different state, a different country, who cares, reach out to them and say, Hey, I'm really impressed with your website. Can I pick your brain? And, you know, kind of learning from other people out there in the industry.

That person might tell you, once I got photography on my website, everything was so much easier after that. So then now you know, okay, that's where I need to start. I need to start some photography. And then approaching your boss and saying, Hey, I did this research. I reached out to these builders. Look at how awesome their website is. I talked to them about what worked well for them. Bring that feedback to your boss and see if they'll loosen up on that budget a little bit. 

Greg Bray: A research study, there you go, with testimonials. 

Dani Cook: Yes. Yes. And [00:20:00] not everyone's going to want to talk to you and give up their secret sauce, but there's a lot of people in this industry that love to share and are proud of the work they do and would love to help somebody else grow as well.

Greg Bray: Well, that's what makes this whole podcast possible is people being willing to share. Every day, I'm amazed at how much folks in this industry are willing to share. So, you're absolutely right on that for sure. So, Dani, appreciate your time today as we kind of bring it for a landing. What are some of the things that you know now that you wish you had known, you know, a few years ago when you were getting started related to your marketing efforts?

Kevin Weitzel: Decades, Greg, decades. 

Dani Cook: Well, technology has changed a lot in the 20-something years I've been involved. I was just telling somebody the other day, how, when I first started here, you faxed everything. You faxed to work orders and contracts and documents to people. Who even has a fax machine anymore, you know? So, things have definitely changed a lot in the last couple of decades. 

But I wish I would have learned a little sooner how to build websites, how to use things like Adobe [00:21:00] Illustrator and Photoshop, and all those things I'm now using myself, which I've just kind of slowly taught myself over time, or again, find a YouTube video that'll teach me something. I wish I would have taken the initiative, probably a decade ago, to start learning some of that stuff as it became prevalent in our industry. So, I feel like I'm a little behind the times on some of that. 

Greg Bray: Well, is there any last words of advice or thoughts you'd like to leave for our audience today?

Dani Cook: Oh, man. I love what I do. I love that I've been doing this for 20 years. If anybody wants to pick my brain, reach out to me. I am happy to share. I do think that's important in our industry. 

Kevin Weitzel: What's the best way to connect with you? 

Dani Cook: Uh, you can find me on LinkedIn, Dani Cook, or go to our website, scottcommunities.com and fill out one of those forms and I'll reach back out to you. 

Greg Bray: Well, thanks again, Dani, for sharing with us today and for giving us your time. 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. [00:22:00]