269 Informative Home Builder Digital Marketing - Stephanie Lane May 21 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 pleased to have joining us today, Stephanie Lane. Stephanie is the VP of Sales and Marketing at Geranium. Welcome, Stephanie. Thanks for being with us today. 

Stephanie Lane: Thank you very much for having me. It's a pleasure to be here. 

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

Stephanie Lane: So, I have been in the industry now for about 20 years, purely by fluke [00:01:00] actually, getting into it. I started my education and training in hospitality, recreation, and tourism, working in hotels and restaurants actually. A friend of mine who was in the industry needed just some hands-on help at a project launch, and I was in between jobs at the time, so I went and worked for her for a week.

By the end of that week, she sort of looked at me and I looked at her and she said, you know what? You're really good at this. And I said, you know what? I really like this. And so, within a few weeks actually, she had a job for me at one of our sales offices, starting at just working administration, just registering guests and prospects as they came in and helping facilitate some of that registration process and assisting the sales representatives. And from there, before you knew it, I was working in the head office as a sales and marketing coordinator. And here I am 20 years later and loving every day.

Kevin Weitzel: We're going to jump all into that. However, before we do, we need to know one interesting factoid about yourself that [00:02:00] cannot include the industry, your work, or family. 

Stephanie Lane: There's a couple. There's one, I would say, I was very fortunate when I was 11 years old to have an opportunity to live in Japan for a month, which was such an incredible experience, and one, at the time that I didn't really kind of think too much of and thought every kid got to do that. But lo and behold, not every kid does get to do that. And it was quite an eye-opening experience and one that I would love to, at some point, I haven't done it yet, but it is on my list to do. I would love to go back to Japan and go back to the places that I spent time at when I was 11 years old and see what that experience feels like now. So, I think that's a cool little bit of history to my experiences kind of globally as well. 

Kevin Weitzel: This may not happen to you; however, I, oddly enough, at the age of 11, to Toledo of Ohio. I actually went back as an adult and visited again. And let me tell you, it was a dump, comparatively speaking, to what I [00:03:00] remembered as a child. So, hopefully that won't be your same experience that you have going back to Japan. 

Stephanie Lane: I really hope not because that's a very expensive trip to take back to find out that it's not as nice as I remember it being. But yeah.
 
Kevin Weitzel: And my personal apology to anybody that lives in, has driven through, has visited, has even flown over Toledo, Ohio. My apologies. 

Greg Bray: You have to apologize to both of our listeners in Toledo right now.

Thank you, Kevin. Well, tell us a little bit more about Geranium, where you guys are located, and the kind of homes you're building for your customers. 

Stephanie Lane: Sure. So, we are a vertically integrated land developer and building company, so land development and building company. We've been around since 1977, so we're coming up on our 50-year anniversary, which is incredible. We are building homes and focused primarily in southern Ontario, Canada. So, we are known well in what's called the greater Toronto area, which is kind of that Toronto market and beyond.

Our bread and butter, I would say, is our [00:04:00] detached home communities. We do smaller lot fabrics to big estate homes on acreage to condominium town homes. And we're also a founding partner of an all seasons resort just north of the city of Toronto called Friday Harbor Resort. And that is about 600 acres on Lake Simco that features a marina, an 18 hole golf course, a marina village with shopping, restaurants, entertainment, and a mixture of both on the water town homes with private boat slips and condominiums. So, we run the gamut of home styles and products, and home offerings. So, yeah. That's about it. 

Kevin Weitzel: Before we move forward, I got to make sure I get a clarification on this. I've seen firsthand 800-square foot apartments in Toronto at like a million bucks. So what do your single-family detached homes start at? Like 1,000,000,005 or what? 

Stephanie Lane: Well, fortunately, not 1,000,000,005, but we are starting at probably two and a half million up to about [00:05:00] three and a half million. 

Kevin Weitzel: That's reasonable in the big scheme of luxury home living. 

Stephanie Lane: Yeah. It's always funny, though, you know. I was just down, and much like you guys, down at the International Builder Show and talking with people down there, especially from the States and hearing some of the sessions that were there and talking about price points and what have you. And, you know, I'm hearing estate homes sold at 500,000. In my head, I'm just like, I wish. But unfortunately not the landscape up here. And so, yeah, we're a little bit more expensive. So, we have homes right now anywhere from about 730,000, actually up to about $5 million. 

Greg Bray: That's a pretty broad range, Stephanie. From a marketing perspective and trying to reach those different audiences, do you find that you have to do very different things to attract the right buyer? Or is it something that you've got some commonalities across that you're able to tap into? 

Stephanie Lane: I think there's a commonality, and this goes back to my hospitality and my customer service training, is that regardless of the price or the product that [00:06:00] someone is buying, you treat them the same. You give them the same experience. Five-hundred thousand to one person is just as expensive as two and a half million to another person. So, I have the philosophy that no matter how much something costs, we're trying to give and provide people with an incredible purchasing experience that is tailored to sort of where they're at in their home buying process, whether they're a first-time home buyer to someone who's bought multiple properties before to an investor. So, I would say that there's a commonality in that respect, but the targeting side of things can be very different and the sales communications and how we communicate to those people do tend to be different as well. 

Kevin Weitzel: I have a question on that specific subject, because when it comes to digital spend, when it comes to the assets that you would put on a website, it's no secret you guys have beautiful animations on your website. They're fantastic. Do you have that same type of spend or outlayment on a simple condo or [00:07:00] a small townhouse, maybe an alleyway, versus a single-family, you know, detached luxury home? Are you putting that same type of spend or that same type of output into those two different, very distinctive markets?
 
Stephanie Lane: Yes and no. There should be, in my view, no difference on the type of marketing quality that we're putting out there and the asset quality. Sometimes we may have a smaller unit community that may not have the same budgets. So, on that we may not do some of those things. But where we can, there's no difference if we're going to do a beautiful, slick animation, that that animation wouldn't be the same from a small townhouse community to a larger state style. 

Greg Bray: So, as you look at the digital opportunities to enhance that buyer experience, you guys are trying to serve all these customers the same, and of course, digital is one way to do that, right? Because they're all kind of interacting. What are some of the technologies that you've found that are effective or things that you guys have really kind of gone all in on to help [00:08:00] with that customer experience?

Stephanie Lane: So, one of the things I've found to be exceptionally beneficial, and this is more so when someone is in our sales offices, although we do have it as a virtual link as well, is the interactive touchscreen systems that we use. Some of our animations, the quality of those animations translate into that in office experience as well, to the point where if you're buying a detached home, unlike a condo, where you're basically saying, okay, I want this, you know, floor plan and I want it on this floor, there's a lot more involved in selecting a detached home community from the lot to the orientation of the home to what model can fit on there, to the elevation, to what's been sold around you already and what's remaining from an architectural control guideline perspective. 

So, one of the things that we embarked on several years ago actually now, it was probably 2017, was this really interactive touchscreen program that as you're going through, you can select your model and you can look at all of the different floor plans and you [00:09:00] have the compare feature, but it would then allow you to pick that house on a lot and you would pick the lot and it would literally take that house and that elevation and put it on a lot where you could then degre360 degree spin of that home on the lot. Which has been so beneficial for those that are, you know, investing a lot of money into buying a home. 

You know, you're not just looking at a front elevation or a front rendering. You're actually getting to see the house in sort of real time with a color package on it, in an environment that is rendered as close to reality as we can get, obviously, without spending copious amounts of dollars to render everything exactly. But that has really been sort of a game-changer for us on the sales floor. We have virtual online versions of that, too. So, if we're working with a prospect that can't come into one of our sales offices, we can send them that link, and they can actually go through the touchscreen system on their own, too. So, that's one thing I think that's been really, really successful for us. 

There's a ton of others across, you know, our [00:10:00] website to the animations that we're talking about, providing those visual assets and those visual tools. We know that the majority of our homeowners or prospective homeowners are doing their research online before they even call us or come in a sales office. So, being able to provide really quality, crisp renderings or virtual tours of what's going to be built or what it'll look like at the end of the day is really, really helpful.

Greg Bray: Kevin, in most of the conversations we've had, we haven't had a lot of people talk about digital technology in the sales office as opposed to the website. That's a little bit of a unique spin there, Stephanie. Not that others haven't kind of done some of that, but most folks don't seem to be focusing there. When you decided to introduce that, was that a no-brainer like decision, or did you have to kind of see, you know, a lot of strong arming of some skeptical folks to say, Hey, we should invest in this and try it and see how it works? 

Stephanie Lane: Good question. There was definitely a bit of persuading internally [00:11:00] to spend the money to do it because it's not cheap to do it. We have a team at Geranium that is very open to ideas and open to suggestions, and open to improving processes. So, it wasn't a huge leap for us to get approval to do it. However, it was a discussion point, and I basically said, you know what, guys? Give this a chance, give this a chance. Let's see how it goes, and let's see it on the sales floor, and let's see it actually live. And the results were very positive. I think that's the one big thing, especially in the detached home community, especially for those people who've never bought from plan before, is being able to understand what that looks like at the end of the day. And that was, to me anyway, at the time, seemed like a very natural progression of the evolution of the onsite sales tools. 

Greg Bray: And the sales team uses this to guide the buyer, or it's more of a self-service type of tool when somebody visits the office before they interact with the sales team? 

Stephanie Lane: No, it's definitely sales rep guided. It requires [00:12:00] a bit of knowledge to figure out, you know, the user experience of it at the onset. Our sales reps are standing right next to them, typically walking them through the program and taking them through what they would be asking them anyway in their normal course of, you know, building rapport, finding out what their interests are, and so on. And then they'll actually walk them through the touch screen. And then from there, people learn how to use it. And then, we have people that are coming back to sales offices, and they're going to the touchscreens themselves and going through it, or they're bringing their family in with them and they're saying, Hey, look at this. This is so cool. I want to show you this. This is the house we're considering buying. It's a pretty incredible sales tool on the floor. 

Kevin Weitzel: When your salespeople are going through the process and the subject of budget comes up, when they say they're in the, you know, sub $200,000 range, do you just defer them to Toledo, Ohio? I had to throw that in there, Greg. I had to do it. I had to do it. Anyway, sorry. 

Stephanie Lane: What do you have against Toledo, Ohio? 

Kevin Weitzel: I actually don't. I even thought about relocating back to Toledo at one point, but it's one of those things that once you start the dig, you gotta [00:13:00] continue with the dig, so you know, more fun than anything else. 

Stephanie Lane: We're pretty firm on sharing our price points or starting price ranges in our ad sets, on our website, in our e-blasts, in all of those communications to pre-qualify someone to at least an entry price point. So, that's a very important part of our strategy is always having a price point on our communications. Now, I find it fascinating that people still register sometimes for stuff when it's a million dollars over their budget, and they start inquiring on a project that's starting at two and a half million for homes in the 600 thousands, but it happens, and we work with that. We try our best to pre-qualify someone on a starting price point through our ad communications, our e-blasts, our websites, and so on. 

Greg Bray: I think that's a great insight because so often we talk to builders, I need more leads, so they give less information, and they end up with this set of leads that is now really not right [00:14:00] fit prospects. And so now they have to sort through all these, oh, well, we got more, so more is better, but it's more about the right ones. Have you had those types of thoughts or things like, Hey, it doesn't matter if we aren't getting as many if they are these more qualified opportunities?

Stephanie Lane: Definitely. That is more of our strategy, I would say. There's two components to a strategy that we've typically employed. One, when we're launching a new project, we do want that mass awareness. So sometimes, you know, we are going a little bit broader. We're not putting out as much information on a price perspective, although we are always communicating a starting price. 

But I'm absolutely of the mindset that quality over quantity. We can spend our money and we can get all of these leads, but to your point, then our sales reps have to sit there and sift through and call and contact. And if we're not getting that quality in there, that's at least qualified from a price point perspective at the onset; it's a disservice to really the prospect at the end of the day. Their time is very valuable, and [00:15:00] we don't want to be wasting their time on something that's not suitable for them. It really is, for us, quality over the quantity, and we are sort of flipping back a little bit between those two.

But we're having conversations right now, I mean, the market up here in Canada isn't wonderful. Sales are slow. There's a lot of things that are impacting some buyer confidence right now, and there's a lot of uncertainty in the marketplace. We're seeing, I don't know, a handful of prospects come through our sales office on a weekly basis. Which isn't a lot, but what I am happy to say is that those people that are coming into our sales offices are fairly qualified and they're not just tire kickers coming in. So, I'd rather see that all day long than just people coming in and time being wasted on all sides. 

Kevin Weitzel: A convertible lead is definitely much more favorable than just spinning your wheels on people that will never qualify. Absolutely. 

Stephanie Lane: Yeah. Agreed. 

Greg Bray: So, beyond then the raw lead count, Stephanie, what are some of the other key metrics that you use to measure [00:16:00] your success and try to say, okay, how did this campaign work for us? How did this particular outreach go? What are some of those metrics that are important to you? 

Stephanie Lane: We're doing a regular analysis. I mean, that's half of our job as marketers, I think. We're looking at our Google Analytics very regularly. We're looking at our content engagement. We're very present on social media, so we're looking at what we're posting. We're looking at those engagement numbers as well to see what content is resonating. When you look at our ad campaigns, we're utilizing UTMs. So really, you know, assessing where our traffic is coming from on each of the different advertising strategies.

There's a variety of different things. You know, from our e-blast as well, we're looking at open rates. We're looking at clicks. We're looking at who's opening and highlighting those people and having our sales reps then connect with those people that are actually opening and engaging with our e-blasts. So, looking at that engagement as a means of also prospecting. [00:17:00] And the conversions. I mean conversions from the lead acquisition through to a sales office visit, or a phone call or an email to ultimately that sale process as well. At the end of the day, we want to be spending money that has a good ROI.

There's again, two streams to the advertising strategy that we typically employ. One's more of an awareness campaign where we do want the brand awareness the project awareness, and we're looking for a higher volume of leads or reach. And then there's the targeted strategic side as well that's looking more for those, you know, how are we finding those buyers directly and that conversion aspect.

Kevin Weitzel: Can I back up just for one second? Did you seriously say that you were in between jobs? I know this is going way back to the beginning of the interview, but did you say you were in between jobs and just came to help somebody for a week, and they literally hit a home run with you? Like out of the park, like complete outside the entire stadium, in the parking lot into the stratosphere.

Stephanie Lane: Kevin, you're very kind. Thank you for that. 

Kevin Weitzel: That's one [00:18:00] lucky owner right there. I'll tell you that right now. Very, very lucky. 

Stephanie Lane: Yeah. Yeah. It's funny how we end up in things that we never thought we would end up in. I'm a firm believer of relationships and taking opportunities, and that was an opportunity. And it was something I was passionate about, and just going back to that for a second. I mean, I remember growing up, I bought my first condo, my first real estate purchase, I was 19 years old. My mom and I, unfortunately, and I hate to say this, but it is what it is, were the tire kickers that were going through, you know, open houses and, you know, on the weekend and just filling our time and looking for decor ideas and so on. So, I had this passion for real estate anyway, and it just so happened that that was my path in. 

Kevin Weitzel: So, let me follow that up with, because a lot of people struggle with the concept of we have to do this all in-house. We have to do this all in-house. And in your case, you found strategic partners that would allow you to have targeted outcome. When do you make the determination whether something you need your team to do internally and whether you need to do this by [00:19:00] bringing in another partner, or a vendor? 

Stephanie Lane: We do a lot of skills-based decision-making. And so, this is where we're looking at our core competencies from a business perspective, a company perspective, and a staffing perspective. We have a small internal sales and marketing team. So, we have a group under the marketing side, and then we have sales support and a sales manager as well. So, we keep a lot of the high-level strategic planning at the internal level that aligns with business goals and objectives and so on.

And then we look at bringing in those outside experts. Externally, we have creative agencies that we work with. We have a few of them at the moment based on the project. And then we also have a digital agency, and that one we're relying on to execute a lot of our deliverables and our strategy in terms of website updates, content programming, SEO, ad strategies, search engine marketing, a whole bunch of different things obviously that we have to consider. 

So, for us, it's really looking [00:20:00] at how those external agencies, what they're bringing to the table, first and foremost. You know, we pay a lot of money to our external agencies, and we want to make sure that we're bringing people in that are going to be very collaborative but also have the expertise to help guide us as well in making the best decisions and really that sort of seamless collaboration. You know, for us, it's a partnership. It's a partnership. 

As much as they are an external agency, we collaborate very deeply as a group. We rely on each other for input and, you know, those healthy discussions about what's working, what's not working, what could we do better, what could we do differently. And also the external agency side allows us to be a bit more adaptable and scalable. So, when we have a project launch happening and we need to enhance our team so that we can execute that, we're relying also on the agencies from that perspective too. 

Greg Bray: So, Stephanie, recently, I was in a presentation where people were kind of debating whether builders needed to worry about [00:21:00] branding. That well, if you have the right piece of property in the right location, with the right price point, it doesn't matter whether it's by such and such homes or such and such homes instead. But it feels like you guys, from just the little that I've seen, even just with a name like Geranium, that you're going for something a little more memorable, a little more this is something different from the home down the street that you might be considering. Is that a conscious choice that you guys have been going after to build a brand around your product that carries beyond just a one-time purchase? 

Stephanie Lane: Greg, I love that you have just said that because, at the end of the day, my goal as a marketer and working for Geranium is really to create that brand relationship with our homeowners. We know that referral business is so incredibly important, and the home building side is very difficult because you're not just buying an Apple iPhone every year, you know, where you've got that brand affiliation. People typically buy homes at, what's the [00:22:00] average conversion? I think it's every seven years or so, seven to 10 years they're buying a new home. So, we have to then span that time of how do we still remain present in someone's mind for that. 

But the experience for us is very brand driven, and our brand up here in Ontario, you know, we are known a little bit more for the estate building, the large-scale homes on the acre, half-acre lots. So, we are known more so for that. We do rely a lot on our quality and our build quality at the end of the day. And also our community ambassadorship, and this is a big pillar for us. We're not just going into a community and building homes and then leaving. It's how are we actually engaging our community ambassadors and local businesses and creating that relationship. Not only because it's important to do and it's the right thing to do, but it's also enhancing that brand exposure and that brand relationship. 

Greg Bray: Well, we appreciate the time you spent with us today, Stephanie, just before we let you go, give us three quick [00:23:00] tips for a digital marketer who might be struggling a little bit to kind of get their awareness out there or to get some of the lead generation that they're after. What are some quick pieces of advice you might leave with our listeners today? 

Stephanie Lane: So, I would say the first one is a bit of a tough one because I think we have to analyze our own skills and be honest with what our strengths are in terms of that, and identify areas where we can lean on others, and whether that's an external agency or team members hired specifically that have that skillset. Be in the know. As sales and marketing leads, we don't necessarily have to know every single detail of it, how to program a website and the coding, but we do need to know generally how things work and the importance and the outcomes of the strategies that we're employing.

And stay ahead of the game. It's an ever-changing landscape that is moving fast. Again, as a sales and marketing team lead, it's incumbent on me and my colleagues to be [00:24:00] aware and to research what's coming down the pipeline. What are the trends? Although I don't like the word trend because it typically means something that's in and out fast, but look ahead to where things are going. You know, I haven't touched upon AI, but that's a massive thing for all of us to be aware of and learn more about because it's here. And if you're not already doing anything that's associated with AI or thinking about how AI is going to impact your business, you're behind the eight ball. 

Kevin Weitzel: It is rare that we get a unicorn such as yourself that comes in. So, let me ask you this final question from me. If you could go back in time and take what you've learned along your whole pathway, because you came in as an assistant, a coordinator if you will, and then have gravitated to pretty much a frigging rockstar, there's no other word for it. What advice would you give to these fledgling assistants now to have them start thinking of how can I also become a unicorn for my company?

Stephanie Lane: I would say creative strengths are good and I find a lot of people get into marketing because they think [00:25:00] it's creative and coming up with concepts and ads and you know, renderings and all of that, but really the analytical mindset is what's going to set you apart, and being able to think process, data, measurement, and more importantly how to translate that into actionable insights. And that's the key thing that I think has maybe been successful in my history and sort of my growth within what it is that we're doing, is that I am very analytical and I'm thinking the business, I'm not just thinking sales and marketing. So, have an analytical approach to everything that you're doing is that's helpful to know what you're doing, to make sure it's working, but also to drive future strategy.

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

Stephanie Lane: Probably LinkedIn. So you can find me at Stephanie Lane on LinkedIn. And for more information on Geranium, our website is www.geranium.com, kind of like the flower. We're on a bunch of different socials as well.

Greg Bray: Well, thank you, Stephanie, so much for [00:26:00] sharing with us today, and thank you, everybody, for listening to The Home Builder Digital Marketing podcast. I'm Greg with Bray with Blue Tangerine. 

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