61 The Winning Formula for Home Builder Marketing - Rob Krohn May 19 2021

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 today to welcome to the show. Rob Krohn, the VP of marketing for Epcon Communities and Epcon Franchising. Welcome, Rob.

Thanks for joining us. 

Rob Krohn : Thank you for having me. 

Greg Bray: Well, Rob, why don't you give us that quick introduction, tell people a little bit about yourselves, help us get to know you. 

Rob Krohn : Well, sure. I live here in Columbus, Ohio. Go Buckeyes have get to, got my magnet back there, show him loud and proud Buckeye [00:01:00] spirit.

Yes, I work with Epcon Communities that kind of communities, franchising. We're both B2B and B2C, which makes me a little bipolar from day to day being a marketing person in that just live here in Columbus, a wife, two kids got a dog named Archie for Archie Griffin and other Buckeye reference. I've got a son about go off to college. So life is fun right now. 

Kevin Weitzel: Awesome. I'm going to just make the assumption that he's going to go to U of M or, and that's, you know,

Rob Krohn: that would be a terrible assumption,

Kevin Weitzel: but Hey, so one of the things we do here is we always like to know something personal.

So not the business side of you, but some deep, dark secret that nobody knows about unless they listen to this podcast, 

Rob Krohn : not a deep dark secret or good, nothing like that. I'm a huge Foo Fighters fan. So I've spent a lot of time up near the stage. It gets a little bit, it gets a little rowdy down there, but it's awfully fun.

Kevin Weitzel: Love it. 

Greg Bray: I'm going to confess, I am not familiar with Foo Fighter, so, I'm going to have to check that out. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sorry, man. [00:02:00] I'm embarrassed now, so okay. 

Kevin Weitzel: From Nirvana, 

Greg Bray: Nirvana, I'm familiar with, so, okay. All right. We digress. Okay. So, well, Rob, tell us a little bit about kind of your journey into the home builder industry and how you got involved with building and selling homes.

Rob Krohn : Sure. Yeah, not a lifer in the home building industry at all. I came up in the advertising agency world. I had my own marketing company. So I did that for a number of years. And then I went back into the high tech, entrepreneurial, software development world, did that for a number of companies and then for a number of years.

And what's been nice is then when I came over to home building, I've been able to take those experiences agency background, as well as a technology development background, and start to integrate that into the company now and, you know, trying to really help the industry as a whole move forward in time. There's a lot of work to do.

And that's been fun, been a fun part of being here. 

Greg Bray: What kind of software were you working on? Anything related to [00:03:00] home building or just totally, 

Rob Krohn : totally different. Yeah, no, it was totally different, it was it in the healthcare space. Some of that into the revenue cycle, which gets into some nerdy jargon there, but it was really within that space as well as any insurance industry, space bringing technology into there.

Greg Bray: Okay. Interesting.

Kevin Weitzel:  Don't go too nerdy there, you'll get Greg all sorts of excited. I'll glaze over, but he will be like, he'll start talking binary code with ya and thoughts and clicks and training and all that other junk. I don't know. 

Rob Krohn : Now, just to, when one of my clients, when I had my own marketing agency was Centex Homes when they were here in central Ohio.

So I helped with a lot of their regional marketing and they were starting to expand some of that as well. So that was my first foray into the home building as well as they were starting some 55 plus product here in the market. So I did have some background before I got to Epcon in that industry.

Greg Bray: Well, Rob, tell us a little bit more about Epcon in general. Like where do you guys build? What's kind of the market or the target audience. So your home buyers that [00:04:00] you're trying to serve and help us understand the company a little more.

Rob Krohn :  Yeah. Epcon Communities we're headquartered in Columbus, Ohio, corporately.

We build in Columbus, Charlotte and Raleigh, North Carolina. And we're now expanding into the Indianapolis market as well.  we are unique in the home building space. We're also a franchise company. So we have now 70 franchise builders in 31 states around the country that are also building our product. We are primarilly an age targeted builder , there are some age restricted communities, probably 20, 25%  of our communities are age restricted. But  the bulk of our buyers are 55+ looking for that single story, one level home, get rid of the stairs. We have HOA's, so the yard maintinence is taken care of, really nice ammenities, pool, Pickleball, bocce, that sort of thing. So they are active lifestyle communities, luxury ranch homes. That's what we do. 

Greg Bray: So yeah, the franchising is definitely something that's a little different and unique for sure. How did that kind of [00:05:00] come about and why did they decide to go that direction? 

Rob Krohn : The company started back in 1986 and Ed Beckam and Phil Fankhouser are the founders of the company.

They really understood that the 55 plus market was kind of being ignored. It wasn't a really, a lot of great product, a lot of great housing and housing being built in that segment. So they started there and were focused on it and that's all we have ever done. After about 10 years, there was a lot of people coming to them saying, Hey, your houses are look great.

They're selling well. We'd like to do that too. Would you be willing to license? And they didn't want to go into the licensing route, but they did go the franchising route. Like most franchise concepts started with friends and family, uh, seeing what we were building. They took the concept and moved to cities like Grand Rapids, Michigan and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Milwaukee, Wisconsin, just taking the concept, going and finding markets that needed this product, this type of home, this type of lifestyle started building them in other markets.

And then it's just grown from there. 

Kevin Weitzel: Now are these builders, are the [00:06:00] franchisees, are they known as Epcon or they maintain their original corporate entity name or just a subsidiary of, or franchisee of, 

Rob Krohn : yeah, it's a combination of both. A lot of our builders come in and they want to bring on the brand.

They want to be Epcon Communities in their market. So from the signage, the branding, everything about the company in that market comes across as Epcon Communities, but then it's built by that particular builder. There may be builders that have been there 30 years in the market are well-established and they, we do a co-branding component of it.

It's a Epcon Community built by. XYZ homes. And that really allows the nice combination of the two brands to continue there. They're wonderful builders. They've had long histories in their market. We never want to lose that, but we want to marry our brand with their brand and bring the double to them.

 

Kevin Weitzel: But in the condition that there's a potential, they could have an unfortunate name. Like smelly foot homes, you would allow them to just call themselves Epcon Homes or whatever. 

[00:07:00] Rob Krohn : Everything is subject to discussion. I got you.

Greg Bray:  Okay. I'm going to go get that domain name now Kevin.

 Rob, I know that one of the benefits at least my understanding from franchising just in general, is that when you become part of a larger organization, you obtain access to systems and processes and tools that you don't have to develop on your own. So how does that work for you from a marketing perspective?

How much of a marketing system do you provide to these builders versus what they do on their own? Kind of through that franchise process? 

Rob Krohn : Well, I don't think it's unique to a home building. I think it's pretty similar across most industries, business owners are great business owners. They're not always great marketers.

They, in the home building industry, they know how to build a home, but we are very much a marketing and sales organization. First home builder. Second, we do a lot of pre-selling. So you have to do a lot of work upfront. To get people [00:08:00] interested in the house, have them buy it ahead of time and then build it later where they kind of the opposite of a lot of builders who build the home first and then go out and try to market and sell it.

So there's a lot of that preliminary work that needs to be done. Processes needed to be done to build that interest list. Move them. We have reservation events where we have a lot of people that do the first phase of the community and sell those upfront and then move them into the rest of the community.

But a lot of processes from budgeting, that's a big component of it. A lot of home builders, a lot of our franchise builders. They want to spend as little as possible and get great results. Now that's not the easiest thing to accomplish. And in good times and in bad, they tend to stop advertising. So when things are bad, I don't have the money.

I'm going to stop advertising in good times. I don't need to advertise. I've got more business than I, I know what to do with, and there's a lot of builders out there doing that right now. We try to put the discipline of budgeting a certain amount, and it [00:09:00] always being there and always consistently.  doing your marketing and advertising efforts.

And so it's bringing that discipline to their business is something we emphasize heavily. 

Greg Bray: So at the corporate level, how involved are you in the actual day to day details of where they spend that money and what their campaigns are and things there? Is it more of here's your Excel sheets to put your budget into here's our recommendations?

You go to do it, or are you guys actually kind of in that ongoing execution piece?

Rob Krohn :  It's a lot of guidance. It's being there with questions, giving them the framework and the guides on what to go do, but it's really up and beholden on them to do their local advertising and marketing. It's we can provide the assets.

We have a marketing co-op that everybody pays into. And through those funds, we try to invest one time on everybody's behalf, instead of everybody having to go buy every asset for the photograph rendering floor plan individually. We can provide it to everybody and get them started with a lot of great things, matter ports, virtual tours and the [00:10:00] like, but then when they go to do their, paid search ads or there they're doing Facebook ads, they're doing direct mail or anything else that's for them to invest in and execute on their own behalf.

We are also a home builder so that our corporate entity we're going through it ourselves. I'm getting ready to launch two new communities in Indianapolis. I'm living the same thing they are. Going into a new market, launching a new community, getting people to be aware of it. So the things that we do, then we can pass along to them and say, here's what worked for us.

Now, there are nuances in every market, where a local community newspaper might do really well in one market. Other markets, no one reads the newspaper at all. So there are nuances that they're going to have to learn over time on what works best for them. 

Greg Bray: So I was just going to ask Rob, as you do your communities, that corporate is it the right phrase to say corporate's building, you know?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. are you guys trying to stay ahead [00:11:00] as far as well, let's try something new so that we can decide whether it's worth rolling out to everybody else. Or is it more of just, we've got to sell today and we'll just kind of share, you know, as we go.

Rob Krohn : no, absolutely. I think the best mantra is fail fast and fail often.

And you don't want to fail all the time, but you can learn very quickly what will work and what will not. And then share that amongst the entire group. So we have a kind of a builder 20 group. Of just marketers in our system. So there's 70 franchise builders as well as us. So we get together on a quarterly basis and talk about what's everybody doing?

What's working, what's working in your market. What have you tried and didn't work? So we're trying to always share as an entire system, what we can all do better and learn from each other. 

Greg Bray: So tell us then kind of how you recommend that all these builders structure kind of their marketing teams and which skills they have in-house versus maybe of course, they've got access to you as a resource, but you can't do everything for all of [00:12:00] them.

That's clear. There's a lot of it. So they're going to need some other support from either agencies or hires what what's kind of your guidance on how they set those up. 

Rob Krohn : Yeah, we package and bundle the work that we do. So if it's a direct mail campaign and a newspaper or digital ads and such, we package it up and provide the native file.

So all of our franchise builders, that's something that they can take and then implement now the different models, the way to do that. They're small businesses. It's the owner of the company. They may have a construction manager, they've got a sales person. They may not have more than five or 10 people in their organization.

Oftentimes, they do not have the ability to have a marketing person on staff, a trained, educated marketing person. So there's multiple models. You have somebody in-house, you have somebody external or you have a combination of the two. And that's when we really want to get everybody to. but one of the conversations I often have is you'll hire CPAs, lawyers and architects for the main pillars of your business.

Like they'll have an intern. Or, a [00:13:00] receptionist doing your marketing and you will get the results you deserve when you take that route. So this is an important pillar of your business that starts the process of moving people into the funnel. Why are you not getting someone trained and educated on that practice upfront?

Kevin Weitzel: Rob, will you do me one solid favor and say that again? I'm just kidding. But. It blows my mind when people don't get that, they're like, Oh, I just hired this flunk out of high school. I'm going to have them manage my marketing campaign. 

Rob Krohn : Yeah. God bless nephews and nieces that know how to do social media, but it doesn't mean they're going to help you generate revenue.

And that's really the key to this is you want to generate revenue. You need that upfront. If everyone's just seeing it as a cost center, that's probably why you're not getting the results you want to see. 

Kevin Weitzel: and being the, you mentioned that I know that we've had previous conversations before, and you've actually given me some stats here and there.

And I don't know if you, if you can open up this kimono today or not, but you've actually let me know, how you've positively impacted your franchisees from before, where they've signed up to after they [00:14:00] sign up, you know, your impact to their marketing and their exposure. Uh, can you, can you kind of go through some of that?

Rob Krohn : Well, I won't get into the individual franchise builders. I do. There's a, a number of things that have been said, and we've got videos that, where we've interviewed them and talk about it. They come in and I think it's the full gamut of things that we share with our franchise builders. They may not just be building our product.

They may have other lines of product. We have one builder down in the North Carolina area. He has about 25 communities and only five of them are Epcon. But his comment is the things that we've taught him on the Epcon side. He's applied to all of his other communities and the other types of homes that he builds.

A lot of them are coming in. They've been custom builders or small volume production builders. It's their ability to come in and learn the process of what we do and then apply that to every area of their business. Marketing's just one of them. I know, even for ourselves corporately, we did not have a dedicated marketing department ourselves until two and a half years ago.

In that time, [00:15:00]  we're up probably 300% in our sales. Since implementing a full time dedicated marketing team and process to what we do. So we even corporately, we had a lot to learn and to apply. 

Greg Bray: So Rob, as you then are providing this guidance, help us understand how digital fits in with kind of the overall strategies that you guys are promoting across these builders and encouraging them to use.

Rob Krohn : Yeah, digital is critical. It's it's more than half of our digital or of our advertising spend. Uh, we actually provide a spreadsheet a guide on where to be spending your dollars and in what percentages. So that's something we want them to say. Here's how we're dividing our 1% industry standard of projected revenue towards your advertising, the line item in your budget.

And then here's how you break out that 1%. So if you're going to sell 20 homes, multiply that by how much you're going to sell them for that's your projected revenue. Take 1% of that. Now here's how you divide that 1%. At least [00:16:00] from our perspective, you may be different in your market and then us, but at least it's a starting point.

Digital will is never going away. It's only increasing. But we still use a robust, full marketing mix. We did not go completely away from everything else. We still do newspaper. We still do direct mail. We still are doing traditional media, our buyers, especially in the 55 plus space. There are some that still read the newspaper.

So we still have people bringing it in and saying here, I saw you here. They get our direct mail. I saw you here and that's great. And it's always in flux, depending on the market, Columbus is different than Charlotte and Raleigh. Columbus is a lot of people that live here in central Ohio or are generally in the area.

Carolina's everybody's moving from other parts of the country. I call it the North coast, Chicago to New Jersey, lot of people moving from the North coast to down to the Carolinas. So it's a different marketing mix in that area because there's so much influx, but it's still a full marketing mix. [00:17:00] We don't knock things out.

Just cause we don't think it's going to be, effective. We track, we measure, we do more of what works and less of what doesn't.

Greg Bray: do you ever have any issues Rob with the brand, inter brand competition, so to speak where you're, you know, you look at like paid search where you've got all your builders, all kind of bidding on the same keywords and suddenly costing each other a little more because they're competing for the same Epcon Communities type of brand name.

Any thoughts on that? 

Rob Krohn : Well, I think it really comes down to your strategy on making sure you're in local search, city name. What type of house? And are you showing up? And we've kept our franchise builders for the most part, pretty separated. So there's not a lot of overlapping competition for local search terms and showing up within that, we do through our marketing, co-op do some limited, low level of SEO on behalf of all of our franchise builders.

So we're trying to help them get ranked on that local level. Getting that [00:18:00] first foray out into the market, consistent quality information on every platform possible. so that the opportunity to get a head start is very high. Now our communities are relatively small. I'll say they're more of a bed and breakfast community, as opposed to a cruise ship community.

It may be 50 to 200 homes. So sometimes a lot of SEO work and digital work can take a while to ramp up. Well, if we wait too long, the community would be sold out. So we have to really get that head start as quickly as possible to give them that greatest opportunity to start the community strong so that it ends strong as well 

Kevin Weitzel: Since you have them all over the country and they have their already established builders, they were to have their own websites.

Do you have like a guide that you give them, as best practices on how to incorporate, you know, the Epcon way into the things that they're doing? 

Rob Krohn : Yeah. We often ask them if they're building an Epcon Community and they have an external site. When you have on your website pages for your, your active [00:19:00] adult 55 plus type community, then it just comes over to Epcon Communities.com and the pages that we've already built.

Otherwise they're cited. Our sites start to compete for what's the real authority in a market, and that brings us all down. What we're trying to do is raise, raise all the boats. So if you tie your site, which is doing well targeted with your brand and you connect it to ours, and then ours is the domain authority for that type of product.

And that raises us all up. 

Greg Bray: So Rob has you have new ideas or new technologies that you want to bring out to the the family, if you will, and roll those out. What kinds of issues have you had with pushback where they're like, Oh, that won't work here, you know, or that we don't need that,  and how do you kind of work through some of those, any examples that come to mind?

Rob Krohn : Yeah, I'd probably say we don't dictate what software everybody uses. They are private, independent businesses tied to have con, but we don't tell them what they have to use. We will show them what's worked for us, how it's worked, we'll [00:20:00] connect them with other franchise builders that may have used it. And then it's their decision whether they want to roll it out in their market or not.

I think that's really productive for our business owners. They can make decisions that are in their best interests, as, as a home builder in their market. What we'll also do is we might work with a technology vendor and use one of our franchise builders as the beta test. Somebody who's interested in doing it.

We let them roll it out in their market. We can see the results, test it out. Then it's first person it's not being told people are being told what to do. They can learn from someone just like them. Similar market size, similar community size and say, Hey, this is how it worked for me. I thought it was productive or it wasn't, that happens sometimes too.

And then it can confirm, percolate from there. 

Kevin Weitzel: Okay. Do you ever have, obviously they're becoming franchisees for a reason, you know, they're looking for that partnership and maybe even some guidance along the way as well. Possibly even buying volume buying advantages, but do you ever have any pushback that so backwards [00:21:00] that you have to consider maybe not making them franchisee? A good example would be. You know, you're like, Hey, you know, we noticed that you're still using black and white stick drawings. You know, why aren't, you know, you really should have 3D renderings and they go 3D who's the hell is going to want 3D. That's crazy.

Everything should be in 2D. You know do you ever get anything to kind of push it back? I know that's such a stupid analogy, but I'm just curious if you ever get the analogy.

Greg Bray:  Its not the analogy Kevin is the voice. 

Kevin Weitzel: I went a little hillbilly on it. Sorry, Alabama builders that are listening on this podcast.

Rob Krohn : I can't say I've had that exact pushback, Kevin, I'll give you that one, but I think in any franchise situation, you'll learn very quickly for both sides, whether it is a fit or it's not a fit, we don't really accept people in that are going to be completely contrary to what it is. We do a good analogy from one of our franchise builders is we've created the winning recipe for the cherry pie at the state.

Fair. Just follow the recipe and you should do pretty [00:22:00] well.  no promises. There's never in any business, but we've got a pretty good winning formula. Just kind of pick this up and go with it. Now they learn over time that they can make a few adjustments here and there and things, and that's all perfectly acceptable.

That's part of the system as well. We're all wanting to learn. We're all wanting to get better. We get great ideas from our franchise builders on how to maybe do something a little bit better than the next. And that's, that's the beauty of the system. I think the past year. Has cemented in people's mind, the importance of technology and the ability to sell remotely.

we progress 10 years in 10 weeks. A lot of the pushback that I think actually came internally with, business owners, as well as salespeople. They didn't believe the technology would work. I think the home buyers were ready for it. I think our home buyers were ready for it. You think 55 plus or a lot of people think 55 plus, and they didn't think they would use the technology adapt to it.

Well, that was completely false. I spoke a few years ago at one [00:23:00] of the NARI conferences about buying sight unseen. And this was happening in 2017, 2018. And no one believed that would, take hold. Well, here we are a couple of years later and situations dictated it happened, and guess what? The buyers were ready.

The salespeople and the ownership had to go, okay, we've got to do this. We have to stay in business. Let's let's slow remotely. our co-op just as a quick aside last March, uh, March and April of 2020 was the greatest proof of our co-op being a value because we had over years invested in virtual tours and Matterports in 3d technology and remote, tour types of things.

Virtual tours and over the course of two and a half weeks, we repackaged everything, got it out to our builders and kept them in business. Some of our builders were in States where they were not allowed to meet anyone in person. And we were able to take everything, get it out to her, our builders, and get them in and back in business.

And I had talked to a number of the vendors that said we're booked solid for the next three [00:24:00] months. Even if you wanted to buy something or order something, we can't fit you in. And we already had it, cause our company had been forward thinking for many years, investing in these products and we were able to distribute them out to our network very quickly.

Greg Bray: Rob, I love what you said there about how, you know, we assume that the buyers aren't ready for stuff just because we're uncomfortable with it, you know, or as we being, you know, owners, salespeople, whatnot, and we also make these assumptions based on. Demographics or age, you know, 55 plus. Well, they won't be comfortable with it, but what I'm hearing you say is, Oh yeah, they're just fine.

Right. That, you know, are there any other things that surprised you about what buyers were comfortable with or kind of you learned this last year and a half?

Rob Krohn :  I think in many ways, if you're moving from New Jersey, you don't have the time to go visit a community or to see a home. Down in Raleigh, North Carolina.

So the ability to see it remotely engaged with a sales person [00:25:00] remotely, it was just, they were begging for it. And once they were able to, or,  easily access it, improved true. Now the thing that I I'm trying to make sure we communicate internally is gen X is turning 55. So it's not just the boomers anymore.

And, you know, I'm a solid X-er. I've had a computer in my hands since elementary school. So this is the stuff we've we want, and we need as we enter this market as well, 

Kevin Weitzel: That computer had a single color monochromatic screen. 

Rob Krohn : Yes it did. With a turn knob.  

Kevin Weitzel: Floppy discs. 

Greg Bray: Well, you know, Rob, we appreciate your time today.

Want to be mindful of just a few more questions as we kind of wrap up a little bit as you're looking ahead, now, it sounds to me like you're saying, okay, this desire from the buyers, isn't going back to what it [00:26:00] was before they still want these tools. Are there other trends that you guys are preparing for or looking ahead for at this point?

Rob Krohn : I think for us primarily, it's understanding that the tools that we need, the messaging we're going to need is going to be evolving again, as the Axar start to become the predominant buyer in the 55 plus space. How does everything need to change to a buyer that isn't going to want to deal with someone?

I prefer not to work with a sales person. I want to be able to research and do it on my own. And then I'll come confirm my decision. Uh, when I come visit, I'm not starting, I'm ending my process when I visit you. And I think that's going to be a bit of a mind shift for everybody, in our space. I mean, other areas of the business or the industry have been well acquainted with that, but for ours, it's going to be a bit of a mind shift.

Greg Bray: So Rob, where are some of the sources you're looking at to get your ideas and to look ahead and try to find new ways to do things? 

Rob Krohn : Yeah. I think the [00:27:00] technology summits where you get to do speed dating with technology vendors, is one of the best things that I've been able to do short period of time getting an understanding of who that vendor is, what they do.

The fact that it's been virtual and I'm able to remain in my office. Go through a number of those in the course of a week. And I haven't left. I'm still able to get my email done and get my other work done, I think is a great, I wouldn't necessarily want to go back to meeting people in person, at least in the preliminary speed dating round of technologists.

IBS is always a good place to go and hear what's going on. If you're not always out watching and learning, you're falling behind. I often do take calls and conversations just to see what people are doing. Give myself some ideas. I may not be able to implement it for a year, but at least I know it's available and I can start to see where it fits into my strategy.

Greg Bray: Well, Rob, we really, again, appreciate your time today. Any last words of advice that you want to share with our listeners, just to kind of your chance to make a [00:28:00] difference in the world. So what do you got?

Rob Krohn : Hire a professional marketer that knows what they're doing. It is not rocket science, but it is getting awfully close or you'll get what you deserve you deserve.

Yeah. 

Greg Bray: Awesome. Love it. Love it. Well, if someone wants to connect with you, Rob, what's the best way for them to get in touch and maybe talk some more. 

Rob Krohn : Yeah, LinkedIn is always a good place, @robkrohn, K R O H N on LinkedIn. Uh, it's always a good place to reach me. So email is too many emails coming in.

I have preferred not that route. 

Greg Bray: Fair enough. Fair enough. All right, well, thanks again, Rob for joining us and thank you everybody for listening today 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. 

Rob Krohn : Thank you.