134.5 Bonus Episode: 2022 Home Builder Digital Marketing Summit - Zonda Introduction Oct 17 2022

Greg Bray: [00:00:00] Hi everyone. This is Greg Bray with Blue Tangerine. At the 2022 Home Builder Digital Marketing Summit, we were grateful to have Zonda join us as a platinum sponsor. While we were there, I had the opportunity to speak with Karyn Bonder, the Vice President of Business Development for Builder Sales and Marketing at Zonda to learn more, and we just wanted to share that conversation with you today. Hope you enjoy.

I'm Greg, and this is Karyn Bonder with Zonda, and we're so thankful that they have chosen to be one of our platinum [00:01:00] sponsors, and so we want to take a few minutes and get to know a little bit more about Zonda and some of the things that they're doing. So, we've invited Karyn up here to share a little bit with us. Thank you, Karyn, for being here, for supporting our event. We really appreciate it.

Karyn Bonder: Yeah, of course. No, happy to be here. Thank you.

Greg Bray: So, I guess let's just start. Just tell us, for those who don't know much about Zonda, just kind of the big picture of what you guys are doing and what you're working on.

Karyn Bonder: Sure. So, if you haven't heard of Zonda, you may have heard of Hanley Wood or Metrostudy, or Meyers Research. A few years ago, those three companies combined together and we are now under the umbrella name of Zonda. Earlier this year, actually in January of this year, we actually launched our Enterprise platform.

So, we spent a couple of years really taking the platforms from those three companies and pulling it together into one single source of truth, which is the Zonda Enterprise platform. It makes up over 40 years of housing data and analytics. So, we're the number one trusted resource for housing data and analytics for the industry. [00:02:00] Yeah, got a lot of exciting future plans of data we're gonna add into it.

Greg Bray: So, one of the things you guys have been working on though, is getting into direct-to-consumer listings, and that's kind of newer for Zonda. So, tell us a little bit more about that.

Karyn Bonder: Sure. So, that was the B2B that I just spoke about. So, on the B2C side of it, what we want to do, our ultimate goal is to really access consumer behavior, what people are looking for online as far as a home, and we want to take that data from the listings portal and we want to put it into the Zonda Enterprise app, and then that information goes back to the builders. So, Zonda really exists for the builder's benefit. We're very driven. The listings portal is designed to be very builder friendly.

We don't pull data from the MLS. We don't sell leads to realtors. So, it's very builder friendly. The idea is that you're gonna have all of that consumer behavior, so what floor plans people click on, what price point is being accepted mostly in today's market, how long people are [00:03:00] spending looking at certain videos. So, all of that is gonna go into the Zonda app, and it's really going to add some transparency to what's going on.

So, you might get some analytics on what you're seeing for your particular builder data, but it's going to open it up to transparency, so you're gonna be able to see what's happening with the builder down the road. I think that that's something that's really lacking in our industry, but I think it's just going to help make us better.

Greg Bray: So, usually when we think of a listing site, we're thinking of, Oh, a consumer is looking for a home and you're just going to send a lead. But what you're saying, if I'm understanding right, is there's a lot more to what you're going to offer or are offering. Where it's not just, Oh, we sent you a lead because somebody found your home on our site. There's all this other data connected with that lead beyond they just clicked on your listing.

Karyn Bonder: Exactly, exactly. So, we acquired a listings company out of Canada. They were founded in Toronto in 2009. So, it's a platform that works very well and we're bringing that into the US. So, it is live now. It is under the name of BuzzBuzzHome, but we are currently [00:04:00] rebranding to Livable. We haven't been really promoting it because we're going through the rebranding and the redevelopment of the website so that it's a very different customer shopping experience.

It's gonna be a very map-centric, very community-centric, more towards new home construction. You know, with the community vibe to it, instead of just one single resale home. It's more about the community and the options you have within the community. We are free to list platform. So, there's no cost to be on our site, and we also, like I said, send you your leads back for free as well.

We do integrate into pretty much every CRM system out there so that we can integrate right into your follow-up system. Hopefully, you know, that's a nice seamless process. It's going to be a different customer shopping experience, which will be different from all of the other listing portals that are out there right now, but then the end benefit, the long-term benefit, is the data that the builders will be getting out of that.

Greg Bray: Okay. Free to-list and free leads seems a little too good to be true. So, I gotta ask, is it really free, or once we [00:05:00] get, you know, five, you're gonna start charging?

Karyn Bonder: No, it's definitely, it's definitely free, but if you want to promote your community to be higher in the search results, you can do that. So, we've got different revenue-generating opportunities. We'll have a retargeting program. We have an e-blast program. So, there will be other ways you can take advantage of getting in front of our audience. In fact, because we have such a solid audience in Canada, we have a number of large US home builders that are doing retargeting campaigns to the Canadian audience to promote their snowbird communities down here.

Greg Bray: So, then what are some of the plans, as you rebrand, to get that brand in front of the potential buyers?

Karyn Bonder: Right. So, we are planning on launching Livable in first quarter of 2023, right here in Phoenix. We're going to go coast to coast pretty quickly after that. We're going to do a pretty heavy mix, pretty aggressive mix of traditional and non-traditional advertising. So, now is just a really unique point in time where [00:06:00] you can be on our site for free at no cost. We're going to be paying to send the eyeballs to our site, and then you can benefit from that.

We also have a media company. So, we do heavy editorial. We've already been covering a lot of different topics on the Phoenix market specifically, to really help kind of set that foundation from a solid SEO standpoint. Which is really important for when we do launch. So, heavy editorial to keep that pipeline of potential consumers full.

Greg Bray: It sounds like a no-brainer. I think that's what you're going for, right?

Karyn Bonder: Yeah.

Greg Bray: So, so what's involved in getting set up? How hard is that to do?

Karyn Bonder: It's very easy. We do prefer getting your information via a data feed. We have our own data schema which is pretty generic, but we also do take existing data feed. So, we understand that you know, development work is a little difficult at this time. If you don't have a data feed.

Greg Bray: I know a guy.

Karyn Bonder: He can hook you up with a data feed. But we also have a builder dashboard so that you can [00:07:00] load the information about your communities and homes on our site directly. Like I mentioned, we don't pull from the MLS though. So, it's just our goal, our mission is just to connect the consumer directly with the builder. There are plenty of other sites that cater more towards the realtor. We're really focused on listening to the builder and giving those leads directly to the builder.

Greg Bray: Do I have to put every listing on or can I just pick and choose certain communities?

Karyn Bonder: Well, if it's a data feed, you know, it'll be up and running, but if you do enter it manually, you can enter in whatever you want to feature.

Greg Bray: Okay. So, then how do I get started?

Karyn Bonder: You can come see me. Yeah. Come see me or send me an email. My contact information is in the brochure in front of you. Connect with me on LinkedIn, please. It's a pretty seamless process. We will get a sample feed file, run some tests, find out what CRM system you use, and do some test integrations. We're happy to train your sales team so they know what the lead looks like, where it's coming from. It is live and running in the US right now. [00:08:00] So, the leads initially will come from BuzzBuzzHome, but then once we flip that over to Livable, it'll come from Livable.

Greg Bray: All right. Thank you Karen again for being supportive, and I hope everybody, it's free. Why not? I don't see the downside here, so.

Karyn Bonder: We don't have any consumer recognition. So, that's another reason why we're out there boots on the ground being involved with amazing events like this in front of the sales and marketing people, just to really drive that awareness. So, that you know, when you do see Livable, you've at least heard about it 'cause it's gonna take us a little while to get to, you know, Zillow status. But we have our own niche, only new construction. We're here for the builders. So, it'll be good.

Greg Bray: Awesome. Well, again, thank you for your support of our event. We appreciate it. Thank you to Zonda.

Thank you.