116 Digital Marketing is Worth the Money - Julia Mallozzi Jun 8 2022

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 welcome to the show today Julia Mallozzi, the Marketing Manager at Bill Clark Homes. Welcome, Julia. Thanks for joining us.

Julia Mallozzi: Thank you for having me.

Greg Bray: Well, Julia, why don't we start out, help people get to know you a little bit. Give us that quick introduction. Tell us about yourself.

Julia Mallozzi: Okay. So, I am the Marketing Manager here at Bill Clark Homes and Legacy Homes. So, Bill Clark and [00:01:00] Legacy are the same company, but two different brands. I originally started in Charlotte and then started here at Bill Clark in 2020.

Kevin Weitzel: That's how you got there, but we need to know something secret about you that nobody knows about that they'll find out on this podcast. Like, are you into fencing or dart-throwing, or do you shoe horses? What do you do? What's in the personal world of Julia?

Julia Mallozzi: So, I think that something that people probably don't know is that cause like people who know me know I'm so invested in marketing and graphic design, they probably don't know that I first went to college for marine biology. So, I was a bio major the first part of freshman year, and I really, really wanted to do marine biology. It was like my whole end game.

Kevin Weitzel: What made you go away from studying dolphins?

Greg Bray: Sharks.

Julia Mallozzi: So, yeah, I was actually at a school in New Jersey that was it's Monmouth University on the beach. Well, not on waterfront, but it was an ocean town [00:02:00] and they had a really good marine biology program and that was on the D1 lacrosse team. So, it was like, everything was set, and I went there for biology and lacrosse, and then I remember I was sitting in the back of the classroom in the first like intro to biology, like the weed-out course.

I started crying in the back of the classroom. So, I was like, I don't think this is what I want to do and I was like, this is not it. This is just not for me, and I remember I went to the whatever office it is you go to, to change a major and I was like you know, in high school, I did a bunch of AP art and painting and all that stuff, but I never thought it would be premier. So, then I went to the office and was like, I need to be in the art department. So, I chose graphic design and that's how it started.

Greg Bray: So, going swimming in the deep fish pool didn't happen, but that's all right. That's all right cause now you're here with us.

Julia Mallozzi: Yeah, and now I'm here. I still love marine biology, but I definitely am happy I didn't do it. For sure.

Greg Bray: So, you got into art, graphic design and how did that bring you into [00:03:00] home building specifically?

Julia Mallozzi: So, I wanted to do graphic design off the bat, and then when I was thinking about like longterm, I knew I wanted to do marketing, so I had to decide between like taking marketing tracks and like a business marketing degree or sticking with the graphic design and I went with graphic design and journalism communications because I wanted the more like creative side of it. If I didn't do that, I probably wouldn't have gotten the jobs I've gotten. All the people I know who do have the business marketing degrees, they weren't able to apply or get the jobs I did because I had the design and the creative. I'm so happy I chose that route, and then I learned the marketing stuff as I went.

Kevin Weitzel: Well, you also mentioned that there's two different divisions. How do they differ? What's the difference between Legacy and Bill Clark?

Julia Mallozzi: So, Bill Clark started in 1977. It's a family builder. Our tagline is building family [00:04:00] traditions. It was like originally in that 200 to 300 price point where it's higher volume and we are the developer in our own communities. Then they decided they wanted to kind of branch out and do a custom brand where people have more flexibility. They could build on their own lot or in master-planned communities.

That also gets to higher price points because it is custom. So, we brand it under one umbrella, but it's two brands. It's the Bill Clark brand and then the Legacy is our custom brand is how we describe it because a lot of people do get confused. So, that was a big thing when I first started working here. How do I like distinguish between both brands, but keep it the same?

Greg Bray: That's definitely a challenge. When you go with multiple brands is being able to differentiate so that the buyer isn't confused, right?

Julia Mallozzi: Right.

Greg Bray: Confusing buyers is not a good way to make sales. Right. Confusing buyers is not a good strategy.

Julia Mallozzi: I know they were trying to figure out like, did we call it two divisions? But it's like, no, it's just our custom brand. So, like, we don't [00:05:00] want to separate them too much, but they are different. So, like a Legacy client does have a lot more custom processes when they are building their house and a lot more options.

Greg Bray: So, Julia, tell us more about how you guys have structured your sales and marketing team and where you fit into that structure.

Julia Mallozzi: So, I was hired in 2020 because they needed a marketing manager. They needed someone in the marketing position. Then when I got here, I realized that each department is actually very close-knit. Like, I sit in an office with the head of the designers and then me marketing, and then right next to us is Robin who is the head of our whole department and the sales team, and like the designers and estimators were all in like constant communication every day.

So, I started general brokerage, and then I moved to like a high-end custom builder. This is like a mix between a team of general brokerage agents, but who are all like very close and we work together and we have everything under the same [00:06:00] brand. So, it's weird cause it's like, they act like general brokerage, but we're like a whole big team. It's not like they're out for themselves.

Greg Bray: And do you get to do a lot of graphic design work or are you off just managing campaigns and partners and things?

Julia Mallozzi: So, one day I could be branding a whole new community. Then the next day I'll be in the back of the CRM like making workflows, and then the next day I'm like setting up an event and getting the catering. Like it's all over the place. It's crazy. It is crazy. We do everything in-house. I mean, we obviously outsource a lot of our digital things that I can't physically do, but for the most part, everything's in-house, and then everything you see that's designed is me and we make the decisions, me and Robin, make all the marketing decisions ourselves.

Greg Bray: How do you guys decide where the line is between what you want to do in-house and where you want to bring a partner in? You know, obviously, in-house has some flexibility advantages and things there, but sometimes there's things that maybe somebody can [00:07:00] help with, or you just don't have enough hands to go around.

Julia Mallozzi: Yeah. So, we try to, me and Robin, try to figure out what the best use of my time is and the things I physically can't do. Like, I'm not a full stack developer, so I couldn't develop our website. I designed it with the developer. Like, when we need changes to the actual code, I work with my developer. Stuff like a lot of interactive tools, I can't develop myself. Of course, we outsource that.

There's definitely more stuff we could outsource, but we try to figure out how the money should be spent. What should be in-house, and then what we should spend a ton of money on to be outsourced. It is tricky. Of course, anything we choose to leave in-house means workload goes up.

Greg Bray: Yeah, it's always about, can I do it? Do I have time to do it and is it the best use of time is really where a lot of that comes down to, for sure.

Julia Mallozzi: When something is important and we know it'll help our team and our buyers, we are willing to outsource it and pay for it. We definitely know what's worth it. We're not trying to be cheap, but then just keep it all in-house. We can just like having the control over our [00:08:00] brand in-house, but then when we know something is going to benefit the buyers and our team we definitely pay for it to be outsourced.

Greg Bray: So, as you've been there now for a little while and have seen how things have evolved, how have you seen the digital pieces of your marketing change, and how much of what you do is digitally-focused versus the more traditional marketing?

Julia Mallozzi: Yeah. So, when I started Robin's big plan, like stuff she had on her list for years, that she just didn't have someone to do was our main goal for me. So, at first, it was redoing both websites. So, both websites had to be redone. I would say since I've started, me and Robin's, all the digital tools that we've gotten would be the interactive work plans, interactive site maps, virtual design center, PDF automation, which is new. That's just something I just did within the last like couple months, and then the client portal on the website, favorite tools for our buyers and our users on the website, and then of course Matterports and stuff.[00:09:00]

So, like that wasn't all. I mean, they had Matterports for years, but all the rest of that was stuff that me and Robin were like, okay, you're here now. We have to get this stuff done because this is important. So, it changed a lot. Crazy for the sales team to go from not having any digital tools to all of a sudden, they were like, okay, now we're like doing everything digitally.

Kevin Weitzel: On the Matterport side, did you buy your own camera, or are you hiring that in?

Julia Mallozzi: No. Okay. So yeah, I don't do that. That's another thing we do outsource. We have a local company here who does the video with the Matterport camera and then sends us stills and the Matterport. I do not do the photography or physical videography either.

Kevin Weitzel: Yeah, there's the man-hours and there's also a breaking point of cost-effectiveness of buying the camera because you can buy a camera and they're honestly, they're kind of expensive and there's so many do it yourself products now that are getting really close to just as good. There's some other benefits with Matterport, but as far as the overall realtor tool, there's plenty of do-it-yourself products out there now [00:10:00] that are getting very close to the same.

Julia Mallozzi: I go with the photographer and videographer to do our videos, but I don't physically do the videos. I don't physically do the photos and I do not do the interactive floor plans myself. If I could that would be crazy, and I don't do the website development myself, but we have like our hand in all of it. I just definitely can't do all that.

Greg Bray: So, you talked about the salespeople reacting to some of the digital tools. Tell us more about that buy-in process or were they all in all ready to go or did you have to do a little bit of internal promotion to say, hey, this is why this is a good thing and how you can use it?

Julia Mallozzi: I went into it thinking I'd have to do a lot more promotion and convincing than I did. There's definitely a lot of salespeople here in our company and all over that like to stick to the traditional ways of selling and collateral and marketing materials, and every time someone walks in a model physically giving them the map with red Xs on what sold. Stuff like that, that people just like doing and they swear that the clients that come in like getting that kind of stuff. The stuff [00:11:00] that saves them time, they didn't even question.

For example, interactive floor plans. That was like God's gift to them. They love that so much. They say that's the most helpful thing when people come to the model or any clients that we're working with.

Kevin Weitzel: What was that again? Can you say that one more time?

Julia Mallozzi: The interactive load plans was God's gift to the sales agents.

Kevin Weitzel: I get a, just a giddy joy hearing you say it.

Julia Mallozzi: Yeah. The automated PDFs. So, basically, every time, which has happened a lot. We've had tons of price changes, inventory changes. Our site maps, there's a lot of solds and then stuff that becomes a spec home. So, all that kind of stuff. We have tons of neighborhoods. You have tons of agents out there and houses. Every time there was a price change, a price increase, I would manually change each price sheet. Some neighborhoods, so we'll have like different home collections, so we'll have four price sheets for one neighborhood.

So, I was manually going in and changing them all, which is normal. That's fine, but it was like, we had someone to change them in our [00:12:00] internal sales book, and then I had to change them on the PDFs and on the website and on anything else out there that was marketing material and it was two things. One, it took so much time and it's tedious time. It wasn't like someone who knows how to do marketing, could change a number in a PDF. It's just data entry, but it was a lot of tedious time, and then it was a lot of, gosh, I hope there's not one error on one of them, and then we're printing them at a hundreds at a time. I just needed the peace of mind that the second there was a price increase or anything changed on the materials or anything with the marketing that we could edit it in one place and then have that automate to the website and the PDFs.

So, that was my biggest project the past couple of months. So, now when there's a price increase, I edit them on the website, and then that generates all PDFs, our price sheet, our available inventory, and our site maps. So, that was like a huge leap, and now it's at their fingertips. So, like the salespeople who are down in Sunset Beach who [00:13:00] can't really get up to the office often to get their materials, they have it to print off right from the website now.

Greg Bray: I think that's a great example of using technology to make something a better process internally, make something that can save some money on printing cause you're not throwing away out-of-date ones the same way that maybe happened before. Or you'd have a pile of things with the wrong numbers on them that you can't use anymore.

Then also just allows you to have more confidence in what's out there because you've made those connections with the data. And then frankly, now they've also got nice PDFs that they can email to people as opposed to having to print all the time too. It's not just about the printer type of file. So that's a great example. Thanks for sharing that.

Julia Mallozzi: I mean, we would do runs of the material at hundreds at a time and now with how the industry is going, the price has been changing so much that we would just waste so many materials and it would stress them out not having them. So, this has just been like great. I will say that [00:14:00] definitely worth the money to automate your PDFs and automate your basic marketing collateral. If you can.

Greg Bray: It's all about managing that data and then having the connections you need to let the website or some other tool generate those for you. That's great. So, tell us, Julia, because you've got your hands in a lot of different things it sounds like. How do you stay current? How do you keep learning and make sure that you're aware of new ideas and new ways to do things

Julia Mallozzi: Definitely looking at what national builders are doing and then what a lot of local custom home builders are doing. I wouldn't say trying to like copy people, but looking into what they're doing on their websites and in their marketing and just how they're releasing in community. Making sure we're not totally out of the loop of something.

If I saw something I've never heard of that before, it would make me feel like, okay, I'm doing something wrong as a marketing manager. Me and my boss, Robin, and our online sales specialists, we do a lot of different trainings and we stay connected with a bunch of different like marketing [00:15:00] groups, and when we go to like live trainings. It was in Dallas this year. I always say like, when I come out of one of the sessions, I'm like, okay, I want to go in there learning a lot, but I never want to go in there where they introduce something that I've never heard of because then that would make me be like, okay, I'm missing something and I'm like out of the loop. Like, I always want to learn new things, but not too much to where it's something I had no idea what was even in the radar for home builder digital marketing.

Greg Bray: Are there areas outside of the building industry that you look to for ideas as well?

Julia Mallozzi: Yeah, actually my first job was at Christie's International Real Estate, the Ivester Jackson affiliate in Charlotte, and my boss, who was the owner of the company, his background was in marketing. So, it was great to learn under him when I was new. He knew that most of the budget needs to be spent on marketing and Christie's is very high-end. So, everything was done the like right way and it was done very elevated. [00:16:00] So, I always look back at what Christie's doing. I look at their marketing. The way they do things.

Their branding guy was like the strictest branding guy you'll ever see. So, I like looking to see what they're doing. Now that doesn't help with home building, but as far as overall marketing and like how elegant marketing should look, I look to them. Other than that for just home building and just trying to figure out how we're going to do things, we make sure that we're in line with what's going on around us. I'm constantly keeping tab.

Greg Bray: Julia, tell us a little more about how you guys are incorporating social media into your marketing mix and where that fits for you.

Julia Mallozzi: Yes. So, that is new too. I do the social media. So, we're on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and we do get a lot of good photography that I use. I try to make sure that anything I'm posting, it's letting the users know what home brand it is, what neighborhood is, not just throwing out random pictures. We do a lot with video and I think that is really [00:17:00] helpful, especially when you have a videographer who knows what the video needs to be on Instagram, like the time, as opposed to a Facebook, a post if you're going to do the on YouTube or website. Like, the videographer we work with is really good with that and he'll be like, no, this is going to be too long. We can't use this on a reel. So, stuff like that really helps.

Greg Bray: You've mentioned that you guys do a lot with video. Tell us how you come up with what ideas you want to use or to create videos for and how you want to use those, like on Instagram and other places.

Julia Mallozzi: So, we get the most out of just regular house videos. So, when we have a new model, especially one that our internal designer staged, we like doing the house video where it shows, obviously the outside elevation, the backyard, the location, like proximity to, if it's on the water if it's on the intercoastal of what it's near. So, I like showing like the surrounding areas and then going back and forth between the house. Like starting with the house, then going to the area then going inside the house.

So, we try to keep them pretty short because [00:18:00] if we're going to use them on social media and reels, they have to be short. One, that Instagram won't allow it, and two, people won't watch the whole thing. We definitely try to keep them short and to the point, and we get the most out of house videos with just background music. If I was going to sit here and record myself talking about a house. We've done so many videos with people talking about community testimonials and they do well, but nothing does as good as just the imagery and the video of a house with music. Those always do the best and the lifestyle ones, where it's people like in the community, but no one's like talking to the camera. So, mixed between images of the house and then B roll and then the area and the surrounding areas.

Greg Bray: So, how much difference is there in all the plans that you do between the two brands? You know, as far as kind of we do these five things over here, but only these two over here? Or is it all the same stuff for both?

Julia Mallozzi: So, the original Bill Clark brand, right now I think we're at 22 or [00:19:00] 25. Kevin, you might even know cause you guys did on interactive floor plans for that whole series. Our recent Bill Clark plans, they've evolved over the years, and the ones that buyers like the best are the ones that we keep creating, and then when we redo them a little bit, we're going to add stuff.

With Legacy, we take a lot of those plans and then elevate them even more with structural upgrades and selection upgrades, and then also give the Legacy buyers options to customize the whole thing. So, one of our most popular plans on Bill Clark is the Ashton. We created a Legacy version of it, which is the Hudson, and it's basically the Ashton, but with a ton of custom structural details and internal, and then we also allow for people to customize it as much as it wants. So, it's like Bill Clark is starting with the base and then you could just keep going and build a complete custom home once you go over to Legacy.

Kevin Weitzel: FYI, Greg, their plans average 20 options apiece. The Ashton contains [00:20:00] 42 options.

Julia Mallozzi: Oh wow, and I live in an Ashton and I didn't even know it had 42.

Kevin Weitzel: Do you? That's awesome.

Julia Mallozzi: Yes. I actually, I just built it.

Greg Bray: With, you know, the connections between the product, but yet different audience. Do you find yourself doing the same marketing tactics for both? Or do you do some different things to promote the Bill Clark versus the Legacy? Are there different tactics that you focus on?

Julia Mallozzi: The base of the marketing is it all starts the same. When we're talking about audience persona, that's when I have my messaging for both. I have our stock engine images for both. So, Bill Clark would be the family home buyer or first-time homebuyer. We do a lot of marketing with our imagery involving families with young kids and that's just like how we do the marketing. Obviously, we have tons of demographics, I think in the Bill Clark Homes.

With Legacy, we see a lot more retirement. So, we have a lot of retirees that by Legacy and a lot of people who are coming from the north, specifically the Northeast, [00:21:00] retiring down to the Carolina coast and building their custom Legacy home. That's probably going to be their final home and where they retire. So, yeah, that's how it's divided. But again, within that, there are so many demographics in each brand.

Kevin Weitzel: So, on our podcasts, we've had several interviewees, I should say, podcast guests that have, just by virtue of being in the new home building industry, have purchased new homes, but not necessarily from themselves. Sometimes just geographically or based on what their personal buying needs are they buy from X, Y, or Z.

You're in a unique situation that you actually bought one of your own homes, one of the Bill Clark Homes. Is there anything, I'm getting around to a question, actually, Greg, believe it or not. Is there anything in the process of you building your home that allowed you to introspectively change or reevaluate some of the things that Bill Clark Homes does in its marketing or its outreach campaigns? Is there anything that you experienced personally that you would change?

Julia Mallozzi: [00:22:00] Yes. So, it was funny because as soon as we, me and my fiance, decided to build a Bill Clark house. I like made myself a folder with the home plan PDF, a brochure showing all the options, and like I showed him the interactive floor plan of the Ashton. Like, I was doing all the things that we want our buyers to do. It's different because I work here and I know all the ins and outs. After going through the process with my fiance, who at the time didn't know anything about the process, never built a house before, and didn't know the business, things were a little overwhelming for him.

So, like when we went into our first design meeting, he was excited at first, and then as soon as we started getting into the nitty-gritty stuff, he was so overwhelmed. He didn't talk the rest of the time. Because of that, the design team, then Robin, and I were like, okay, we need to know like more about our buyers before they come to their first design meeting.

It can be very overwhelming for someone who has never done the process before ever or someone who doesn't know anything about home building doesn't know anything about selections or countertops. Just little simple [00:23:00] things that for us, it's just everyday stuff. So, what we decided to do is learn more about our clients before they get to their first meeting.

In our CRM, we make sure that we know if they're first-time home buyers, if it's their second home, if it's a vacation home, if they have kids in the house, if they're relocating. Like, we try to get as much information in our CRM before we have that first design meeting. Also like a little portfolio about them. Like a questionnaire, they could fill out before their meeting. Kind of their style, like what they are looking for in a home style. Click on some pictures and colors.

So, that's all wrapped up and our designer will have it before the meeting. So at least they could be a little more comfortable and it's a little more personalized. We haven't totally capitalized on it yet. We're like halfway there, but that's something that I think will help a lot because obviously I knew the designer, she's my coworker. Kieran went into it, like just confused. I just think it could be so personalized that they feel comfortable. So, that's something we're definitely changing.

Now, [00:24:00] that was then. A year later, my fiance actually works here now. So, now we both work here and he sees things that go on in the field that when our house, obviously, you know, last year initially started with COVID, all the delays with supplies and vendors. To him, he was getting frustrated with our company. No, this is what's going on. I'm there every day. I sit in the office next to all the things that are going on, and now that he's in the field as a superintendent. He is like, oh my gosh. It's like Hunger Games out here. It's like now I see, and so it's pretty cool because it was cool to see like him be a client, and now he's talking to clients about why their house is delayed.

Kevin Weitzel: So, let me ask you this because I can relate with your husband on two of those counts. One is that I've built two new homes myself and in both cases, if at all costs, if I could just have somebody hand me a piece of paper that said, based on your budget of what you can afford to add to [00:25:00] this contract, here's what we're going to use in the design center for your product. Done. Let me sign the line and done. I don't want to pick the cabinets. I don't want to pick this because I have zero fashion sense. I am the worst person for picking out anything. So, I just either want to be guided 100% through the process or two, good, better, best scenario.

Julia Mallozzi: Right.

Kevin Weitzel: But let me ask you this. When you're talking about the frustrations that your husband is experiencing, or I'm sorry, fiance or husband?

Julia Mallozzi: Fiance.

Kevin Weitzel: Finance. Sorry, didn't mean to get you married ahead of time.

Julia Mallozzi: It's okay. I don't mind.

Kevin Weitzel: Didn't want to make you a jump that line early, but the frustrations that he's feeling is that an opportunity to maybe do some social media posts about some of the woes that are the supply chain issues and basically let the buyers hear that story because sometimes I think bringing them in might help that scenario.

Julia Mallozzi: Actually, I'm ahead of the game and we actually did that, so. Because of everything that's going on, it's so crazy. Like, it's crazy to me, especially after we work fires and seeing people get so frustrated [00:26:00] with how the industry is and not see what I see in the office. How like, people are running around every day. Like, just trying to get these people in their houses and the house is sitting like what do we do?

Of course, you get your best ideas in the shower. One day in the shower, I was like, how could we like show the world and our buyers and our clients, what's going on in the backend without being ugly, but showing them like we promise that we're doing everything we can.

So, we did a video with our videographer and it sounds like a morose documentary, but it's not. You'll see it soon. We just did some editing and it's our director of construction, the director of sales and marketing, and then two of our salespeople, one from Bill Clark, one from Legacy, just explaining what's going on from their point of view, and then we're turning it into what we learned from it and how we're changing what we do for our buyers and then kind of reassuring everyone. It's pretty cool. I can't wait to see what it's done.

Greg Bray: That sounds like a great idea.

Julia Mallozzi: I was like, I need to do something because no one knows. Like, I'm sitting here posting all [00:27:00] these beautiful houses every day and all this stuff, and then we have all these people who are like, okay, where's my house. Like, why isn't that done yet?

Greg Bray: No, that's a great idea. We'll look forward to seeing when you've got that done. It's all about educating them and setting proper expectations and helping them understand, so they can move forward.

Julia Mallozzi: Yeah. Just being really honest right now with the build time used to be this and right now it's this and we're going to get back to what it was, but right now this is how it is.

Greg Bray: Well, Julia, we appreciate all the insights and time you spent with us today. Do you have any last words of advice or any last ideas you'd wanted to make sure you got a chance to share today?

Julia Mallozzi: I would say don't be afraid to put a lot of your budget into digital, if not 50% or more into digital, right now. Don't be afraid to get away from the traditional print stuff. Even if your sales team they're not getting flyers. So, just do it and show them that it works better.

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

Julia Mallozzi: [00:28:00] My cell phone and my work email. So, cell phone, 9 0 8 3 0 4 2 3 7 2, and then my email is J M A L L O Z Z I @billclarkhomes.com.

Greg Bray: All right, well, thank you again, Julia, 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.