268 Delivering Home Builder Marketing with Integrity - Michelle Mambuca May 14 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 Wetzel with OutHouse. 

Greg Bray: And we are excited to have joining us today, Michelle Mambuca. Michelle is the marketing and PR manager at Barron Collier Companies, who are the developers of the Ave Maria Development. Welcome Michelle. Thanks for being with us today. 

Michelle Mambuca: Thanks for having me. 

Greg Bray: Kevin, before we invite Michelle to introduce herself, I just want to remind you that she is actually an award-winning guest because she received the Silver Award for [00:01:00] Marketing Professional of the Year at this year's Nationals at the Builder Show. So, congratulations, Michelle, on that. 

Michelle Mambuca: Thank you. 

Greg Bray: Well, Michelle, for those who haven't met you yet, why don't we start off with just a quick background and introduction, give us a little bit of information about yourself. 

Michelle Mambuca: Thanks, Greg. Well, as you shared, I'm the marketing and PR manager for Barron Collier Companies. I've been in the marketing and PR industry for over 10 years. I'm originally from Fort Lauderdale region but came to Southwest Florida in 2008 and never looked back. It was a smaller area at that time, but there's been a lot of development since then. So, it's been really exciting to be a part of that development and growth in this area.

Kevin Weitzel: All right, so before we dig a deeper dive, you can't use family, you can't use work, and you can't use the home building industry. We need a factoid about yourself that our listeners will learn on our podcast. 

Michelle Mambuca: I'm not very exciting because that's all I really do is family and work, but I love baking and I'm known for a famous banana bread that [00:02:00] I make. And there's a secret ingredient. I'm not going to tell you what it is, but it's a little healthier. 
Kevin Weitzel: Is it cannabis? 

Michelle Mambuca: No. No, it's not. 

Kevin Weitzel: Oh, okay. Just checking. Oh, she didn't say healthier. Not way more healthy, man. 

Michelle Mambuca: It's healthier and delicious, so it's a win-win. 

Greg Bray: Well, Michelle, tell us a little bit more about how you ended up in the home building industry and a little more about your career journey.

Michelle Mambuca: Sure. Well, I used to work at agencies, smaller PR marketing firms in the area. I love Southwest Florida, and I didn't want to relocate for a job. So, I found different jobs that were a good fit for me, but more smaller firms. I worked outside of companies, so at an agency with many different clients, got some great opportunities through that and worked with different types of organizations. So, it wasn't quite real estate right away. As you know, in an agency you work with different clients. 

So, as I got a lot of great experience, hands-on experience, I was looking for an opportunity [00:03:00] that was different, that was more of a corporate position for a company that gave back. I had some parameters I wanted them to give back in the community, to support my professional development goals that I had. I love professional development, as you probably know, and I was just looking for something different. So, a position opened up at Baron Collier Companies. So, I've been here six years. I started in a different position and moved to a managerial position for Barron Collier. Barron Collier Companies, I can give you a little background, but we have a lot of parent companies. It's a very diversified organization. So, my focus is Ave Maria, but I help with all of Barron Collier marketing and PR. 

Greg Bray: Yeah, take us a little bit deeper for those who aren't familiar with the company. Just a quick background about Barron Collier, and then a little bit more about the Ave Maria community.

Michelle Mambuca: So, Barron Collier Companies, it's one of the largest diversified companies in Florida, and we are dedicated to the responsible development, management, and stewardship of numerous landholdings. So, if you're in Collier County, in the Naples, Florida [00:04:00] area, obviously the county name, it's Collier County. Our founder, Barron Gift Collier has basically helped develop the county. He came to this area when it really was nothing and saw a vision before there was air conditioning and mosquito control, and he came here like, this is paradise. And I find that fascinating because now we look at it like this is paradise, but back then, in the 1900s, it really wasn't so much paradise just yet.

Our organization has been around for about 115 years, dated back to, you know, the founding of Collier County and the Tamiami Trail. There's a lot of history to our company, and I love representing a company that really cares about the area that it works in, it lives, and plays in. So, that's something I'm really passionate about. 

And with that being said, we have a lot of land and we have different developments on those different types of lands. From commercial, agriculture, development, you know, the master planned community of Ave Maria, as well as other parent companies. We have an engineering team that helps with the [00:05:00] development of Ave Maria. So, there's a lot that we are involved in that people might not realize. So, that's kind of exciting to me. But Ave Maria is one of our biggest developments. 

Kevin Weitzel: Question for you about Ave Maria. So, could you give us an idea just from the scale? Because I mean, I've been on the website, and I see that you have Lennar Homes there, Del Webb, you have Pulte Homes, you got some monster, monster builders. How many lots are you developing or will be developing in that whole uh, structure? 

Michelle Mambuca: Yes, that's a good question, Kevin, to put it in perspective. So, Ave Maria as a whole is 23,000 acres. 17,000 acres are preserved. That will never be touched. We're part of the Rural Land Stewardship Agreement, where we preserve natural lands and we are developing 5,000 of those acres. So, as of now, we have about 5,500 homes built. So we're about halfway built out. We can build up to 11,000. So, we still have a lot to go. We broke ground actually this year, 20 years ago, so that's pretty incredible. 

[00:06:00] We started with the commercial and the church and the university. So, really quickly, people might know, oh, you know, the Domino's founder. So, we partnered with Tom Monaghan, the founder of Domino's Pizza, to build Ave Maria. So, it's a partnership. and he built the church and the university, and we built the commercial and work with the builders on building the homes and the amenities. And so, it's a partnership, and it's been a great partnership for the past 20 years.

Greg Bray: I think that's just fascinating to think about the type of longevity and planning and view it takes to be building for 20 years, and you're only halfway done. That's just a little mind-blowing. So, the types of residents that you are trying to attract, is it just all over the place or is there a specific demographic that you guys are inviting to live in this community? How does that work? 

Michelle Mambuca: That's also a good question. So, as a master planned community, you know, most of them, they have a home for every type of person. So, we typically target families [00:07:00] and active adults, families with young children, and those active adults that love golf. We have two golf courses, so that are golf enthusiasts want to be active. We're a blue zone certified community. So, we really emphasize the health and wellness aspect of the town, which applies well with the older demographic because they wanna be active, they wanna feel young and youthful and maybe be around other people that are active as well. So, those are our two main audiences.
The four builders offer different types of products. I always say they can buy a house anywhere. They can buy a Pulte home anywhere. So, why do they want to buy in Ave Maria? That's the main goal. And we have found people move here for the sense of community. It's very different. I'm from Fort Lauderdale, and you know, you don't leave your bike out overnight. You just don't leave it. It'll be gone in the morning. It's happened to me. You know, you learn from your mistakes. 

But in Ave we see bicycles with no locks scattered where the bus stop comes for school, you know, on the bike rack and different things that really [00:08:00] kinda subconsciously make you realize that this is a really nice family community and things like that, that you're not used to that kind of surprise people. So, I really encourage people to visit to really get a sense of what it's like. It might not be for everyone, but if you get there and you feel like you fit in well with it, you probably do. 

Greg Bray: So, when you take that type of a characteristic, that safety lifestyle community feel, what are some of the ways in your marketing that you try to communicate that to people and help get that message across if they're from Fort Lauderdale and just don't believe you? 

Michelle Mambuca: Right. We don't do any false advertising. And as a matter of fact, our residents are featured in our marketing. So, this is really different. From talking to sales team members, being on the ground ourselves, you know, out in the community for many years, building those relationships, we have met some incredible people and actually have come up with this campaign. It's the second year running it, which has won some awards, like you [00:09:00] mentioned. The real stories from a big kind of small town which is our tagline. So, these are real people. 

We show diversity because Ave Maria is very diverse. Maybe one day when it first started, people didn't think that. Today, Ave Maria is so diverse, every type of person, different backgrounds and they all get along and they all have similar values from what we've seen. So, we highlight those different types of residents and show those scenes, you know, show those bikes. We have a picture on our brochure of just the beautiful rainbow color bikes, you know, scattered on the ground, for example.

Kevin Weitzel: So, with your builders on the Ave Maria Development, is there a conglomeration that basically takes care of all the common areas and the amenities, or does each builder have to take care of their own? Or do they just get to concentrate on building homes, and that's all they have to worry about?

Michelle Mambuca: It's a little bit of both, Kevin. So, we have a master homeowners' association that takes care of the waterpark we have. We have a north and south park. We're actually renovating baseball fields, adding two new ball fields. All of those amenities are managed by the master [00:10:00] association, which residents pay a small fee every month to be a part of. And they put on lifestyle events throughout the year, you know, they really utilize those venues for events. And then three out of the four builders have a clubhouse, a pool, pickleball, bocce, I mean, you name it, lots of amenities. So, it's kind of a little bit of both, but the builders focus on their specific community.

Greg Bray: So, how do you manage the relationship between the marketing for the community as a whole, and then the individual builders trying to make their pitch for their home versus the other builder's home down the street that's got kind of all the same amenities around it because they're all in the same community? How do you kind of navigate those relationships? 

Michelle Mambuca: That's a huge part of my job, Greg, because I want to share everybody fairly, and everybody gets a fair chance, and at the end of the day, they all want to sell homes. That's our goal, too; we want to help them sell homes. But we focus on the lifestyles of Ave [00:11:00] Maria. So, instead of us sharing so much product, it's more of the lifestyle of Ave as a whole. And then when they come to the welcome center or they visit our website, we share with them who we are. Then they can look at the builders and say, okay, I love Ave, now I need to find the right builder for me, and then we direct them to the builder. So, everything we do, we just get them to the builder's website, to the builder's sales center and let them do the rest. 

Greg Bray: You've mentioned several times we just want them to visit, we just want them to visit, because they feel it. Totally get that. The visit is powerful. How do you replicate that type of feeling in your online messaging before they visited? What are some of the things you guys talk about in your marketing meetings that say, okay, how do we help them capture the vision of this? Because I know you guys have won a lot of awards for some of your campaigns, especially as you've worked with our friends over at Miles Brand for a lot of that. And being able to get that same feeling across in these various campaigns it's a challenge, I think sometimes, and you guys are succeeding at it. So, what's the [00:12:00] secret? 

Michelle Mambuca: I wish it was as easy as that. Here's the secret; you're welcome. It takes being on the ground and understanding why people moved here. We do a lot of research. Research is key. Anything we do at Barron Collier is full of research before we put anything in the ground. But understanding the buyer and why they're moving here. Because again, it might not be a fit for everyone. But they're in a community where there's lifestyle events, there's a sense of connection, and why are they choosing there and the smaller pace of life. For example, from the east coast to Florida, coming to Ave, night and day difference, and why are they choosing that lifestyle? So, we do a lot of research, informal, informal, qualitative and quantitative to understand those reasons.

And then we try to relate to those people. So, we pick residents that we feel are relatable; they're from those areas where people are coming from when you look at zip codes in that research. Okay, they're coming from the Naples area. Why? You know, a lot of the reason it's price point. They're getting priced out of their house. [00:13:00] They can get more bang for their buck. And also that sense of community. Not every community has what we have, and we pride ourselves on having that kind of special place where people want to know each other and feel good. 

So, you'll see in our videos, it's the lemonade stand and Jim's running by. This is his real story. And he's so funny, he said that people who walk past him as he jogs. So, we literally have a scene of him doing that. That's his every day, waving to neighbors, stopping to get lemonade. You know, those things that are truly happening in Ave we try to share through our storytelling 

Greg Bray: So, we know that Florida is an attraction for people who are in other parts of the country looking to retire and maybe change their lifestyle. You've mentioned folks within Florida, you know, being interested in the community. How do you guys decide where to target from more of a long-distance outreach beyond those more local communities? Is there a specific area that you do or is it more just the online search for people that want to find things in [00:14:00] Florida? Anything specific there?
 
Michelle Mambuca: Yes, we definitely target the Northeast US. We look at zip codes. A lot of people are coming from New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Ohio, those kind of areas. We also target the east and west coasts of Florida because, again, we see a significant amount of home sales coming from the southwest Florida and the east coast of Florida area. But we also do some research on our welcome center. 

So, our team at the welcome center tracks down where people are coming from, how they heard about us. And sometimes there's outliers where we're like, how do they hear about us? But we're targeting them digitally because they're home intenders and they, you know, are a part of the audience that we have where we're targeting them because we know they're looking for a home. So, it's a lot of the research on the ground that we do from our builders and who's coming into Ave and why, as well as targeting those people with those certain parameters that we know they're looking for a home in this area or somewhere in [00:15:00] Florida, and we want to get them to know Ave exists.

Kevin Weitzel: Do you have age restricted areas in the Ave Maria? Just out of curiosity? 

Michelle Mambuca: Yeah, there's one. Del Webb is an age-restricted 55 and older.
 
Kevin Weitzel: Okay. 

Greg Bray: Michelle, as you have been working on the social media side of it, have you been successful in using social media to find new prospective buyers, or is it more about building the community and just kind of building up the folks that are already there and helping them connect with each other? 

Michelle Mambuca: We have a lot of followers from Ave, however, social media is always in our top four ways of how people find us on our website, organic social. So, our organic social brings thousands of people to our website every single month and starts that awareness. We need more awareness because, you know, Ave Maria, that name could be other things. So, we try to just bring awareness to our community as a whole and educate people that we're here and show them, you know, the authentic side. So, it [00:16:00] does sell homes. It really does, believe it or not. 

Greg Bray: Oh, I believe it. I know there's some builders who don't believe it. 

Kevin Weitzel: There's a lot.

Michelle Mambuca: But they're not gonna be around for a while, so. 

Greg Bray: Are there certain types of campaigns on your social media that you've found to be more effective at awareness than others? 
Michelle Mambuca: Yes, something that we've done to show the proximity to Naples and just our location. Because that's usually a question people ask, where are you located. We've shared near Naples at Ave Maria. We had a whole campaign a couple of years ago that was home to more, and we started off every single, everything just near Naples. But as things come up and things change, we have to be cognizant. You know, when the hurricane happened, they thought Naples was all underwater. Which Ave Maria sustained no damage, you know; we're inland. We didn't lose power, everything was beautiful. But we have to kind of go with the times and see what's, I guess, trending. And Naples has won many awards for being the [00:17:00] best place to live and retire and different things like that. So, in a positive light, saying near Naples has worked really well for us. 

Greg Bray: When you come in, you know, on your Monday mornings and you've got those reports on the desk and you're just ready to kind of start the week off, what are the top one or two metrics that you're always kind of checking in on as you're ready to kind of start the new week, or maybe on Fridays, maybe your reports on Fridays, whichever day. But what are those top performance indicators that you're always keeping an eye on? 

Michelle Mambuca: So, I do a weekly report and also a monthly report for our builders and look at things, you know, every day, but really dig a little deeper then. Our KPIs, I would say for digital are high video completion rate for our CTV campaign. We want to make sure people are completing the video and are engaged in it. We also look at what creatives performed best because we have five different commercials that relate to five different types of people. So, we look at what resonated most and also how long [00:18:00] it was, that sort of data.

I also look at the high number of clicks and high click through rate for mobile display tactics. Are they engaged? Do they want to know more? Is it working? Are they, you know, getting out of it? And also the high listen through rate for audio. We are doing a streaming audio campaign, and that performs really well. And just making sure, again, what creative we're sharing is resonating with the people we're targeting. 

Greg Bray: Kevin, I think this might be the first time we've heard somebody talk about video completion rate. 

Kevin Weitzel: I was just going to ask because I'm 99% sure, and you know, they say most percentages are made up, but I'm 99% sure that our listen rate is, you know, a hundred percent from beginning to end. Nobody ever hangs up early. Nobody, you know, skips forward past the introduction on our podcast. Am I right on that? 

Greg Bray: We don't track that, Kevin, because we're not sophisticated as Michelle is, so. 

Kevin Weitzel: No. That is the first time we've heard about that as far as video completion.

Greg Bray: That's awesome. That's awesome. But it also shows that video's an important part of your messaging, and maybe others are not as focused [00:19:00] on it as you are. 

Michelle Mambuca: You're right, Greg. It's definitely a big part of our messaging. It's how we try to get the message through to our audience. We're very proud of our campaign. You know, we are highlighting real residents, and it's been super fun to highlight them and I've become close with them. I've had playdates with them afterward. You know, sometimes I have to bring the kids along to the shoot one day and wind up hanging out and, you know, these are real people and real good people. So, you kind of feel it through the video, like we really try to capture that authentic personality and life. And I really feel like it's engaging if you watch them, and we hope that people watch them to get the full message. 

Kevin Weitzel: It's always kind of curious as to when builders, and it's more on a builder side more so than developer or you know, property or development management, when they choose to use a partner or when they choose to use their own staff to create, you know, something in-house. When you're talking about being so heavily dependent on video, are you using a partner or is that something that your team is doing internally?

Michelle Mambuca: So for social [00:20:00] organic content, we definitely capture our own video, but we do work with Miles Brand, how Greg mentioned. They have an incredible team. So, we've done huge photo shoots to kind of help plan. We've done one this year and one the year prior, but usually, we try to make it last for a couple of years. So, we'll grab all of that content. 

We'll hire honestly the best of the best, the committed team that we need, who's there for it all and has that vision that we have and understands what we're trying to accomplish. We do professionally get that content, and we think ahead, okay, if we want certain videos for social or the website or, you know, how we're gonna use these. We'll get a bunch of content and kind of craft them a little differently for, you know, all the creatives for different, outlets.

Greg Bray: So, Michelle, this is a question that I expected Kevin to ask, but he hasn't yet. We need to understand how do you deal with the alligators in your marketing. 

Kevin Weitzel: Gators, baby Gators? Well, how do you deal with those down there? 

Michelle Mambuca: Listen, listen, Florida, you guys, every body of water has a gator in it in Florida, at least you [00:21:00] should think that so that you're not startled when you see one. So, there are gators, and they're part of Florida, but you don't mess with them. That's the thing, that's the key. You leave them alone, you let them do their thing. If there are aggressive gators, Gator Back will come get them. So, there's no worries. They are a part of Florida, the area. I mean, it's not exclusive to Ave but I've seen a couple here and there, but I haven't heard any negativity around it. 

Greg Bray: They're not like photo bombing your shoots or anything like that where the gators are just coming up to see what's going on. 
Michelle Mambuca: I think one time they actually did, like, they jumped in the water, and we all kind of were like, what was that? But then we realized very quickly, okay, it's a gator, let them swim. You know? We try not to highlight those things, Greg. 

Greg Bray: Those folks from New Jersey need to know what they're getting into when they come down there, you know? 

Michelle Mambuca: Well, they need to come see it for themselves so they can really understand.

Greg Bray: Well, Michelle, as you have grown in your own marketing experience and knowledge, what's one thing that you wish you had known five, [00:22:00] 10 years ago about marketing that would've been helpful, that now you've kind of learned and mastered? 

Michelle Mambuca: I would say evaluation is key. So, I have a PR background. I recently, or a couple years ago, actually, got my accreditation, which is a long process to basically get a license for PR. It's not required, but it's something good to do and, you know, to help you in your career. There's a whole campaign outline where research is, you know, the beginning, and at the end, it's evaluating.
So, really take the time to write down your goals and objectives, having an objective with a certain timeline. I want to increase my website visitors by this much in this amount of time and really analyzing that, choosing tactics you think are going to work, but evaluating it. If you don't evaluate it, then you're just throwing something at the wall to see what sticks.

So, you really have to look at those analytics and if it doesn't work, try something different. Always better it, but you can't just do things. We all get stuck into the work mode, you're just working. But to [00:23:00] take time to write it down, put it in a campaign format, and evaluate at the end of the day and see if your expectations were met.

Greg Bray: Well, Michelle, this has been really insightful and it's been great to learn from you. Do you have any kind of last thoughts or words of advice you'd like to leave with our listeners today? 

Michelle Mambuca: Well, I appreciate you guys and everything you do because you're helping companies like myself get the word out and do a good job. I would say just in the day to day, you know, I try to represent my company well, with integrity and honesty because as marketing professionals, we represent the brand. We're out there representing our company and what we do affects the reputation of our company. 

And I would also say consistency. Consistency is key. We want people to see our ads, see our website, see our billboards, radio, everything, and when they get to Ave, they walk into our welcome center, and they're like, wow, this really matches everything I've seen up to this point. And then that experience, that customer journey of [00:24:00] coming there and then going to the sales centers with the builders, finding their dream home, we want it to be consistent, and we want it to match the brand. And I feel like a lot of times you see this beautiful marketing, and then in reality, you're like, this is not what I expected, and that's unfortunate. So, that's something that I feel like should happen if you can help it and try to keep your brand consistent so people understand it and speak highly about it.

Kevin Weitzel: I'm going to ask you one last question because you kind of sparked something in me. Not sparked, but you made something pop in my brain and made me go, squirrel, I need to ask this question. So, that transparency, if you are a brand that sells and builds cookie cutter homes, nothing wrong with cookie cutter homes, sometimes that's what you have to do to keep the price down, do you think that it is a crucial mistake to oversell in your marketing campaigns, the neighborhood is more than it is, versus just being a place you can buy a home and live in? 

Michelle Mambuca: 100% because we build new construction, right? And we compete with the resale. So, if somebody, you know, [00:25:00] moves into Ave, let's just say this doesn't hopefully happen, but they move into Ave and we promise something, we promise them the world and they're like, this is not what I expected. They're going move out, and then there's a resale that we're going to compete with because we want them to buy from the builders. So, you know, we want them to move in and we want them to be happy, contribute to the community, be an integral part of it because our residents are everything to us. They are what make it special in addition to other people, of course, but they're really what make it unique. So yeah, I think that you should deliver on your promise. 

Kevin Weitzel: Sister, you had me sold at over 55 pickleball and bocce ball. The alligators still scare me. Same reason I won't go to Australia. They've got scary animals that want to eat you- No. 

Michelle Mambuca: I won't go to Australia. Florida, I'll never leave. You're fine. You'll be fine, Kevin. I'll hold your hand. We'll be okay. 

Kevin Weitzel: All right.

Greg Bray: Thanks again, Michelle, for spending time with us. We really appreciate it. If somebody wants to connect with you and get in touch, what's the best way for them to reach out? 

Michelle Mambuca: Find me on LinkedIn. I love to connect on LinkedIn. It's the LinkedIn URL slash [00:26:00] mmambuca. So, just Michelle Mambuca on LinkedIn. Come find me and say hello. 

Greg Bray: Well, thank you again, Michelle, 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.