299 Continuous Learning in Builder Marketing - Tara Whiteley Dec 17 2025

Greg Bray: [00:00:00] Hello everybody, and welcome to today's episode of The Home Builder Digital Marketing Podcast. I'm Greg Bray with Blue Tangerine.

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

Greg Bray: And we are excited today to have joining us, Tara Whiteley. Tara is the Digital and Marketing Manager at Eastwood Homes. Welcome, Tara. Thanks for being with us.

Tara Whiteley: Very excited to be here. Thank you.

Greg Bray: Well, let's start off and just get to know a little bit about you. Give us that quick background and overview about what you've been doing.

Tara Whiteley: All right. My name is Tara Whiteley, and I work with Eastwood Homes. We are based here in Charlotte, North [00:01:00] Carolina. I have been with Eastwood in December, will be 11 years. Love it. It been an incredible move for me. I'm originally from Northwestern, Pennsylvania. I hold my bachelor's from the University of South Carolina in business administration and my master's degree from the University of Florida, go Gators, in web design and online communications.

Kevin Weitzel: All right, let's jump into a bunch of that. But before we do, interesting fact about yourself, that has nothing to do with work, family, or the home building industry at all.

Tara Whiteley: So, my dog and I, Millie, do dog sports at least once a month. We are going somewhere to do fast CAT or coursing ability tests, or we do dog diving in the summer. We are learning agility, and she knows scent work. So, we have a lot of fun with that, and we are constantly running around to hang out with other dog sport moms and dogs.

Kevin Weitzel: I think [00:02:00] she used a little bit of a small print there in the fact that she included Millie, her dog. However, I did say no family, and I consider dogs family, but that's just me. Anyway. Well, that's awesome. I've actually seen some of the videos, and it looks really fun, just the bonding that goes on with that, and just the fun for you. And keep in mind, the dog's having a blast too.

Tara Whiteley: Yeah. I don't know what I would share if it wasn't something that didn't involve my dog, so.

Greg Bray: Pure curiosity. Are there big prizes in this, or is it just bragging rights?

Tara Whiteley: We have won a whopping, I think, $25 once. So, mostly we just get some cool ribbons. I don't even know that we get bragging rights because she just really enjoys it. She's not like the star athlete, but we do have a lot of fun.

Greg Bray: Awesome. That's awesome. Well, Tara, tell us a little bit about how you ended up in home building specifically, and what kind of attracted you to this industry.

Tara Whiteley: Yeah. I have a [00:03:00] roundabout point of entry. A lot of us probably do. I started in journalism. That was my first career. I was a crime reporter, a general reporter, and then I ultimately was a real estate reporter. I interviewed a VP of Sales from Lennar, and that was how I got my segue into home building. So, I actually ended up starting my home building career with Lennar.

It was right at the end of the downturn, and it was a really interesting community. They were across from each other. One community was just completely stalled, and nothing was happening, and then the other community was Lennar, and they were building houses left and right. And I interviewed her to see what caused that difference, why there was such a difference between one community based on one builder and developer versus theirs. So, we hit it off, and that's how I got my start with Lennar and home building.

Greg Bray: Okay, now, if you're [00:04:00] actually an undercover crime reporter investigating home builders, blink twice. All right, so she's really into home building. Okay, here we go. Well, tell us more about Eastwood Homes. You mentioned you're in Charlotte, but what types of buyers are you guys serving, and type of product you're putting out there?

Tara Whiteley: We have everything from the first-time home buyer. We have a great lineup of townhomes all the way up to move-up buyers, three-story homes, basements. We have ranch plans. We're building in a couple of 55 and up communities. So, we really serve the whole cross-section of customers. We also, two, three years ago, started a build-on-your-lot project, so that was pretty exciting. That was new territory for Eastwood Homes. And so now we are building in, I think, five markets for build-on-your-lot right now. So, that's pretty exciting. But we build from Atlanta, Georgia, all the way up to Richmond, Virginia. We're expanding over into the Hampton Roads area of Virginia as [00:05:00] well. We build about 1500 homes a year, maybe a little less this year, with the way the market is going, and we have about 140 communities.

Kevin Weitzel: And out of those 140 communities, can you do any hunting there? Because I've been in your guys' corporate office and I'm telling you, Greg, it's the craziest thing I've ever seen. They must have 20, 30 dead heads. When I say dead heads, I'm talking about like antelope and deer and warthogs.

Greg Bray: You're not talking about the employees, right?

Kevin Weitzel: No, not, not the employees. Yeah. They don't have any former employee that did not follow company guidelines. Is there any story behind the dead heads? I just have to know.

Tara Whiteley: They've all come from our company leadership, mostly. We have everything. We have a huge, I don't know the names, I'm not a hunter myself, but like this huge fish in our main conference room that our CFO caught. But yeah, that's all of our leadership right there. That is their favorite activity. Sometimes they'll go clay shooting together down in our Charleston division, [00:06:00] so. I think it's a builder thing. I wanted to bring in, like the pink deer head with the glitter, and hang it in the marketing office, but I never got around to that.

Kevin Weitzel: There you go. Just more curiosity.

Tara Whiteley: Yeah. It's an interesting lobby when you come in.

Greg Bray: Well, Tara, one of the things that I find interesting is your job title. We don't see a lot of folks in the home builder marketing departments with digital actually in their job title. Tell us a little bit more about how that came about and what that signifies as far as your role goes.

Tara Whiteley: Yeah, I love it. I really think somehow I managed to build the perfect role for me over the years. So, I came from Lennar, where I had the social media background there, and Eastwood brought me on primarily for social media at that time. So, that was a big role, and then it expanded into location management on Google and our website. Ultimately, I took over our Zillow [00:07:00] feed, and it's all the things that I love, you know, with a web design background. It is my passion.

So, I handle, at least from a management perspective, anything that is online, that's digital. It kind of all falls under my umbrella, which is so exciting, and I get to constantly learn and discover new technologies out there. So, the digital and marketing manager is a little different title, also. So, I also help our VP of marketing, Donna, a lot. So, it's just an exciting role. I think, you know, being a family-owned builder, we have a little more flexibility in roles and what you do. So, that's just kind of how I've evolved at Eastwood.

Greg Bray: So, now with 1500 homes a year, there's a lot going on. That's not a small builder, by any means. What do you guys do digitally to help support that sales process? Where does that sit in kind of the priority? Are you over here all by yourself, or are you like right in the mix of everything that's going on, trying to [00:08:00] figure out this user experience?

Tara Whiteley: I'll put myself in the mix. I like to be involved in any of the new platforms that are coming on. I get excited about it. We are constantly evolving that home buyer experience, especially from the digital standpoint. So, a year ago, we were doing text messaging. So, if you scheduled an appointment, we'd send you text reminders. If you submitted a lead on our website and maybe didn't answer the phone or respond to an email, we also have the ability to text with you through Atlas RTX, which they're a great partner of ours. So, we've had that in place for a couple years.

We've just launched our Novi Home application, which has been great so far. Our sales team loves it. Our prospects and home buyers love it as well. So, that's just a great tool to increase that communication and to also show those buyers their photo updates. So, that's been amazing. We just launched that a month ago, so we're still expanding [00:09:00] that. This upcoming year, we have plans to further enhance our digital platform through our CRM with Salesforce, and we want to get more enhanced data on our prospects, so that we can better market them, more unique marketing to each prospect. So, we're constantly involving that.

Marketing, I think, should be involved in all of those conversations because it touches on everything. So, you know, whether it's those close surveys after the fact. I think we should be involved in that, like how can we use that data to further like market them and see if they have any referrals for us. I think there's a place for marketing in the whole landscape.

Kevin Weitzel: So, are you seeing more need for targeted outreach to clients versus just, you know, casting that wide net? Because that used to be the practice, was just throw that net out there, grab as many leads as you can, and just pursue, pursue, pursue. You're seeing that you're getting more success with targeting, you know, strategically focusing on X, Y, Z parameters.

Tara Whiteley: We are [00:10:00] moving in that direction. I don't know that we're there yet, but that is the goal for 2026 is to be more targeted, to do more segmenting in our advertising. We're going to use Salesforce to partner with us on that. Yeah, so I think that's where it's going. We want to be smarter with our money. This year has slowed on sales. It's definitely a different market, so we want to be really wise with our spend, and that involves, you know, knowing our prospects and targeting them better.

Greg Bray: You know, we haven't talked to a lot of people who have mentioned text messaging and SMS as part of their communication mix. What type of impact did you see when you implemented that? Was it minimal, or was there a big engagement increase, or what were some of the results there?

Tara Whiteley: It's been very popular. I don't have any numbers handy, but you know, you go from the chatbot on your website. So, somebody's on your website, and that's where they can talk to you. And as soon as they leave your website, you lose that. You know, they might have been on their phone, but now you don't have [00:11:00] that way to talk to them. So, anytime somebody submits a form on our website, it opts them into text messaging, and then our internet sales team can follow up with them that way. So, that conversation follows them wherever they are.

So, even if they submit a lead and they've got to run out the door to go to a dentist appointment, we can follow them on their phone through text messaging. So, it's been very popular. We use that, like I said, for reminders for appointments, for follow-ups after the appointment. How did your appointment go? Are you happy? We use that with the UTour functioning self-guided tours. So, we try to use that across the board.

Greg Bray: Yeah. I think when you talk about email open rates versus text message open rates, it's staggering. You're lucky if you're getting 10 or 15% email open rates these days.

Tara Whiteley: Yeah.

Greg Bray: But text message is like over 90%.

Tara Whiteley: It's not like that retail store that you signed up with to get 20% off, and you bought, and then you're probably not going to buy it for a while. Like, when you're on a home builder's website, you're engaged. If you're going to give us your information, then you are in the [00:12:00] market. So, I think even more than probably a normal business text messaging campaign, you're going to respond to the home builder because it's a huge purchase.

Greg Bray: And I bet it helps your sales team stay much more connected when people actually respond to their messages. For sure.

Tara Whiteley: With the NoviHome, that's just one more extension of that, you know, now we have an Eastwood branded app, and we are on their phones with them. So, you know, we're trying to drive anybody that's under contract or trying to drive that communication through the app, so that that's always a resource for them. So, you know, we're trying to make it easier for our prospects and buyers.

Greg Bray: When you guys see a new technology option and you're like, oh, we should try this, what type of selling internally does it take to get people to say, okay, let's experiment, let's put this budget out? Is it hard? Is it easy? Is it a cultural thing to want to experiment, or is it more of a, oh, they're changing it again on us, and now we have to figure [00:13:00] out and learn something new? How do you navigate some of those paths?

Tara Whiteley: Yes. I think it depends on the size of the project. On our marketing team, we will try something new very easily. So, you know, we tried a certain map software, maybe I shouldn't name names, like two years ago. And we're like, we're going to give this a shot because we see other brands on here, and that did not work at all. But we were like, we're just going to try it.

Something like NoviHome took a little longer because that was a bigger lift, and we needed buy-in from multiple departments. So, yeah, it just really depends on the size of the project. But our marketing team, if it's something that really is just kind of internal to marketing, we are very willing to give something a shot, at least for three months, and see how it works.

Greg Bray: So, as you're looking at the various activities, campaigns, tools, what are some of those metrics that you use to measure whether this is working or not, and how you decide to go beyond the three-month trial?

Tara Whiteley: We could talk [00:14:00] about click-through rates and all these like very small metrics, but really, what it comes down to for us, we do a lot with data, but maybe we simplify it a little bit, is, you know, we need the leads. And then we really focus on the conversion rate to appointment and then the conversion rate to sales. So, we have a strong relationship with our internet sales team, and they track that by source, how those leads are turning into appointments, and then into sales.

In the past, you know, in different markets, we've been willing to say, okay, this lead source might be giving us leads and giving us traffic to our website, but it's not converting to appointments and sales. So, if we had a lot of leads at that time, we might move away from that source because you have so much human power there. You know, sometimes you can have too many leads because you can't follow up with them. We're in a different market now. So, now we want the leads, and we do a lot of retargeting to those leads to nurture them down the road.

The main metrics that we watch are number of leads, number of [00:15:00] appointments, and number of sales, and if that's effective or not. And of course, you know, taking that a step further, if we can get traffic to the website, then we can continue to remarket them and nurture them. So yeah, those are the ones that stick out for us.

Greg Bray: As somebody who's responsible for the website and all these digital activities, how do you balance the corporate office decision-making versus all the different divisions and the messages they want to get out there and the things they want to talk about?

Tara Whiteley: This is hard. It's a constant work in progress. The marketing team, we have a thought process on, you know, promotions. Everybody's doing promotions right now, and everybody has different promotions. We historically have been a builder where every division has its identity, and they have a lot of choice in what promotions they offer.

And then, now that we've become larger, we kind of need to stream that a little bit. It's a balancing act, full disclosure, [00:16:00] we don't have down yet. It's a lot of work trying to manage all that. You want the messaging to be clear. Sometimes there's just a lot of detail to portray there in a marketing banner on a website. So, yeah, we're still working on that, to be perfectly honest. If anybody has any advice.

Greg Bray: Just let Tara do it. That's the advice.

Tara Whiteley: There we go. I'll send out a memo.

Greg Bray: Well, Tara, with all the different social media channels and things that you've had experience with, where are you seeing the most success, and where are you finding that this really isn't hitting yet, and we aren't really connecting with buyers the right way?

Tara Whiteley: Okay, I like this question. So, we've been on Facebook the longest, and we have a lot of our buyers there, you know, especially very stereotypically, the older buyer on Facebook. So, we do a ton of posting on our Facebook. So, we have division pages and then a corporate [00:17:00] page. So, we'll post on both, depending on the content. And then, we do a lot on Instagram, as we should. We're a home builder. Our houses are beautiful, and Instagram is a visual platform. So, we do a lot of posting over there.

We have an amazing social media manager, and she's wonderful, and she has all of these great ideas, and she really works with each of our divisions to get some really exciting reels out there. So, if you haven't followed Eastwood Homes on Instagram, I'm going to a give the shameless plug to do that because we have a lot of fun on Instagram. We are seeing incredible engagement, the best engagement, on LinkedIn.

That might not be the obvious answer there, but that's our second largest platform. It's a lot of realtors, a lot of industry professionals there, but the engagement is very high on LinkedIn, so we definitely encourage posts on LinkedIn. We are trying to expand that as well. That's exciting. We have a huge platform on YouTube, but we haven't seen the engagement [00:18:00] there. And then, we are trying to get our foot in the door on TikTok, and we just really haven't seen a ton of engagement there either. But we have a presence, we're not pulling back from that. We're just not seeing kind of that return there yet.

Kevin Weitzel: So, I have a sneaking suspicion, and there's no data behind this thought process. But because we, as vendors, you as a home builder, people just within the industry, I believe that since so many of us are on LinkedIn, we're constantly watching each other. And I think that artificially bloats or multiplies that engagement to give false numbers. At least that's my general opinion.

Because I know that when I make a post, I've got three or four of my competitors that like my posts. You know, it's like why are my competitors liking my posts, and why do I like their posts? Because I go on their posts and like theirs too. But I think that we get a lot more of that artificial engagement that is artificially raising those numbers. Do you find that that's true, or are you truly seeing buyers attributing to sales through [00:19:00] LinkedIn?

Tara Whiteley: I don't know that we're seeing buyers on LinkedIn. I think we're seeing realtors on LinkedIn, probably leaders in the real estate community.

Kevin Weitzel: Okay.

Tara Whiteley: All realtors aren't on LinkedIn and paying attention over there, but you've got realtors that are trying to make a name for themselves, and they'll be on LinkedIn and they'll be engaged and active. So, I do think we have benefit of the real estate community there, but absolutely we have a lot of our vendors as our biggest cheerleaders on our posts. So, I think there's definitely something to that. Yeah.

Greg Bray: Tara, as you look at the different platforms, how much are you customizing the message, Facebook versus Instagram versus LinkedIn? And how much are you saying, oh, here's this week's thing, and putting it out everywhere, at the same time?

Tara Whiteley: We are customizing. You know, we're really trying to focus on the reels on Instagram, which is a completely different format and a different messaging. We can't easily post links over there, so that's always different. We are probably on Facebook, keeping that [00:20:00] messaging the same, whether it's on corporate or it's on a division page. There's a lot to manage there. So, that's probably a similar messaging. And then, LinkedIn as well, that might match up with Facebook a little more. To an extent, we are personalizing it for the platform, but there's only so much time in the day.

Greg Bray: Well, because you're in this digital stuff all day, every day, you must be doing something with AI. So, tell us a little bit about what you guys have been doing to experiment or leverage, or use AI kind of in your internal marketing processes.

Tara Whiteley: Definitely using ChatGPT. Who's not, right? At the end of the day, we might get a message and say somebody needs a promotion up or we need to start a Facebook ad, and you know, it's like Friday at 3:00 PM and your brain's not working anymore. The first place I go is to my best friend over on ChatGPT, get some help.

But we're also really revamping the structure of our [00:21:00] website. These terms aren't flowing off my tongue yet because they're also new, but for the GEO and AEO, so that's something that we're very focused on, is making sure that that schema on our website talks to all of those ChatGPTs and all of the AI out there so that the answers that we want to show up are showing up. That's such an ever-changing environment that I think a lot of people claim to have it figured out, but I don't know that anybody has it figured out. So, we meet with our SEO team monthly, and that's something that they're helping us with and working on, and it's just a major focus.

Other tools, like we're bringing in AI into our CallRail, into Canva, so tools that we're already really familiar with, we're starting to bring AI into that as well. Like on CallRail, it can tell us the sentiment of a call. CallRail is really cool that it can help our [00:22:00] internet team do the follow-up. You know, it kind of helps them write messages, so it's really helping the workflow, you know, helping stream things and helping us with, I don't want to say mundane, but the more regular tasks, you know, it's just helping us get those done.

Kevin Weitzel: Well, that's exactly what it's for. But you did say something kind of interesting there. You said that, I don't know if anybody really has it figured out. And here's the beauty of it: once you figure it out, it is so rapidly evolving that it's already shifted by the time you've gotten it. It's a constantly evolving learning curve.

Tara Whiteley: Right. And I think there are companies out there that are claiming to have it, and you know, they're reaching out to sales managers and people, and then they're saying, oh, you know, we need to go with this company because they've got it figured out, but I don't think that they really do.

Kevin Weitzel: There's a lot to go.

Tara Whiteley: It's a huge topic at Eastwood Homes. Everyone is talking about AI. We've got people even in the land department taking AI classes. So, everybody's talking about it right now. But [00:23:00] yeah, we're using it where it makes sense and we feel like we can trust it, so.

Greg Bray: You know, that's interesting. I was in a conversation with the builder earlier this week, and the question was, Is this AI thing, are people even going to use it to find homes? And I was like, are you kidding? Tara, maybe you feel like you guys are still figuring it out, but from what I'm hearing, you're way ahead of where a lot of others are that I've been talking to.

Tara Whiteley: Well, thank you. So, we just had our quarterly report, and we had 12 leads come from ChatGPT in the last quarter. So, you know, it may not be a huge source yet, but it's working and we're getting leads from it. So, it's pretty exciting.

Greg Bray: Well, the fact that you are even tracking that and can tell it is something that some people haven't quite figured out yet, either. So, kudos to you for being there as well.

Tara Whiteley: Thank you.

Greg Bray: So, Tara, what kinds of tips would you have for a builder who's listening to this, going, man, I'm not doing all this social media stuff. Oh gosh, I haven't even started playing with the AI yet. [00:24:00] How do I get my marketing to kind of up its game a bit more? Where should they start? What should they be thinking about? Especially for the one who's kind of that one person marketing department that's, you know, struggling to make it all happen.

Tara Whiteley: Social media-wise, don't spread yourself too thin. Do not try to do it all. Everybody tries to do it all. If we're going to be on social media, we have to be everywhere. My opinion is, do one or two platforms well, instead of doing all of them poorly. So, really just focus, I would say, on Facebook and Instagram. Maybe have a presence on LinkedIn so that your employees can be there, you know, if you've got employees, so that they can help you with that. A lot of our LinkedIn comes from our employees posting, and they get a lot of engagement. So, start with Facebook and Instagram if you had to start somewhere.

And then the AI, I think you have to be incorporating that now. You have to start doing that now, or you're going to get left behind. Even if you don't [00:25:00] know what it is, I think that would be a really good spend to find somebody who can help you navigate that. It is pretty complicated, so you might need a partner there. We're not calling it a search engine anymore; we're calling it the new term that incorporates AI, but from the way your users find you, your prospects find you, you need to be incorporating that AI into your website for sure.

Greg Bray: When you look back at your career and how fast digital has changed over the last few years, what's something you know now that you wish you had known five years ago, 10 years ago, that would've just really made a difference for you?

Tara Whiteley: I think from a professional standpoint, from me, in a growth standpoint, just try something. I think early on, you're afraid to make mistakes. At Eastwood, that's not a problem. Like, we're willing to try something, you know, as long as it's not like a huge platform. But try the new platform. And always, if there's a new social media platform, grab your [00:26:00] username without a doubt. But like, that was just a little side note I just thought of. But just try it. If you've got that direction app on your phone and you see other brands are using it, try the advertising with that and see if it works. Don't be afraid to fail in a marketing platform and just see if it works. I think that's what I've learned over the years. You know, Eastwood is very willing to try something for at least three months.

Greg Bray: Well, thank you, Tara, so much for sharing with us today. Any last words of advice that you wanted to get out to the world while we're talking?

Tara Whiteley: Well, this carries on what the last question. The environment is always changing, and you have to keep that student mindset as you're encountering new platforms. So, don't be afraid to take the class on GA4 and learn how to operate that new platform. Don't be afraid to go to the seminars and the conferences and take the classes. You have to in order to stay up to date these [00:27:00] days. So, just stay plugged in.

Kevin Weitzel: So, I want you to take off your digital marketing hat, and I want you to put back on your crime scene journalist hat. If you were investigating your own crime scene, what misstep have you made that you would today, if you had a time machine, go back and fix it? It could be personal or professional, what would it be?

Tara Whiteley: I didn't finish my degree until I was older. We used to call that non-traditional students. I don't know if they still do anymore. I didn't finish. I don't know what age I was, but it was 2015 for my bachelor's, and I went four and a half years the first time around and did not end up with a degree because I had no idea what I wanted to do. I always thought that was a mistake in my crime scene that I made. I don't know that it was. I think we all get to where we are in a roundabout way.

I think that set me up for later success in life was getting that degree [00:28:00] later. And then, you know, going on to get the master's right after that because all of a sudden I was like, oh, I actually kind of like school, and I might be smart. So, for years, it just really nagged me that I didn't have my degree. I was in my thirties easily, I was 37, I think, when I finally got it. Don't do the math if you just remember how many years I told you that was.

 I guess this is another piece of advice. You know, even if you have a mistake in your crime scene, so to speak, you can maybe sneak back onto the crime scene and correct it. You can right a wrong. If you haven't finished your degree, I say go for it. I think it brings about a great sense of confidence in the workplace just having that. For me, it did. You know, I went from like that imposter syndrome to, oh, I didn't even finish my bachelor's. Like, what do I know to, okay, now I've got my business administration degree, at least I can come from that perspective.

And then I went on to web design and online communication. And I learned so much about my [00:29:00] field, and I was really able to like, sit down at the table and speak confidently about what I thought we needed to do. I definitely think that changed the direction of my career. So, you know, if you think you've made a mistake along the way, don't hang onto it. Just correct it. Just alter paths.

Kevin Weitzel: Pivot. Yeah. I love it.

Tara Whiteley: Pivot. Pivot. My favorite friends scene, pivot.

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

Tara Whiteley: You can find me on LinkedIn. If you want to see all the dog sports, you can find me on Facebook, too.

Greg Bray: Well, thank you so much for sharing with us today, and thank you, everybody, for listening 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. [00:30:00]