Marketing Your Smart Homes to Sell

As smart home technology continues to become more and more mainstream, home buyers expect the top smart home devices like Ring, Schlage, Kwikset, Sonos, Ecobee, Honeywell, and more to be part of their home. Top 100 builders such as K.Hovnanian, Ashton Woods, Pacesetter Homes, The New Home Company, and many others have standardized on Brilliant to provide easy smart home convenience to their homebuyers. They include them as part of the turnkey experience in their new home builds.

Why? Because Brilliant is affordable, easy to use, and easy for residents to access from inside or outside their homes. Statista, the Business Data Platform, estimates that there are more than 47 million smart homes in the United States today (2020), and that number is expected to grow to 52 million in 2021.

Although customers are likely familiar with the term smart home, they aren’t familiar with the full value of having a unified smart home tied together with an in-wall smart home system. Just as you market the furnishings used in your homes, it’s vital to market the technology within, and studies have shown that homes with smart technology sell more quickly and for more money. Here’s how you can effectively market your smart homes to sell more of them.

Get buyers to the front door. 

Social media is not only a great place to host information about your business, it’s great for showing your homes and communicating with customers and prospects. Buyers are able to easily engage with you by asking questions, liking/commenting on posts, and sharing with friends. And when it comes to social media, consistency is key. You should be posting on each of your pages (mainly Facebook and Twitter) 3-5 times per week with the best days being Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. 

Here are a few engaging content ideas: 

• Showcase your homes with a “Home of the Week” that highlights a new floorplan, style of home, upgrades, or something that differentiates your homes, like Brilliant. 
• Interview customers to create short testimonials. 
• Get personal. Tell the stories of the people at the company. This makes potential buyers feel more connected to the experience. 
• Post video walkthroughs of homes as a “sneak peak”.

Be sure to include an image with every post as posts with images are more engaging!

Make your model home tours touchless and engaging.

Smart homes benefit both builders and buyers. Potential buyers can interact with the home in a new way, and with the COVID-19 epidemic at a new height, builders who install Brilliant in their model homes can conduct tours as usual (yay!). Builders can have potential buyers make reservations to visit their model home and use Brilliant and third-party devices such as Ring and a smart lock to conduct virtual tours actively. For social distancing precautions, the builder can grant access to the home for the customer after confirming who it is via their Ring camera and unlocking the door with a smart lock.

Once inside, the home can be toured as usual. Builders can even use Brilliant’s built-in camera and two-way audio to check-in and answer any questions. After the tour is complete, builders can remotely lock the home.

Traditional marketing is still in vogue! 

Although many marketing efforts have gone digital, traditional marketing is still valuable. You’ll want to advertise your homes inside and outside to ensure customers are aware of the differentiators in your home versus your competitor. Some of the marketing materials we provide to Brilliant builders are co-branded yard signs, one-pagers, and hangtags.

Branded yard signs can be used to advertise your communities and highlight that your homes are smart before the potential buyer steps inside.

Co-branded one-pagers allow you to highlight what makes your offering different, including how your standard smart home package can differentiate your property. 

Our hangtags fit directly over a Brilliant Control, making it easy for people touring a model to engage with and learn how to use the Brilliant System.

Want more help selling your homes? 

We’re here to help. Let us help you craft, create, and bring your smart home strategy to life. You can schedule a consultation or demo with our sales team to learn how Brilliant can help you increase your sales, stand out from the competition, and appeal to more potential customers.