House Builders Boost Sales With Promotional USB Flash Drives
The last few years have been pretty torrid for the house-building sector over the past few years. The number of new houses started in March 2011* was 29,140 which sounds like a reasonable number but its 41% down from the peak reached in March 2007.
Although there has been a slight uplift in starts (and completions) over the last couple of months it’s still much too soon to get overly optimistic about an early recover in the housing market.
One of the challenges for any housing developer is keep their stock moving and the cash flow as healthy as possible. Buying the right development plots and building houses in a style that people want is of course fundamental but much of the challenge of getting the houses sold and sold quickly depends on the strength of the sales and marketing activity around any given development.
Getting prospective house buyers across the threshold of the show homes is incredibly important particularly in areas where there is lots of competition. Social networking now plays a big part (or should play a big part) in the overall marketing strategy of any house building company – its an ideal way to interact with prospective buyers get details of new development and offers in front of an engaged audience – but beware it needs managing so that it does not get taken over by any aggrieved customers!
But what about the use of USB flash drives? Is there a place for promotional USB flash drives in any sales and marketing mix? Well, some housing developers clearly think so because they are now buying them with their brand and contact details printed on and then giving them away at strategic points in an effort to encourage more visitors to the show homes.
Before being handed out the flash drives are pre-loaded with lots of information on the development(s) including video clips, floor plans, site plans, special offers and links to their websites.
The beauty of handing out flash drives (albeit you need to be targeted) is that people can’t resist plugging them into their PC or Mac to find out what’s on them. They also tend to hang onto them for their own personal data storage so you get on-going brand exposure.
Handing out promotional USB flash drives in this speculative manner is not cheap but only the house builders can judge from any uplift in vists/sales if it’s a cost effective strategy.