Live Via Podcast

Taylor Woodrow learned first-hand the impact of implementing off-the-beaten-path marketing strategies when a home sold after the company ran an in-flight airline infomercial in which a passenger walks off the plane and straight to a Taylor Woodrow community to buy.

And for the company's most recent foray into multimedia marketing, Taylor Woodrow has turned to podcasting, a way for Internet users to watch or listen to video or audio clips online and off-line. The move is just one of several alternative marketing tools Taylor Woodrow has incorporated into its marketing strategies, says Arianna Barrios, Western Regional Marketing Director for Taylor Woodrow Homes.

A New Kind of Shopper

According to a recent study by the California Association of Realtors, 70 percent of home buyers spend some part of the home-buying process shopping for homes online, with new home buyers eliminating 50 percent of their choices over the Internet. "If you have not pushed out your marketing to have all the tools you could possibly have for (home buyers) to make decisions, they are eliminating you before you even get a chance to talk to them.

"Before they drive out to a model before they go and look in the newspaper, they are making a choice on the Internet," Barrios says.

Taylor Woodrow's podcasting venture launched in June with itaylorwoodrow.com, which serves as a host for several virtual tour and educational podcasts for potential buyers to download. The on-demand marketing tool allows consumers to receive information when they want it and respects their ability to make the right choice, says Taylor Woodrow's Mike Forsum, Western Regional President for Taylor Woodrow Homes.

Education, Promotion(PR) and Virtual Tours
The website carries podcasts of Taylor Woodrow’s Southern California communities as well as several educational podcasts on building/designing and/or selecting a new home. The educational podcasts series titled “Home Front” features presentations on exterior and interior design principles by architect, Robert Hidey and interior designer, Jenny Kennette and an additional video that walks potential home buyers through their first design center visit.

Let’s Get This Show on the Road
TW partnered with Ryan Hoback of whatiwantpodcasting.com out of Miami, Fl., a podcast production company, to produce the podcasts for their new website. Hoback assisted TW in repurposing video footage from their infomercial with voice-over narration for some of TW’s computer generated artwork and photographic stills.

Three and Still Counting . . .
“Initial data that we’ve gotten back for the first month, we had over 11,000 unique visitors (not hits) to that site and over 2000 subscriptions (this isn’t counted per page but by individual). So anytime we unroll something new they will be (automatically) updated,” says Arianna Barrios. So far TW has been able to connect three of their home sales with their podcast initiative.