CHALLENGE OVERVIEW:
David Weekley homes is the second largest privately-held home builder in America with revenues of over $1.6 billion in 2006. With building operations across the United States, David Weekley Homes first came to Vision Launchers seeking to better understand how to use the web to engage existing homeowners and potential new home buyers. The success of the consulting arrangement led to Vision Launchers deploying solutions in the areas of creative media, video and search engine optimization.
THE SOLUTION :
Vision Launchers structured a consulting arrangement that allowed for a full review and analysis of the DW Homes website as well as a 30,000 foot view of the competitive landscape in the home building industry. To begin the consulting arrangement, VL conducted in-depth interviews with the entire DW Homes management team and selected staff. A site visit to a representative community of DW Homes was then conducted, including interviews with on-the-ground sales staff and realtors. After analyzing the company’s view of its web operations and its competitors, VL presented a three-phased strategy to the DW Homes management team that would capitalize on the company’s strengths and utilize outside resources to fill gaps in the web development and creative process. Vision Launchers found that 75% of U.S. homebuyers use the internet as their first source of information. With so many homebuyers ranking the internet as their top information source, Vision Launchers’ presentation set clear goals for improving the DW Homes site’s overall experience, maximizing its potential and incorporating new technology. The changes allow for the site to become one of the leaders in the current market.
The focus of the consulting was for VL to set up a structure whereby DW Homes could learn to internally innovate in its web technology. After the first phase of consulting, VL set out to help DW Homes implement the first phase of the web development. This first phase included what VL coined as “low-hanging fruit” – those actions that were relatively simple and would easily fit in with the structure of the legacy website. These items included developing an innovative Flash piece to communicate the DW Homes core values of “Design, Choice and Service”, building an virtual version of the company’s stunning print piece using VL’s “Page Flipper” technology, performing search engine optimization on the existing website, creating a custom Flash player and migrating the company’s extensive video collection to an online format and setting out an easy-to-follow template for the company to film future events and broadcast them via the internet. All of these items would act as a bridge for the company to begin leveraging the latest in web technologies to reach its core customer base.
To build the custom “Design, Choice, Service” flash piece, we spent time learning about how David Weekley builds homes (and why so many people love them) and then took that information and wrapped it into our creative process. In the end, we took three existing static web pages (one for each of the core values) and transformed them into an interactive Flash media piece that utilizes a host of technologies. From video editing to our in-house green screen studio to Flash animation, VL created a dynamic interactive media piece that is now used throughout the David Weekley Homes sales and client engagement process – and is seen by thousands of potential home buyers every year.
We also built a virtual version of their dynamic and award-winning print piece. Using “Page Flipper” technology to build the online brochure, DW Homes website users can now virtually flip through each page of the print piece and watch embedded videos that are relevant to each page.
The final components of the phase 1 web development included VL building a custom DW Homes flash player and converting an existing media collection to an online format. The final components also included VL performing search engine optimization on key pages of the site and creating a easy-to-follow template for DW Homes employees to follow when recording and posting online videos.
THE RESULTS :
The results of this engagement were absolutely successful. As a result of the consulting arrangement, DW Homes gained a keen understanding of the competitive landscape on the web and was moved to begin their own web development process, something that had not occurred in more than 4 years at the company. The Vision Launchers consulting process was the impetus for dedicating more resources and focus to the web component of their business. The creative pieces that VL created for DW Homes were also a big success as they are currently used by DW Homes sales staff and online support to inform and educate potential buyers in a new and ground-breaking way. Finally, as a result of the search engine optimization work by Vision Launchers, DW Homes listings improved to the first page of search results on both Google and Yahoo!.
Overall, Vision Launchers provided consulting, creative media, technology and search engine solutions for DW Homes that enabled the company to reach potential new home buyers in innovative and dynamic ways. |
