Clicks and bricks

www.barratthomes.co.uk

The Relationship

Barratt Developments is the UK’s best known house builder, providing homes for all sectors of the market across the country.

The group is divided into three brands: Barratt Homes, which operates across the UK; Ward Homes, which is based in Kent and surrounding counties; and David Wilson Homes, which provides premium homes predominantly in the Midlands.

LBi partnered with Barratt in 2008 with the core objective of bringing all three brands to life online and transforming the business by improving the number of sales leads. As we soon discovered, the best way to do that was to get potential house buyers emotionally engaged with the homes they were seeing on the websites.

The Work

We carried out some cutting-edge research among home buyers which revealed that, when it comes to a purchase as large and important as a house, emotion is the key factor. Hard facts can inform or even confirm a choice, but the buyer has to fall in love with the property first.

An additional challenge was the time and budget limits we had to work to, which meant that a single platform and technical build would have to be used for all of the brands, while still giving each one a distinctive feel.

Based on the insights from the research, we set about developing websites for each of the brands that would allow potential buyers to explore, dream about and fall in love with the homes. The websites had to be informative but also aspirational. We wanted to ensure that online visitors would connect emotionally with a house before they had even stepped foot inside it for their first viewing.

The Outcome

From an underused channel which generated less than 500 sales leads a week, we have transformed Barratt’s digital presence so that it is now the main pre-sales marketing tool for all three brands.

In 2010 alone, the websites delivered more than 200,000 sales leads - almost 4,000 a week. This has helped Barratt to significantly increase its market share during a difficult economic period for the housing industry.

Through blending creative, user experience and technical skills, all underpinned by a long-term CRM strategy, Barratt and LBi continue to work together to optimise the customer journey online and further maximise online sales lead generation.

LBi London