As one of the nation’s largest independent real estate development firms, Hillwood Communities has spent 30 years creating community through master-planned developments. Hillwood Communities continues to raise the bar in terms of quality, innovation, and the unmistakable sense of community that sets each property apart.
So, when Hillwood tasked Schaefer with creating a new website for their Union Park community, we needed to build a website that communicated the excitement and energy of the community in order to convert visitors into Union Park homeowners.
Goals
- Educate prospective homeowners about Union Park
- Improve website functionality to encourage more user interaction
- Increase qualified lead collection through the website to grow the Union Park marketing database
- Encourage foot traffic to model homes at Union Park
Strategy & Execution
Our strategic imperative was to evaluate Union Park’s existing website and streamline the information to more accurately represent the community under the tagline “Live a Vibrant Life.”
Our team utilized existing user data from two of Hillwood’s other community websites to craft high-level strategic conclusions that informed how we built the Union Park website. We used sophisticated web tools to identify user engagement patterns through on-site heat mapping, screen recordings, and behavioral pattern flow.
The Union Park website was integrated with home inventory feed to give site visitors real-time information about available homes. We added a testimonial portal that gave prospective homebuyers insight into the active lifestyle and community that powers Union Park. We incorporated a live social feed that gives visitors up-to-date information about what’s happening around Union Park, and we added a Google Maps integration that empowers people to easily find Union Park on desktop or mobile.
Furthermore, we continued to optimize and improve the website based on reporting and detailed analysis. One core improvement that we made was building a chatbot to automate conversations with prospective home buyers, deliver relevant content, and collect qualified leads to pass along to the builders. The chatbot also helps direct users to specific pages of interest to help create a frictionless consumer journey.
Results
We designed the website to have user-friendly functionality that encourages engagement but also helps the consumer effortlessly move through the home-buying journey.
Since the new website launched:
- Average website session duration has increased by 30%
- Union Park website form fills have increased by almost 4X
- PDF downloads have increased by more than 20X
- Pageviews have increased by 15%
- High-quality foot traffic has increased to the community.
Make Life Better
Creating communities doesn’t happen overnight – it can take years of strategy and ongoing marketing efforts to cultivate the right audience to buy into a new development and call that space “home.” As a result of creating Union Park’s new website with improved functionality, we were able to connect the community with more qualified leads in a much shorter period of time.