May 05, 2007 - How to Sell 40 Cottages in 3 Months: Hire Bento Box
Les Allen, owner and operator of Allen Group Property Development, had a plan for his eyebrow-raising, affordably priced cottages: Build it and they will come.
The trouble was, how to let them know?
The Skinny
Les Allen, owner and operator of the Allen Group property development, had a plan for his eyebrow-raising, affordably priced cottages: Build it and they will come.
The trouble was, how to let them know?
Initially, the plan was to use direct mail and a billboard to drive potential buyers to an Internet "commercial" for the Allen Group's 40-unit development, Daniel Point Cottages.
The hope was that patience and desire would motivate a viewer to sit through three minutes of stock photos drifting across a screen to canned music, to arrive at a phone number to contact the developer for a purchasing appointment.
We had better ideas...
Bento Box was initially contacted to produce this Flash movie.
Of course, we could have easily produced exactly what the client asked for, in typical stunning Bento Box fashion. But we would have failed in our mission to help companies like Mr. Allen's survive—and thrive—on the Web. So during our Box Lunch we pointed out how incredibly ineffective this sales method was.
What we did
Why not clearly communicate the sales offering? Why not pre-qualify customers for appointments right on the site? Why not book an appointment instead of simply requesting more information?
We examined the Allen Group's offline sales process and applied it directly to the Web.
Bento Box:
- Designed and developed a semantically marked-up Web site that was quickly crawled and indexed by the top search engines.
- Sourced photos and renderings
- Created Daniel Point Cottages branding package
- Explored and developed My Life, My Land, My Own Cottage positioning
- Designed billboard
A sell-out
Daniel Point Cottages sold all 40 units within three months, the majority through appointments booked through MyOwnCottage.com.
"You far exceeded my expectations. Response and sales have been phenomenal. You've given me the confidence to go ahead with further projects in this manner and I wouldn't hesitate to use Bento Box again."
- Les Allen, president of The Allen Group