Social Media Success Story: Pierre Martell, Martell Home Builders

Picture_3.pngThis is the fourth in our series of Social Media Success Stories. I was recently interviewed for an article in the EpochTimes newspaper. The writer approached the story from two angles; 1) the consultant – me, 2) the advertiser – Pierre Martell of Martell Home Builders (disclosure: Pierre is not a client of BWEST).

This is where I met Pierre. I was so intrigued with the social media marketing he was doing that I contacted him directly to talk about it.

Pierre is a true innovator and is using social media in ways that even more ‘techie’ industries are not. Pierre has taken an "experiential" approach to marketing which is bang on in terms of connecting with customers, right down to his URL http://www.themartellexperience.com/ and his latest marketing tactic – which I will let him tell you about.   

Chris: When did you first start using social media (blog, twitter, facebook) as a marketing tactic? 

Pierre Martell: May 2007.

Chris: What attracted you to social media?

Pierre Martell: I see it as a digital version of word of mouth (WOM) marketing.  I call it – Word of Click Marketing ;-). It’s quite powerful if you think about it.  We give our customer a "blow-horn" when they have emotional interactions  with Martell Homes. Events like weekly photos of the build process, closing day video testimonials, we record them and give them to our customer (plus share on all our social media sites) so that they can share them.  

Chris: What was your first impression of Twitter?

Pierre Martell: I was blown away with the ability to use http://search.twitter.com to find people talking about areas of interest and find people in my city!  I thought that was cool.

Chris: What social media tools do you currently use?

Pierre Martell: Religiously; Facebook, Smugmug, YouTube, Twitter and our "Blueprint" blog.

Chris: How has using social media affected your business?

Pierre Martell: It’s made us super accountable.  When you create a culture of transparency, you really need to deliver with your "A" game EVERYDAY!  If you make a mistake, you can’t hide – you need to own up to it, and fix things.  Everyone on the team feels this, and allows me to keep a "pulse" of what our customers needs are.

Chris: Do you have a particular success story you could share?
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Pierre Martell: We’ve had many success stories.  My favorite is a customer, from another province, that bought a home from us sight unseen, because they felt comfortable that we would deliver on our promise.  They got this level of comfort from our YouTube videos, SmugMug photos, Facebook Fan Page and Twitter updates.  That’s a $160,000 dollar sale!

(Pierre may have been too humble to mention but he was recently asked to participate on a panel at the Blog Work New Media Expo. An added benefit of being a successful innovator.)

Chris: What has surprised you most about using social media?

Pierre Martell: The ability to get instant feedback from our customer – in REAL TIME!  Using Twitter or Facebook, I can find out which colors, floor plans or finishings make the most sense for our market.

Chris: On average, how much time do you spend on social media per day?

Pierre Martell: I probably spend about an hour a day – everyday (including weekends) on social media.  It’s taken me a while to figure it out, but we’ve built processes within our company that allows me to create content, publish and monitor replies without being connected 24 x 7.

Chris: What advice would you give to a company just starting to use social media for their business?

Pierre Martell: Start with one site, either Facebook, Twitter YouTube or a Blog.  Its’ best to choose onethat you’ll feel comfortable creating content for.  Also, start off by listening. Don’t barf on your users (a.k.a self promote non-stop!).  Add value. Remember: teaching sells. Also, measure your success.

Picture 2.jpg Chris: What’s next for Martell Home Builders and social media?

Pierre Martell: It’s a secret project called "Where’s my contractor?".  It a page that aggregates everyone’s twitter updates and Facebook fan page content in one spot.  Also, we’ve created a real time GPS tracking video system mounted in our project managers truck.  Talk about transparency – essentially you can follow him on a google map, see where he’s at and access the video feed – In real time!  Our customers love this application.

Thanks for taking the time to speak with us Pierre. Congratulations on your success and best wishes for more of the same. We’ll be ‘tracking’ you online to see where you are 😉

Pierre can be found on Twitter as @martellhomes  

If you would like to propose a company to be featured in our "Social Media Success Stories" please contact me or leave a comment below.  

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