Websites First: Jason Rhoads’ Digital Marketing Ladder for Builders-163

Is your marketing ladder missing the first rung? Jason Rhoads (Rhoads Creative) joins Anya to break down why builders should fix websites and assets before throwing money at ads, and how AI search (AIO) is changing everything from discovery to conversion.

We cover:

-The Digital Marketing Ladder: the 8 steps 

-UX that sells: lead-gen flows, visual content, virtual tours, data-tagged assets
-AIO to SEO? Preparing your site to “talk to bots” and win AI answers
-Content that feeds LLMs without becoming AI slop (voice, structure, schema)
-Analytics that prove ROI: CRM tie-ins, attribution, appointments → sales
-Paid search today (rising CPCs) and what’s next for social/TikTok search
-Practical AI workflows: brand-tuned GPTs, faster content ops, better insights

If you’re a homebuilder or marketer wondering where to put budget in 2026, this episode gives you a ladder to climb: one smart rung at a time.

Chapters:
 00:00 Intro
 01:05 Jason’s path & why builders need better data
 03:00 The Digital Marketing Ladder
 06:10 Websites & assets: the #1 ROI lever
 09:10 AI search and “bot-to-bot” readiness
 12:20 From SEO to AIO: content that ranks in AI
 20:05 Validating the AI recommendation: trust pages that matter
 24:00 Visuals that feed AI (not just look pretty)
 26:00 Measuring ROI with CRM + attribution
 28:30 AI tools/workflows Jason recommends
 31:00 What’s next: TikTok search & beyond
 33:00 One thing overwhelmed teams should do now
 34:30 Where to find Jason

Transcript

Anya Chrisanthon 0:34

Hello and welcome everybody. Thank you so much for joining us for a new episode of Ango of New Home Sales. I'm your host, Anya Chrisanthon, and joining me today is Jason Rhodes with Rhodes Creative. Welcome to the show, Jason. I'm so very excited about our conversation today.

Anya Chrisanthon and Jason Rhoads 0:51

Hi. Thanks so much for having me on.

Anya Chrisanthon 0:54

So Jason, for our listeners who may not be familiar with who you are, if you don't mind giving us your life story, tell us how did you get into a home building space? Sure. And what is it that you do now?

Anya Chrisanthon and Jason Rhoads 1:08

Yeah, sure. So again, Jason Rhodes Creative got into the home building space through Rhodes Creative. So my parents actually started this company. Almost 35 years ago. And it was a, it's a marketing agency, is, that's how it started. It was full service marketing agency for everyone. And then I joined about 20 years ago and ever since have, and have now my parents are retired and have taken over and have really transformed us into a digital only marketing agency for home builders in across the nation. So it doesn't matter, we always say we sell from 50 to five to 500,000. I know. No one builds 500,000 homes, that's who we target and who we talk to. And yeah, my background is in statistics analytics. So before this I was in the financial sector. So that's where I actually, and that's what my degrees are in, but that's where I started. So it's a mix. And then they decided to pull me into advertising for whatever reason.

Anya Chrisanthon 1:58

Very interesting. So with your background in analytics. And obviously you've been in marketing for over 20 years. How did this analytical side shape your approach to marketing?

Anya Chrisanthon and Jason Rhoads 2:11

Sure. So especially with home builders, it's a great question because I always felt like when I came to marketing, why couldn't home builders have the same sort of data and the same sort of information that everyone else has. I was like, why not builders in that they don't know, what kind of return they get all the time on, in, on their investment or how much they made, or what's their cost per acquisition. If you go to any other business, again, coming from the financial sector, if you didn't know those numbers, you were like in trouble kind of thing. And I always said like, why not home builders? It was always a little bit of a, it was always a wall. And that's my goal is really to be like, no, we can figure this out. We know we have technology, we have reporting to figure out like what works best.

Anya Chrisanthon 2:50

Makes sense. We're certainly trying to do our part in the analytics space, here at Anewgo to make sure that everyone can see exactly what your customers are doing Exactly. So that you can take appropriate action. So a hundred percent agree with you there. Yeah. So Jason, you said you're primarily, or a hundred percent everything is in digital. So why don't we start with your signature framework, which you call the digital marketing. Ladder. So tell us what is it and how did it come about?

Anya Chrisanthon and Jason Rhoads 3:17

Yeah, that's great. Thanks. So the digital marketing ladder, it's a strategic framework. We've designed based on about, the last 15 years of what we've been doing to help builders set their priorities in marketing based on return on investment based on ROI. How it came about was literally the most asked question I get is like, where do I put my budget the most? Where do I start? Like I have, there's so many things to choose from when it comes to marketing, like, where do I start? So we just found over time, these steps always perform if you go from a ladder and you say, step one is A and step two is B, and then you move up the ladder. Admittedly we picked a ladder.'cause home builders use lots of ladders. The what we do is over time is you wanna make sure that you are really good at the first step before you move to the second step. Now, some organizations that are like really large builders and national brands, they brands they can move. You don't have to like, take a lot of time, but it's again, all about where you put your investment in your time. Like even if it is a publicly traded or a large builder. You still have constraints on time and budget. So it's where do you put your most resources? And we've defined it. We feel like we've defined it. Eight, it's, right now, it's eight different levels or steps that talk about where you, we feel like you should put your most money. And it is, it's very standard. It does change depending on certain factors, but it's where we have found what works best.

Anya Chrisanthon 4:35

Yeah. Can you talk about what happens when builders try to jump to like advanced tactics before covering some of the basics? And I think we see it all the time. We all see it. It's mind boggling. So what are some of the most common pitfalls that you see there?

Anya Chrisanthon and Jason Rhoads 4:52

That's a great question and we should throw some credit to, Anewgo here'cause the first one is website and assets, right? So if you are doing things that are driving significant traffic to your website, significant people to your website, but you haven't looked at your website, you haven't looked at the content of your website, you haven't looked at even photography, anything. You haven't looked at the features on your website or it's outdated. Why are you sending, it's like a, it's a waste of money in a way. It's, and I'm a big proponent that is really the website or, your, and your assets are the base of everything. And it's like, there's no reason to not, no reason, but you're gonna get so much less out of everything else if you're not. Doing that one thing, and honestly that, as you mentioned, is I think the biggest misstep when it comes to home building, that everybody says, oh, we're gonna go do all this, our website's fine. It's fine doesn't, you're missing out on a lot. You can, your conversion rates can be higher. You can get more leads just by improving your website even, or getting better assets. Even the littlest bit helps. So I do, I think it's a, websites are a big missed opportunity.

Anya Chrisanthon 5:54

I a hundred percent agree with you. You hope, and that is definitely, I thought

Anya Chrisanthon and Jason Rhoads 5:58

so. Yeah, I thought so. That's definitely

Anya Chrisanthon 6:00

the reason why we got into the website space here at Anewgo because we just see so many bad websites and our clients have been asking us for years and years, like, when are you guys gonna do the website? Can't you just do the website for us? So

Anya Chrisanthon and Jason Rhoads 6:13

it's fair. Yeah, I get it. And it's such a. Place that it's no, it's, that's where you start. You don't go start, go do, go. Yeah, we'll do ads and we'll figure out the website or it's okay. It's that's doesn't work. That just doesn't work.

Anya Chrisanthon 6:26

It's like you're having a party, but the house is not ready.

Anya Chrisanthon and Jason Rhoads 6:30

Oh, that's great. I'm gonna take that one.

Anya Chrisanthon 6:31

That's a great analogy. That's a great analogy. You're gonna spend all this money on bringing people to you, and then your first impression is gonna be. Ooh. Yeah. I don't know if I want those guys to build a house for me because his own house is not in order. Exactly.

Anya Chrisanthon and Jason Rhoads 6:45

It's a great analogy. It's a great analogy. It is. And it's so true that it's, and I would even add on, like some builders will say, oh, my website's fine. I did it a couple years ago. Have you looked at it since then? Have you looked at what's new? Have you looked at what's out there? There's a big leap, even if it's been a. To one or even one or two years. There's a difference. And so just it, having that as the basis, that's the biggest pitfall I always see is that. Yeah,

Anya Chrisanthon 7:09

for sure. So Jason, for those home builders who may be in the market for a new website, obviously we're, approaching the year end. And people may be thinking what's ahead for 2026? Yeah. So yeah. If you are shopping for a new website, what are some of the must haves that you would be like, okay, if this company does not offer at least these things? Sure, yeah. Then you know, you need to move on to the next.

Anya Chrisanthon and Jason Rhoads 7:35

Yeah I think. I would probably agree with me, make sure there it is a hundred percent tuned in for user experience, right? So it's not, it's as much as it is about pretty pictures and it, which is important that assets have to be there. But like, how does a user flow through the website if we're not having a discussion about user experience in conjunction with everything else? That'd be a red flag. Also, if you're not having a conversation about how you're gonna generate leads from a new website, and I don't mean like they're gonna fill out a form, but like a strategic way, which IAnew go does this, How do they land here, how do we capture them or they're do this and how do we capture them, turn it into a real lead gen source, not just, they're gonna fill out a contact form, right? So look at it strategically and then, plan. Have good assets, have nice photography, have nice videography, have nice floor plans, have nice tours. If you're not, if you're gonna go and have this whole website and have a whole website and nobody says I have to have great photography, or I have to have something great for the homepage, it's probably a red flag because, you can do everything. But it is still very visual for what it is for now I should say. But I would say, very much so the first two, especially you UX and lead gen gotta have those conversations. Absolutely,

Anya Chrisanthon 8:44

yes. Yeah, a hundred percent agree with you. And, you guys think about, your website is really like your model home, right? Except they may not ever make it to your model home. They will most likely make it to your website if I guess I shouldn't even say that anymore, because with AI might not, you're probably not making it to your website anymore. That's, but we're gonna, that, we're gonna save that conversation for a little bit later. But yeah, it's, it's the first impression. So think of it as your best model home. And so people expect things like virtual tours. People expect things like digital visualizers. They want to be able to see what the future home's gonna look like, and if you are not able to show it to them. They may not make that trip to your actual model home. And even we see people that, when they come to your actual model home, a lot of people still have trouble visualizing because they really do. You're probably not gonna build every single model that there is. And you're not gonna, that's true. Show all the options inside and outside. So it's definitely really important that you put your best foot forward. And now with AI too. I think it sends a strong signal to AI gods if somebody is, on your website and actually spending time and engaging, versus they're there for two seconds and they can't really do anything.

Anya Chrisanthon and Jason Rhoads 10:07

So true. It's so true. Yeah. And you said that about it. It's, I know we said you'll talk about it later too, possibly, but the. Bring up AI if as your website have a little bit of a conversation possibly. It might not be the biggest yet, but it's worth the conversation. Like you said, the more that you can put out there that's strong content and everything you about, the more an LLM or AI's gonna pick you up. That's great. Why

Anya Chrisanthon 10:27

don't we actually talk about it? That's sounds, we're already talking about it. So I know, Jason, you have been an early adopter of AI and I believe you even did some. Testing for open AI in the early days, if I'm not mistaken. That's true. So tell us about it and let's talk a little bit about how important is AI in the search space now specifically?

Anya Chrisanthon and Jason Rhoads 10:47

Yeah, that's a great question. Or started using LMS and generative, like what we call generative ai. In 2020 actually and yes, I have worked with OpenAI as far like a small business consulting group is what we do. So we talk to'em about their teams plans and things like that. Yeah. So how is it affecting search? It's, I'll start and love your opinion on this as well. I think it's. Home building is ripe for this because you can customize and change and ask and so many people want so many different things when it comes to a home, that AI is like perfect to say I need a, I would looking for a house that has this feature with this type, with this many floors, with this kind of bedrooms and this kind of bathrooms. And Google can answer that very well, but A, I can, and I just think it's prime. It's a transition that's coming and it's coming fast, but it's gonna change search and it's going to change how everything comes up. It's gonna change. I was actually just at a conference last week and someone said the homepage is dead. And I said, okay we'll talk about that one. But that your website is just gonna feed information to AI and people aren't gonna visit your homepage'cause they'll just be taken to. Different pieces of content or anything that answers their question. But yeah, like you said, I think it's a huge shift that's coming and there's a lot of ways to get ready for it, which we, but yeah, no. What are your thoughts? Go ahead.

Anya Chrisanthon 12:00

Yeah, why don't we talk a little bit about the ways to get ready for it, because when we hear numbers as high as 70% of all the clicks in 2025 are not leading to a click to the website, right? So all the searches, excuse me, I should say search is not clicks. Yeah. So meaning that people are searching for an answer. And as you guys are all aware, people are using chat, GPT, they're using perplexity. They're using Gemini. All the things that are available. Even are all Google is now serving us the summaries. So if there is an answer right there on the page, there is no need to go to your website. Sure. So if 70% of that, traffic is going nowhere, That becomes. An issue. So maybe let's talk about some of the ways that you are preparing your clients for the shift from SEO to AIO and again. Yeah. The shift, whatever you wanna

Anya Chrisanthon and Jason Rhoads 12:57

call it. That's fair. Whatever you wanna call it. I get it. Yeah. No one would be, I think embracing embracing niche content, right? And embracing that you're gonna have, we're gonna have to produce a lot of it to answer a lot of different questions, but at the same time. Not having it all be as they call it, AI slop. Like it still has to have your voice and your tone and everything to it and has to show why you're better. But, really embracing the fact that you need to start spinning up the wheels to be able to produce that kind of content. Number two is having your website be able to talk to a bot. I love the thoughts that people are starting to put out that there may even be two websites, one that talks to the bot and one that talks to a person. Or one that's for a person, excuse me, to detects it. So I think that's key.'cause you can see it in even the code that comes out and how it processes it does not look at it like a person does it all. It's all just. Numbers and let, it's all just numbers and texts. So it's not in any way. And if you can talk to it and communicate it better to a bot, that's the big thing. And if you can't do different versions we're preparing very much by saying now we gotta talk to both. You gotta talk to a bot and you gotta talk to a person. So really clean code, really clean really clearly clean markup, things like that. I just, those are the things that are starting to get it ready. It's coming. And again, I think if there's one industry, this one's right, because of how customized you can get, how niche you can get and what someone's looking for. But yes. Yeah, no,

Anya Chrisanthon 14:21

I agree with you. So let's talk a little bit more about each, because I think it's such an interesting topic and I Sure. I think I, I really don't think most home builders really understand this shift. I really think that. We're like in denial right now that it's no big deal. It's,

Jason Rhoads and Anya Chrisanthon 14:38

yeah. Yeah.

Anya Chrisanthon 14:38

It's ai, whatever, yeah. But it is changing and it, and you mentioned bots talking to bots and we're at the first step, right? And we're coming into this new world of agentic ai, which is basically. What Chat GPT is priming us all for. If you guys had your Chat GPT experience by now, hopefully everyone has had that experience. Yeah. Yeah. We're chatting back and forth with AI and that's what's gonna happen going forward, right? We're all gonna have our own. Portal. Yes. Our customer portal that is gonna be our central hub and we are gonna be simply chatting with our AI about, Hey, I am looking for new construction in Wayne, Pennsylvania. I want this and that. And like you said, we're no longer limited by. Keywords. We don't have to limit it to five descriptions of my dream home, which is a complete nightmare and impossible task.

Anya Chrisanthon and Jason Rhoads 15:36

It's, yep, we're gonna

Anya Chrisanthon 15:37

have those long conversations. But what you have to think about is that not only it has to have enough content on your website to be able to answer all of those long conversations that I'm typing in. Yeah. But you also have to consider. Maybe you need your own bot on your website as a seller's bot. Yes, that is going to respond to that bot, right? Because you wanna make sure that it is not, you're just positioned as a great builder, but also maybe how's it positioning you against the competition and so forth? Because the chat GPT bot is gonna give them all the information, right? It's gonna give information about your builder, but it's also gonna say, Hey, maybe to brothers is a better one, is a better option for you. So you want to have your own bot that's gonna advocate on your behalf essentially. To position why you are different from Toll Brothers and what,

Anya Chrisanthon and Jason Rhoads 16:35

yeah, agreed. No, agreed. And some of our, we've done some, a lot of internal research on this and testing. And what we are finding too is that the more that you can easily give a bot, so as you're saying, give it give them your information very easily where they don't have to go find it. Or the bot, excuse me, doesn't have to go find it, the more. The more you sh the more often you show up in an LLM search or an AI search, and the more often you're actually might be the top result. If you, it sounds like you said, if you make it easy on the bot, like it gives you a big bump because of that. And like they, I do, I think there's a big thing of, having a bot talk to a bot and it being your advocate. Very much because, and you've gotta really train that bot. But yeah, a hundred percent because it's, you make it easy on the l on the. On the AI or the LLM, it's gonna, it's shown it a hundred times over. It's gonna bring you up more often. And real quick, back to your point as well, at that conference I was at, it was some, it was all like fortune a hundred companies and this is low level data. And this was something I just took. But they were saying,'cause they have this, starting to get the data on this, that when you do get people from LLMs and AI search. They're converting at more than double the rate and in a third the time. Which, okay, great. If you don't, oh, it's that you were saying literally, oh, it's that thing off to the side. If you embrace it even a little bit and you get a little bit of traffic, those numbers are really high, like really high starting to show, so you can get a lot out of it. Yeah.

Anya Chrisanthon 17:58

It makes sense because you would think, because if I'm having this conversation with my chatbot back and forth and back and forth and back and forth, and I'm saying, okay, now we narrowed it down to these three builders, right? Instead of me Googling a hundred different builders, it said, okay. You know you have builder A, builder, B builder, senior area. Yeah. And these are the communities they would have, and these are good choices for you because of X, Y, and Z that you described to me. I know your style, right? So these are the three kind of to check out. So now when I go into those three, and I actually land on your website, right? Finally. A, your website has to be great now because like you said, we're okay. We sold the bots, right? Great job. Yep. Which I think is really important, right? Because if you're not selling your website to a bot to begin with, they're probably not gonna end up on your website as a human. So now the human is on your website. What happens next? We still like the colorful fonts and the, and the beautiful buttons that AI doesn't necessarily care about. So you do have to build this website to appeal to both the human and the bot. Yeah. But now that I've already said, okay. You are one of the three that I'm interested in. I already know you fit probably 90% of, you're checking out 90% of what I'm looking for, so I'm much more invested. I'm much more serious, and I'm much further down the funnel than somebody who just landed on your website from Google search. Would

Anya Chrisanthon and Jason Rhoads 19:30

you agree? A thousand percent. And it's funny that we're also finding you, you just did, you said in the research that a lot of times those people are coming from those pages. Just like they're not even looking at their community of they're actually going and using pages that we don't talk as much about in home building. Your're abouts, your're about us, your awards, your testimonies, your blogs, things like that too.'cause they just wanna, as we're calling it now, like they want to validate the AI's choices. In other words so yeah, they, they're so far down funnel. They may not, a lot of times they're not even gonna check out what was recommended. They just wanna be like, is this company legitimate? And they're just validating the choice. That's how I'm just, to your point, that's how far down they are. They're not even gonna check out the house, and they're just gonna contact you after they know you're legitimate. Yeah, I'm with you. It's great. It's what's gonna happen, by the way, to builders out there. It's what's, I think it's already happening. Yeah. It's happening. Yeah.

Anya Chrisanthon 20:18

And if you guys think about your own experience, say on Amazon, right? When you're shopping on Amazon, how often do you narrow the products down? And then you're like let me check the website. Like a lot of people are not even doing that. A lot of people are just saying, okay, Amazon narrowed it down for me between these two. I read the reviews. Looks good. I'm gonna go ahead and purchase this one. I may land on your website just to check you out like you said. But at this point I'm already bought in, and obviously Amazon is a much smaller purchase than. Agreed. Taking here of the house, but it's, yeah. Agreed.

Anya Chrisanthon and Jason Rhoads 20:52

No, agreed. And I think to your point, I think that in time they'll, I think it's just user behavior that they will just ask tell me what people think of each company you've recommended. That'll just come in time as part of user experience with these, with ai. But no, it is, as you said, it is not coming. It is. It is changing as we speak. Like it's every day more and more people use it. So a hundred percent agree. Hundred percent agree.

Anya Chrisanthon 21:15

So you mentioned spending your time on great content, and let's talk a little bit about that, because again, content's king, we know that, right? Especially now with ai because content can generate so much data points.

Jason Rhoads and Anya Chrisanthon 21:29

Yes.

Anya Chrisanthon 21:29

So what are some of the best practices for your content? Let's maybe talk a little bit about written content, like your blogs and also we can address. Your visual content.

Anya Chrisanthon and Jason Rhoads 21:38

Yeah, that's great. Thank you for saying that.'cause so many times you say content, everybody thinks you're just talking about a blog and it's no, it's blog, it's anything, right? Content can be anything, especially for an LLM or ai, right? So I love that you said that. The what are some of the, one of the things, at least, very much still needs to say why you are better and why you're USP and what you do different than everyone else. Like it still needs your voice, it needs your brand, it needs your tone, it needs all that. Now, I'm not saying it can't, AI can't produce it like that, but it's gotta still have your differentiator. Like it can get it 90, 80, 90% there, but you still gotta it. You still gotta get it all the way there. That's the biggest thing. I think also that determines it between some people call it the slop of where everything just thrown out on the internet versus what's actually very good. Which is, it shows your expertise is what it is. Whatever that expertise is, you can really lean into that expertise. And I also think being creative, and I think, and this can apply to. Visual or written how, what and what questions do people ask? What are niche things that people look for? Don't just talk about, oh yeah, it's a three bedroom, two bath, townhouse with X, Y, and Z. Okay you have this feature, or it can do this thing. Or you've got, be creative with your content. Whether it's. Written or visual. And I know like I love honestly the things, some of the things Anewgo does, it's that's great'cause it is creative. So that's where it really jumps in well.

Anya Chrisanthon 23:00

Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, I appreciate that. Yeah. You guys, the biggest thing, right? When it comes to written content, I always think about how do you write it so that it's so easily digestible for a machine, right? So it's, is it bullet points? Is it headings, right? Keeping your paragraph short. So just think about. It's feeding e essentially, right? What are your ideal customers asking for in those long conversations? Agreed. And you wanna feed it that

Anya Chrisanthon and Jason Rhoads 23:26

Agreed. Agreed, agreed. A hundred percent. I actually, and don't do, I had some, someone at the conference center I was talking to said, oh no, we just do it now. We just do it for both and it's just really long. And I was like, don't do that. Dont, don't do that. Just so they just make a really long article or kind of repeats itself over and over because, so it's for bots and people. So if you hear that in place, don't as you, I would probably agree. Don't do that. Write it in a way that still makes you look good.

Anya Chrisanthon 23:50

That's what, yes, absolutely. Yeah. So content's obviously important, and then visual content. We talked a little bit about visual content. You mentioned photography, you mentioned virtual tours. All the things. And then obviously if you have any sort of. Digital design tools, yes. Make sure that those are also digestible by ai. So not all digital design tools are created equal, so make sure that. It is data tagged because again, you don't just want it to look pretty. You want it to feed ai. So that's definitely so

Anya Chrisanthon and Jason Rhoads 24:23

important. I would agree. I would, I think I would love your opinion on this too. I think it's the, that's probably the biggest hurdle for builders is all these assets they have, like you were just saying, none of them are like, how many floor plans are, interactive floor brands and tools that are out there that are not tagged and are not ready. Like I, it's, that's a hurdle and a half.

Anya Chrisanthon 24:42

Exactly. If it's just a PDF form, it's not gonna work so well, it's better than nothing but PDF is just, it's not gonna be as readable as something that's been data tagged. Yep. Make sure that, especially as you invest in new content going forward, those are the types of questions you wanna ask your provider. Absolutely. So Jason, once we figure out the content in our website and we get our content in order. What's the next step on our ladder? What are we ready for next?

Anya Chrisanthon and Jason Rhoads 25:08

So we, yeah, we talk a lot about your website's ready to rock and roll. Then it's onto our search engine optimization, GEO ao, whatever it is, it's making sure wherever the search is happening, because I always feel like sometimes get lost. Search is primary. So they're looking for what you deliver. Where if I'm on Instagram, I'm. To browsing Instagram and I get an ad right and take away any targeting options, anything. It's just I'm there to find what I'm there and searching for, whether it's in an on Google traditionally, or an LLM, I'm there to find what, I'm there to find a house. I'm searching for a home. So you know, it's that and then it is saying for now it is paid to me, the next step is always paid advertising in on, in search. How that will change is going to, I think is probably the biggest question when it comes to search advertising right now.'cause no one has a good answer for it, I would say. But for now it's just traditional search advertising again,'cause it's primary, but it's not that you have to, as we have to pay every time somebody clicks. So it can get your ROI can be high or whatever the, your RI isn't as strong'cause you gotta pay every time someone clicks. And as you're probably aware, clicks are getting expensive in a lot of areas. They really are. They really are. And unfortunately, it's Google has, pretty much for now as the market, so they can charge as they see in a lot of places, but it's, they're getting very expensive in a lot of places.

Anya Chrisanthon 26:25

Yeah. So speaking of ROI, it's definitely been difficult for marketers to prove their worth historically. So what are some of your favorite analytic tools, or what would you recommend that every marketer needs to have in order to show their value?

Anya Chrisanthon and Jason Rhoads 26:42

That's a great question. Yeah, great question. Number one is a really, a good CRM system, right? Number two. Very much that could be a huge help. It can really help you tie in a big proponent of Hey, which ad or which source or which content brought in the lead? Which turned into an appointment. Which turned into a sale. You can do that through any systems. It's great. So anything that and then I would say any tools that you have make sure that they have that level of reporting like you do, Anewgo does. But also that it can tie into anything. So it, many clients we have that you can tie it into any CRM or any reporting so that it can do the same things I know of other of tools out there. Not Anewgo that are that, where it's really hard to get the data into a CRM Yes. Yes. And it's cool, you're tracking it, but I can't get it into my system and I can't get it into somewhere where it is, it's, it doesn't help me. And the entire goal, and where we started this whole conversation is, you were mentioning Amazon. I know they're huge, but everyone else does it. Amazon knows exactly which ad, which. Which campaign, which everything, and they're huge, but even the smallest low eCommerce websites it drove this much revenue and like homeowners can get there. It's there. It's just, a real, like I said, a strong CRM strong reporting and strong data in we're talking about with a new make sure it's good. Make sure you're, sometimes your salespeople or your sales managers or osc's, make sure the data in is good. Make sure it's ported in right. Make sure the notes are right. But yeah, it's what it's all about. It's hard, but not. It's, there's a system there. It's just gotta embrace it. That's it. Yeah.

Anya Chrisanthon 28:12

Yeah. So we talked about AI a lot, obviously. Can you recommend any tools that you like to use with your team for producing some of the content or some hacks?

Anya Chrisanthon and Jason Rhoads 28:24

Yeah, that's great question. Tools I would say, there's. I'm actually a big proponent of pick the one, whether it's Chat gpt, whether it's Gemini, whether it's play, pick the one you like the best or Claud you could make an argument that might write content better, right? But just pick the one you think works, but what you like best. They are all very similar. I would say the hack would be, really leverage your information and uploading it to LLMs or to AI to produce content, right? So like we have. Personally for all, for everyone. We do, and all of our clients, we've created all these, they're called GPTs. What it is it's just an individual sort of prompt where we've said, Hey, here's their brand statements, here's everything they've done. Here's their websites, here's, and take all of this and help create the content. So that it's not just so it's not just like off the shelf in that slot. Also, as you probably know, it's a huge time saver.'cause you don't have to repeat yourself every time. Talk in this voice, say this, avoid this. Like it stores all of that information. And by the way, if you don't know how to set these up, just ask the, whatever platform use, how do I set it up? And it will walk you through it very easily, step by step. So it's not even like difficult. That's my biggest hack always. It's just create, they're called GPTs and Jet GBT or models, or however you wanna do it. Just make it easy on yourself, give it all that information. A

Anya Chrisanthon 29:41

hundred percent. I love my projects within my chat. GPT, I know I use it all the time, for everything that I do on a repeat at Anewgo, I have a separate project for it. So whether it's the blogs or podcast, right? I have, like you said, preloaded all the information already. I saved it within the project. And I have written out a prompt and I've spent plenty of time writing rewriting that prompt. Again, you can ask Chad GPT to help you with the initial prompt writing. Exactly, yeah. But it saves so much time. I don't have to repeat myself over and over again. And when it does something really great, I give it feedback. When it does something not great, I give it feedback and it remembers that. So next time it does better. So you guys agree? Yeah. If you haven't played with that, that is one piece of advice I will give you. Save yourself time, self yourself, lots of headache, just. Use the tools to the maximum

Anya Chrisanthon and Jason Rhoads 30:36

use the tools. Yes. Maximum. Yes. Yes. Hundred percent. Yeah. You the saving the time. That's a, your podcast and blog. Great example. Yes. Great example. You just don't have to say it over and over again. Alright. No, that's great. That's great.

Anya Chrisanthon 30:48

So I think I know the answer for this, but Okay. What's the next big shift do you think is gonna be in digital marketing or ai? Sure. That builders should really be preparing when it comes to say, next one to two years in home building.

Anya Chrisanthon and Jason Rhoads 31:03

That's fair. So yes, I would agree. We talked a lot about ai. That's probably the one. We could also throw a curve ball in there, right? You, I think we gotta watch out for TikTok, Because we're seeing more and more people search on TikTok and I think that sometimes gets ignored how that search works and all that's. The different story when it comes to AI and all. I think that's one. And then yeah. And then really curve ball, I think would say there's rum. I've heard rumblings that like Netflix is gonna come out with a TikTok competitor, which could be huge, right? Because think of the targeting and the data and everything that they have. There's a lot of rumblings about that. And that would upset our whole social adv, social media advertising game a lot, I think. But that's, who knows, you never know, right? But but no, I think tiktoks, the other one. That's not ne, excuse me. Not ne Netflix. That's not ai. We'll see. We'll see. But a lot more people are using it to search, especially younger gen like younger generations.

Anya Chrisanthon 31:55

Yeah, I still have it on my phone, but I had to step away from TikTok because if you know what I'm talking about, yeah. Oh, I do. It takes you down a rabbit hole, man.

Anya Chrisanthon and Jason Rhoads 32:04

I do. I have a work burner I use, so it's not on my personal phone anymore. I had to put it on a separate phone. I leave at the office to check it out and used for it, so it's not, that's what I do. But yeah, no, I get exact rules. It's

Anya Chrisanthon 32:15

research for work

Anya Chrisanthon and Jason Rhoads 32:16

Jason? Five hours later. You totally blew my secret here. Come on. Like you totally.

Anya Chrisanthon 32:22

700 cat videos later what the hell happened?

Anya Chrisanthon and Jason Rhoads 32:26

Yeah, that's true. Yes, exactly.

Anya Chrisanthon 32:28

Yeah. It's very good at searching out what is it that you're interested in and taking you that, that rabbit,

Anya Chrisanthon and Jason Rhoads 32:35

it's, it really is. It really is. Yeah.

Anya Chrisanthon 32:38

So Jason what's one piece of advice you'd give to a builder who feels maybe a little overwhelmed by all the digital noise right now? The SEO ai I-O-P-P-C.

Anya Chrisanthon and Jason Rhoads 32:49

Yep.

Anya Chrisanthon 32:50

Automation, TikTok. And just to focus on what works.

Anya Chrisanthon and Jason Rhoads 32:54

Yeah. Follow the ladder vision number one. So the whole point of it is to say, follow ladder number I, and then also, find, whether it's in your reporting or whether you partner with somebody that you know, even like us that is very much figure out what works and then just put, and, you can do it slowly and figure out what works and then put your, make sure to put your most maximum time and effort to that. And if, what, if you can't, if you're a really small builder and you can't, you don't have the resource to go figure out, yes, this ad drove this. There are still some things you can say. Yeah, you know what? I can go and I can find somebody who can look at analytics, and I know that the three simple forms I got this month were all from this. So you know what? I'm gonna just do a little more of that, like just the, even the littlest bit of data. And by the way, AI can help a lot. You can upload your data to it to help you figure it out, like we were talking about earlier, right? Yep. To help you get that quick insight. But yeah, just take little steps, just if you can just find thing that works this whole point of ladder, find something that works and just make sure to maximize it before you move on to the next thing. Even if it's the littlest nugget, that's cool.

Anya Chrisanthon 33:55

Sounds good. Jason, if somebody wants to learn more about your digital marketing ladder or connect with you or your team at Rhodes Creative, what's the best way to do that?

Anya Chrisanthon and Jason Rhoads 34:06

Yeah, sure. So you can go to our website. It's rhodes creative.com. We do spell it weird. R-H-O-A-D-S. Snowy and or you can always email me at jason@roadscreative.com or give us a call. It's on our website, but I'm always available. I'm happy to answer anything and talk especially about everything we talked about today.'cause that's the stuff I love very much and I'd love talking about New Tech and everything like that.

Anya Chrisanthon 34:28

Yeah. So before I let you go today is there anything that we did not talk about or I didn't ask you that you think is important for our listeners to understand?

Anya Chrisanthon and Jason Rhoads 34:39

That's a really good question. That's a really good question. No, I don't think so. I think that we've covered a lot about covered a lot about the ladder and I think that, and again you said it earlier, it's not, this ai, geo se, whatever we're gonna call it, it's not this thing that's in the background. Start talking about it. Start talking about it.

Anya Chrisanthon 34:57

Yep. Yeah I agree with you. It's, I try to, and again, it can be so overwhelming, right? I'm not like techie, techie person, but I try to stay on top of it. But even with that, it's overwhelming because every single day you have literally hundreds. Hundreds of new companies, hundreds coming out. That offer all these different services, whether it's video creation Yep. Images, whether it's, I mean there's, it's crazy. There's AI for everything. I like, literally there's AI for everything. So there is, my advice to you all is that if you can dedicate 15 minutes out of your day, just 15 minutes, maybe, at your lunch, whatever. And go start researching some of those tools. A lot of them will have free trials. Yes. Just so you can keep up with what's happening out there. There are plenty of AI newsletters that you can sign up for. I know I received probably way too, one too many in my thoughts. Yeah. Way too many. Way too many. Yeah.

Anya Chrisanthon and Jason Rhoads 35:57

Uhhuh.

Anya Chrisanthon 35:58

And you can follow AI accounts to stay on top of what's happening, what's trending. And just spend 15 minutes a day on. That's a great tip. Trying out new tools because yeah. We're traveling at a speed of light and if you don't do anything Exactly,

Anya Chrisanthon and Jason Rhoads 36:14

if you don't, no. You're understanding. It's great. I, like you said, so many have for like free trials or just try it and, okay, this one doesn't work. You tried it, that's fine. Yeah, it's a great tip. It's a great tip. Yeah.

Anya Chrisanthon 36:24

I'm really excited about video creation right now. Because for the longest time I've tried everything under the sun and I was just like, yes. Okay. It's. It's all right. It's getting there. It's okay. It's, but sora two. Oh my God. If you guys have tried that, it's insane.

Anya Chrisanthon and Jason Rhoads 36:39

Crazy. A lot and a lot. So much I was just saying this morning where somebody said, oh, it's a li still a little too ai. And I said, I don't, consumers don't know the difference and it's your you've got too much of an eye that it is so good. It is

Anya Chrisanthon 36:52

It's so good. I usually, I think I'm pretty good at being like, okay. That's totally ai, but i'm starting to fall for some of this stuff. Yeah,

Anya Chrisanthon and Jason Rhoads 37:00

I agree. No, same. I have to do the, you have to look at the phone your phone or whatever, and go wait. Oh, yeah. Okay. No, it's, it is, but no, you're a hundred percent right. It's really good. It's

Jason Rhoads and Anya Chrisanthon 37:08

really good. It's,

Anya Chrisanthon 37:09

Yeah. So I think lots of exciting stuff's coming out with video creation for home builders. Again, we don't have. Communities built, right? That's the one big thing that separated us from existing homes is that we have to imagine. So I think there's a lot of great tools that are available now and in the future that will help our customers imagine things better. And I think once that happens, so much so don't have a chance against this, right? Yeah, not at

Anya Chrisanthon and Jason Rhoads 37:38

all. Not at all. So much and like you said, the tools are so good, they're getting so good. It's yes. Just be, you said earlier, be creative. Like you think of a way, like think of cool ways to do it. But yeah it's, I love the video game. I love that thought too. Yeah. Yes,

Anya Chrisanthon 37:51

absolutely. So Jason, thank you so much for being on the show today. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thanks for letting me your insights. And it's been a pleasure to get to know you a little bit more. And as far as conferences or in-person visits where are you gonna be through the rest of the year? Where can people see you?

Anya Chrisanthon and Jason Rhoads 38:08

Yeah, sure. So I'll be we'll be at ib, I think it's next year actually, but we'll be at IBS, I'll be at the Digital builder innovator. Will be at at PCBC, will be at SEBC Southeastern. So yes, we'll be pretty much any place that builders will be there as well. So thank you. Amazing. And thank you so much for inviting me. This was great. Thank you so much.

Anya Chrisanthon 38:27

Thank you, Jason. And now see you at one of the conferences. I'm sure.

Anya Chrisanthon and Jason Rhoads 38:30

That sounds great. Thank

Anya Chrisanthon 38:31

you too. Talk to you soon. Bye bye.