Effective marketing is in play when your home's listing is exposed to the most amount of people possible. The more people that see your listing, the larger the buyer pool is, right? The more buyers that become interested in your property, the greater the chance of getting an acceptable offer on your home. Better yet, you're in position to get multiple offers on your home. Think about it, in a thriving real estate market, do you really think there is only 1 buyer for your house??? I truly believe that if you've followed all of the steps of this series on selling your home so far:
- You prepared your home to sell, highlighting it's best features.
- You hired a high octane Realtor who has a track record.
- You agreed to a realistic listing price.
.......then your home should not stay on the market very long IF your Realtor is going above and beyond in their efforts to market your property.
What Needs to Be Done to Effectively Market Your Home
The good ole days...when all you had to do was put a sign in the front yard, go inside to grab some dinner, and then spend the rest of the evening going over multiple offers on your home. Nope, not anymore! Everything has evolved - video games, microwave ovens, cell phones, food, real estate, and yes, marketing.
Don't be a follower of the 3 P's of Real Estate Marketing:
- Post a For Sale Sign in the front yard
- Put the listing in the MLS
- Pray that the home sales
Keep reading to learn how top Realtors around the country are getting the most out of their marketing efforts, making their sellers very happy.
Internet Marketing
The Internet has taken over! It has swallowed up entire industries and has totally changed how we communicate, do business, and shop. So, if you think you can get by without utilizing the internet to market your home for sale, you are missing the boat bigtime. I believe there are 3 kinds of people when it comes to the internet and marketing:
- Those who don't do it all.
- Those who dabble (they have a website but never update it, they have a Facebook page but never post, etc).
- Those who are killing it!
The fact is that nearly 90% of buyers found their home on the internet last year. Actually the number is probably higher because most of the other 10% had an agent who sent a listing to the buyer that they found on the internet.
This is a great place to bring up home photography. For goodness sake, if the vast majority of buyers are looking online for their next home don't you think that the pictures of your home should be fantastic? A sure way to turn off a buyer is to have 2 grainy and dark photos of the place you're supposed to be trying to sell. I see Realtors do this too!
Your listing should have the maximum amount high quality photos taken in the right light. Period.
Let's look at how to harness the power of internet marketing.
Marketing Your Home Through Websites
Realtor's Website
First of all, the visibility of your listing will have the strongest impact if your Realtor has a productive and effective real estate website. If you team up with a Realtor who is amped up about their site, your home's listing will absolutely get more exposure than if you work with an agent who has a site that can't be found by the public. No disrespect to those other agents at all but it's the truth. It totally makes sense! If your Realtor's site is already getting thousands of visitors and page views per month and your Realtor features your listing, you are getting thousands of more views than you would have otherwise.
Here are some cold hard facts....I think there are about 2,000 real estate agents in our area. Most of those are given a "web page" for their business through their brokerage company. There is a very small percentage of agents who actually have their own site where they can enhance, build out, and carve out their own online niche. As important as internet marketing is to real estate, a seller should work with a Realtor who has their own website.
The site you're on now, by the way, is one of those sites where the Realtor is amped up about it (just saying).
Here's an example of how buyers can search for properties on my website....
Working with an agent who has their own website means they can customize it as much as they want for their current and future clients. The image above represents about 950 pages that I've created to bring value to people that I work with. I can take all of the condo communities and neighborhoods in my county, for example, and write about them, describing in detail about the style of homes, market conditions, schools, what restaurants are nearby, and the surrounding area. This brings value to the consumer. A Realtor who does not have their own site can't do this.
Other Real Estate Sites
Usually a Realtor's MLS syndicates their listings to dozens of other real estate sites like Trulia, Zillow, Realtor.com, and many others. So, as long as you're working with a Realtor you'll have that exposure. However, the agents who are the internet marketing go-getters will go the extra mile to market your home to the max.
There are a ton of other opportunities where your home can be advertised online to get thousands of extra views.
Blogging
10 years ago blogging was just a funny word and most people didn't even know what it was. Today, blogging is a massive form of communication that is responsible for hundreds of millions of dollars of goods and services sold. Blogging is a platform where your Realtor can use an unlimited amount of space to describe your property in a more compelling manner that is much different than what you'll see in the listing from the MLS. Here you can list every great feature of your home along with mulitple photos and videos.
Blogging is a fantastic tool for internet marketing. Here's the BONUS! If your Realtor has one of those amped up sites, the blog page describing your home will more than likely show up on the first page of Google.
Social Media
There's no doubt that the use of social media is effective for marketing. I do think there are some unwritten rules to go by though. For one, I believe that for "personal" social pages you should let people know what you do but don't hammer them 24/7 about your business. For instance, I have a personal and business Facebook page. On the personal page, they know I'm a Realtor buy I mostly post recipes and stupid cat videos. The business page is all business.
Whether your tweeting about your brand new listing or posting pictures of your home on Instagram, social media can be an awesome source for branding and selling your home.
Traditional Print Marketing
With the continual evolution of the internet, many marketing techniques of the past are dwendling away but I still think there is a place for some print marketing tactics. Here are a few that many Realtors still use to market their listings:
- High quality, color brochures
- Flyers to put in Info-Tubes on the For Sale sign.
- "Just Listed" postcards to mail out to neighbors
- Local newspaper ads. Most people read these online now though.
My Thoughts on Open Houses
Overall I think that Open Houses are not effective to find a buyer for your home. If you get any visitors at all, they are likely to be nosey neighbors who have no intentions of buying. In today's digital world, home buyers prefer to sift through mulitiple properties in the comfort of their own homes then visit the properties they like the best in person.
Bottom Line
As you can see, I'm heavily slanted towards marketing your home via the internet. However, always remember that the best online marketing intentions mean nothing unless you work with a top notch Realtor who will employ these tactics AND you have priced your home to actually sell.
Check Out Some Other Great Resources on Marketing Your Home
The Importance of Good Real Estate Photography - Kevin Vitali
5 Importand Facts About Internet Marketing and Selling Your Home - Sharon Paxson
What Real Estate Marketing Strategies Should My Agent Be Using - Kyle Hiscock
Best Real Estate Marketing Tips for Marketing Your Home - Bill Gassett
About the author: The above Real Estate information on Step 5 - Marketing Your Home was provided by Jeff Nelson of eXp Realty Southern Branch. Jeff can be reached via email at jeff@livegulfshoreslocal.com or by phone at 251-654-2523. Jeff has helped people move in and out of properties for nearly 13 years.
Thinking about selling your home? I have a passion for Real Estate and would love to share my marketing expertise!
I service Real Estate sales in Baldwin County including the cities of Spanish Fort, Daphne, Fairhope, Foley, Gulf Shores, and Orange Beach.
Step 2 - Prepare Your Home to Sell
Step 5 - Marketing Your Home to Sell
Step 7 - Negotiating Offers on Your Home
