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I'm going out on a limb here...in complete honesty...
I've been a Broker for a few years now. I had excellent training at Keller Williams. I hear a great deal of talk from both agents and sellers about an agent's "Marketing Plan". Aged veterans...what is this magical marketing plan everyone seems to speak of?
Obviously, the listing goes on MLS (and affiliated internet sites). You can make flyers and a box in the yard (relatively useless I'm told), hold open houses (also generally ineffective in actually selling the house but held to possibly gain new leads), hold a Broker's open house, send postcards to neighbors and potentially surrounding neighborhoods, email local brokers about the listing, and mention it to agents within your office and basically anyone else you meet.
What else is there? Newspapers - no one reads those and certainly not to look for houses. Realtor magazines - equally ineffective and expensive.
Brokers do not have a magical list of buyers, however we might try to convince sellers we do. What kind of marketing plan are sellers actually looking for that we, as Brokers, can realistically offer them?
I know! Actually, the above are the things we talked/learned about, it just doesn't seem like the "magic" plan everyone keeps referring to. It just seems like "they" are referring to something MORE.
For the most part you hit most of the points with the marketing plan. Of course depending on market some things will be different. Aside from real estate sites other avenues are local sites, local news papers, radio, social media sites. I know on some luxury listings video tours and drone photos/videos come into play.
The nuts and bolts of the plan are a bit less important than actually having and committing to a written plan.
My listing agreement includes this commitment: "Property will be marketed as outlined in attached marketing plan."
And, I sign the plan and include it in the clients' package. I tell them, "If I don't follow this plan, fire me."
And, the plan also serves as my checklist for tasks.
You can make flyers and a box in the yard (relatively useless I'm told)
I'm not Realtor. But I'm going to totally disagree with that statement.
We were looking for a home in Chandler, AZ. We were not finding what we wanted in our price range. DH worked odd hours a he time, and would t drive around looking a neighborhoods. Comes home one day with a flyer from a House For Sale box. We pull up the MLS listing, look at photos, call our Realtor, tour the house (as well as a few others in nearby and the same subdivision), then made an offer on the home with the flyer. In Mesa, AZ, maybe 20 miles away from our target location. Loved that house.
Five years later, sold that house in 8 days at full price in a VERY slow market. Our agent had done a flash email to thousand's of Realtors in the area. One of them had a client looking for that exact floorplan in that exact subdivision. Her buyers bought the house sight unseen, just based on the MLS photos and their realtor's tour to confirm the photos were accurate. Even though our home did not have the pool that was a must-have for them! (They added one shortly after closing.)
Our small subdivision in Raleigh gets a lot action off of those flyers. I know this because when we meet our new neighbors, they tell us that's how they found their new home.
The nuts and bolts of the plan are a bit less important than actually having and committing to a written plan.
My listing agreement includes this commitment: "Property will be marketed as outlined in attached marketing plan."
And, I sign the plan and include it in the clients' package. I tell them, "If I don't follow this plan, fire me."
And, the plan also serves as my checklist for tasks.
I'm not Realtor. But I'm going to totally disagree with that statement.
We were looking for a home in Chandler, AZ. We were not finding what we wanted in our price range. DH worked odd hours a he time, and would t drive around looking a neighborhoods. Comes home one day with a flyer from a House For Sale box. We pull up the MLS listing, look at photos, call our Realtor, tour the house (as well as a few others in nearby and the same subdivision), then made an offer on the home with the flyer. In Mesa, AZ, maybe 20 miles away from our target location. Loved that house.
Five years later, sold that house in 8 days at full price in a VERY slow market. Our agent had done a flash email to thousand's of Realtors in the area. One of them had a client looking for that exact floorplan in that exact subdivision. Her buyers bought the house sight unseen, just based on the MLS photos and their realtor's tour to confirm the photos were accurate. Even though our home did not have the pool that was a must-have for them! (They added one shortly after closing.)
Our small subdivision in Raleigh gets a lot action off of those flyers. I know this because when we meet our new neighbors, they tell us that's how they found their new home.
That's great to hear that the flyers do work! In the age of internet, they seem to have less influence that they used to. But, as a Realtor, it's great to hear that people still do use them and sales result.
THanks for the feedback.
And thanks to all for sharing the "magic". I'm kind of happy to know I haven't been missing that much after all! I like the idea of the written plan and signing it - even if it's basically the same as everyone else's. It seems the key is the agent's own determination and commitment to the plan, the client and the sale of the home.
Our team has a pretty robust social media marketing program, and after a year of work, we are starting to see international interest from the international investor market -- it took a couple of years of research into the foreign investor market. Of course, we live in a large metropolitan area -- your mileage may differ. Proxio and ListHub International have been good resources.
Marketing that is interactive seems to be gaining ground -- the passive flyers and emails are necessary, but in order to engage, you have to target your market and put it in front of them specifically. Starter homes, condos in younger areas of town are marketed somewhat differently -- Instagram and Twitter are big for this group. And even though the Facebook audience is a little older, now, it's amazing how many clicks a well-crafted and well-aimed FB ad can garner. (Funny story: I was pitching a FB ad a few months ago, and one agent was skeptical: "No one ever clicks on those ads!" I had him pull up his FB page, and when he did, one of the ads on the side was for something that he had Googled earlier in the day. It caught his eye. What was the first thing he did? Click on it . . . he didn't even realize what he had done! Hehe.)
Luxury market listings need a completely dfferent touch -- professional videos (NOT virtual tours, which are just slideshows), lifestyle marketing, etc. Historic homes get some traction from interacting with local historical societies.
We don't use box flyers any longer -- we use a service called VoicePad, where we post a number that you can call and get all the information on the house by phone. (The neighbors don't need the flyer, because they all get the "Just Listed" 8.5x11 postcard via EDDM. :-)
I agree that having a clear checklist of marketing items is great.
Staging services
Professional photography
Sign
Brochures
Broker tour
Open house if desired by seller
Mls entry
Other internet sites (which ones)
adverrising
Believ it or not, not all agents do all these things. It just helps the seller know what to expect so there aren't any unmet expectations.
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I know! Actually, the above are the things we talked/learned about, it just doesn't seem like the "magic" plan everyone keeps referring to. It just seems like "they" are referring to something MORE.
