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LISTINGS THAT SELL MARKETING YOUR PROPERTIES IN 2016 This workbook belongs to _________________________________________ Thank you for attending the Spring 2016 REALTOR® MARKETING WORKSHOP
LISTINGS THAT SELL
MARKETING YOUR PROPERTIES IN 2016
This workbook belongs to _________________________________________
Thank you for attending the Spring 2016 REALTOR® MARKETING WORKSHOP
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Table of Contents LISTINGS THAT SELL .............................................................................................................. 1 MARKETING YOUR PROPERTIES IN 2016 ............................................................................. 1 TOPICS AND OUTCOMES ....................................................................................................... 3 WHEN – CREATE A “TIME BUDGET ....................................................................................... 4 WHO ARE YOU SELLING TO? ................................................................................................ 7 INDUSTRY BEST PRACTICES FOR MARKETING .................................................................. 9 YOUR LISTINGS ....................................................................................................................... 9 BEST PRACTICES FOR MARKETING A LISTING..................................................................10 PROVIDE AMAZING LISTING PHOTOS .................................................................................11 BEST PRACTICE FOR HOME STAGING ................................................................................13 “IF THEY CAN’T COME TO THE LISTING, BRING .................................................................14 THE LISTING TO THEM.” ........................................................................................................14 CREATE CUSTOM LANDING PAGES ....................................................................................15 LEVERAGE SOCIAL MEDIA ...................................................................................................16 2016 REAL ESTATE MARKETING IDEAS ..............................................................................18 SUMMARY ...............................................................................................................................19 Text for the Marketing Centre Activity ...................................................................................20
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TOPICS AND OUTCOMES
Learning Objectives:
• Leverage a simple 4 step plan to streamline your listing marketing
• Design and fine-tune a multi-faceted marketing strategy
• Explore Royal LePage listing marketing tools
• Manage and exceed your client’s expectations
Today’s Topics:
4-STEP LISTING MARKETING STRATEGY
We will develop a simple, effective, 4 step plan helping you streamline your listing marketing efforts.:
1. When (time) will you be marketing the property and when will you have time to market it effectively?
2. Who are you targeting because you can’t possibly cater to everyone?
3. What are the best options for marketing a property to the appropriate buyer? What forms of marketing reach your target audience? Where do you focus your marketing efforts?
4. How do you manage and exceed your clients’ expectations while prospecting to fill your sales funnel?
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WHEN – CREATE A “TIME BUDGET
Productivity/Jumpstarter Date : Time Budget -Stop Being busy and start being productive!
Instructions 1. Check the tasks you have completed for the day. 2. Review the Tasks below and write down the time it took to complete them. 3. Keep going down the list of tasks until you have checked all the ones you have completed. Add your time.
Personal Daily Tasks Time spent
Sleep (start calculating at 00:00) Shower Grooming Meals Fitness Commuting (travel) Household chores Family time Hobbies Appointments (doctor, dentist, mechanic)
TOTAL TIME
Work Daily Tasks Time spent Emails Phone calls Showings Managing online content (website/social media) Travel (to properties/meeting clients) Meeting clients Prepare documents for listing appointments Marketing (spreadsheets, postcards, business
cards)
Professional development (online webinars, courses)
Other TOTAL TIME
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WHEN – CREATE A “TIME BUDGET”
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WHEN – CREATE A “TIME BUDGET”
4-STEP MARKETING STRATEGY
Branded Feature Sheet
Sold Postcard
Social Media Posts
Website Landing
Page
Launch a Drip
Campaign
MLS
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WHO ARE YOU SELLING TO?
YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE
• Who are they?
– Demographic: Age, gender, education, etc. • How do they think?
– Financial, Family, Community, Beliefs, etc. • Where do they live?
– Rural, Suburban, Neighborhoods, City, Region, etc. • What are their habits/lifestyle?
– Where do they get their info?
______________________ _____________________________ ________________________ ______________________ _____________________________ ________________________ ______________________ _____________________________ ________________________
______________________ _________________________ ________________________ ______________________ _________________________ ________________________ ______________________ _________________________ ________________________ ____________________________ ____________________________
Ex:Banana Republic Ex: Lamb Ex: Pinterest
Ex: Financial planner Ex: Home shows Ex: Magazines
Ex: Sedans
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WHO DO YOU MARKET TO?
Your Goal — reaching more of the right customers with the right message using the right channel.
Sources used by Environics: CensusPlus, Nielson Canada, PRIZM5, DELTA5, OpticsMedia, OpticsAutomotive, WealthScapes, FoodSpend, AgeByIncome, TrafficCounts, CommunityHealth and roughly a dozen more data gathering systems.
Go to: www.environicsanalytics.ca and find this image.
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INDUSTRY BEST PRACTICES FOR MARKETING YOUR LISTINGS
NAR 2015 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers
INDUSTRY BEST PRACTICES FOR MARKETING YOUR LISTINGS
WHAT IS MARKETING? The activities of a company associated with buying and selling a product or service. It includes advertising, selling and delivering products to people
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NAR 2015 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers
BEST PRACTICES FOR MARKETING A LISTING
1. CLIENT Manage clients expectations. 2. PHOTO Provide amazing listing photos. 3. BUYER If buyers can’t come to the listing, bring
the listing to them.
4. ONLINE Create custom landing pages to capture leads.
5. SOCIAL Demonstrate your social media savvy.
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EXPECTATIONS
• Be honest and genuine.
• Agree on a strategy, goals, boundaries and timelines
• Make zero assumptions
• Regularly communicate and be a good listener
• Under promise and over deliver
PROVIDE AMAZING LISTING PHOTOS
How you describe a property is extremely important when marketing online. You have to remember that your listing remarks are like the storyboard of the house. You want to
focus on the benefits of the property and provoke curiosity. If you have good property pictures and a video, you don’t need to use all your remarks, after all, don’t they do most of the work for you. Whether you hire a professional photographer, or take your own pictures for a listing, these are the top 6 things to keep in mind.
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PROVIDE AMAZING LISTING PHOTOS
1) Pick an appropriate lens 2) Stage the scene and inspect all the items that will be in the photograph 3) Use great lighting
Open the curtains and turn on all the lights to make the room bright and open. Look at how the natural light falls in the room and showcase this.
4) Level the camera 5) Keep vertical lines vertical
Doors, walls and window frames are almost always perfectly vertical. Shoot lower to the ground- at about the height of light switches (or your belly button). Shooting from standing height often makes furniture look distorted.
6) Shoot horizontal photos over vertical ones where possible The human eye sees the world in a roughly a 4:3 aspect ratio, though the standard ratio is moving to 16:9. Our brain prefers the horizontal/landscape views.
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BEST PRACTICE FOR HOME STAGING
Clear a path. Walk through the home as if you were viewing it for the very first time. If necessary, rearrange furniture so it is easier to tour. Clear the counters. Buyers are looking for a clean slate and lots of space, so it’s important to keep surfaces clear. Put necessary objects – like keys and pens – in appealing baskets or tins for the duration of the sale. Make it sparkle. Urge your sellers to hire a service, and arrive for showings early to make sure beds are made and floors are swept.
Don’t forget the closets. Buyers are nosy and will peek inside closets. Encourage your sellers to organize their closets and get a storage unit to hold overflow. Limit family photos. Home staging creates an environment that welcomes potential buyers to mentally move in. Tons of photos of someone else’s family can impede on that vision. Remove all but a few family photos. Whenever possible, be sure to completely clear the fridge door, too.
De-scent and re-scent. If your listing smells like pets (or smoke), air it out and add some pleasing aroma to the rooms. Let there be light. Throw back the curtains! Light sells houses. No one wants to buy a dark, dingy cave. There’s power in flowers. Live plants are a breath of fresh air in any home (please skip their silk and plastic counterparts).
Notes:
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“IF THEY CAN’T COME TO THE LISTING, BRING THE LISTING TO THEM.”
Sit with your client and review property information together prior to asking for a showing. It may be that your client decides that what is under the snow is not even worth seeing or it gets them exited and motivated to buy! Either way, you save yourself the time and hassle if it is deemed unnecessary.
Technology exists that will let your buyer stand in the home (virtually) and see all the features as if they were actually there without leaving the comfort of their home. An example of this is iGuide which is where we got the screenshot above.
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CREATE CUSTOM LANDING PAGES
When it comes to real estate, the key to success is often in the niches. Niche landing pages work the best when you are canvassing a local neighborhood.
Buyers: Find a sticking point for home buyers. This can be something as simple as a “Neighborhood Review Sheet” or “What You NEED To Know.” And create it in Google Docs or perhaps create a quick ‘cheat sheet’ in the Marketing Centre.
Save it as a PDF. Leverage this piece to incentivize potential buyers to complete a lead capture form on your website (e.g. “Sign up for a Real Estate Buyer’s cheat sheet”) Sellers: 1) The logos and personalization of the page should represent the local scenery as much as possible. 2) Include a phone number in an obvious space. People still like to call sometimes.
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LEVERAGE SOCIAL MEDIA
Not sure what to post or what people will be interested in? Figuring out what to post is simple. Review your previous posts and pay attention to what has been successful in the past. If you are just getting started, check out what others have posted and what has received great interaction.
1. Focus on Local Interests People want to know
what is happening within their local community. In general, post about anything you feel the community would find interesting.
2. Questions Ask questions that are easy and fast to answer to break the ice with your fans and encourage them to converse about topics that interest them.
3. Tips, Tricks & Helpful advice Create short tidbits of insight, advice or tips that can be helpful to your audience. Home staging or decorating tips generally start good discussions.
4. Share Other People’s Content Show fellow industry leaders some love & share their content with your audience whenever you think your audience will find it helpful. Curate some of the best content to showcase in your own social channels.
5. Contests & Giveaways Contests can give people a reason to talk about you and your services.
6. Post Images of You, Your Team, and Happy Clients. Posting photos of you and your team participating in community functions or at office parties helps put a personal face on your business. Potential buyers want to know that they are dealing with real people, not just faceless corporations.
7. Rely on Facebook Page Data. Facebook Insights, an analytics component tied to Facebook pages which provides valuable data about followers — such as their age, gender, and location — that can help you better understand your target market’s demographics.
Best Practices
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LEVERAGE SOCIAL MEDIA
Suggested Apps to assist with social marketing 1) Hootsuite has a dashboard look and supports a number of social media sites including Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+,Foursquare, WordPress, TrendSpottr and Mixi,. Hootsuite also offers simple post scheduling: www.hootsuite.com 2) CoSchedule brings together your marketing content and your social media posts. Plan, organize and schedule all of your content in advance. Check: www.coschedule.com Social Marketer Designation – A Royal LePage exclusive Not sure how to use social media to your advantage? Earn your Social Marketer Designation. This designation has been developed to help you focus your social strategy on building your business. Earning your Social Marketer Designation, means you will:
● Have an effective strategy for 5 major social networks: Facebook, Google+, Instagram, Twitter and Vine.
● Be identified on royallepage.ca with the Social Marketer Designation logo (these will also be provided to you for use in your own marketing)
● Be able to articulate to your current and prospective buyers and sellers that you are on the pulse of social media marketing and will be capable of leveraging your social network to help them achieve their real estate goals.
Earn your Social Marketer Designation via the rlpNetwork:
rlpNetwork.com > Training > Designations > Social Marketer Designation
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2016 REAL ESTATE MARKETING IDEAS
1) Use a Chromecast ($45 + tax) when presenting listing presentations in someone’s home or office.
2) Host a best photo contest for a particular landmark in your community with a grand prize that will get people’s attention. To enter the contest, they must put the photo on Facebook with a specific hashtag . Tell them you will be checking for entries via the hashtag. The person with the most likes on their photo wins the grand prize. Comment on each one posted thanking them for entering the photo contest and with a link to the homes details.
3) Offer free yard sale signs. As you know people who hold Yard Sales are often thinking of decluttering for a sale. If you want to add a Cause Related Marketing spin, then check out the Royal LePage Shelter Foundation’s Garage Sale for Shelter.
4) Create a magnetic school calendar with all the dates of closure and half days for the school year. Make sure it has all your contact information and provide them to all school employees and/or parents.
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SUMMARY
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Text for the Marketing Centre Activity Project: Open House Postcard We will duplicate your listing postcard to quickly create an open house invitation for the neighbourhood. Template: “Is what we do” Postcard
• Project Name: Remove “(copy)” and replace with “Open House” • Text Page:
o List Price: Replace with “OPEN HOUSE” o Property address: Replace with “Sat & Sun: 2-4 PM” o City: Replace with the street address (e.g. “4545 du Licaca Ave”) o Province: Replace with the full city and province (e.g. “Gaspe, QC”) o Value Statement: Replace “Finding your perfect home” with “Helping
your neighbours.” This text always appears before the “IS WHAT I DO” or “IS WHAT WE DO”
o Remarks Label: Replace “Remarks” with the list price. Project: Just Sold Postcard We will now duplicate the Open House postcard to create a just sold postcard Template: “Is what we do” Postcard
• Project Name: Remove “Open House (copy)” and replace with “Just Sold” • Text Page:
o List Price: Replace with “We just sold” o Property address: Replace with “your neighbour’s house” o City: Leave the address or replace it with something like “in your
neighbourhood” for more general distribution. o Province: Leave the city and province here. o Value Statement: Replace “Helping your neighbours” with “Selling over
asking” or “Selling <Neighbourhood name>.” Again, this text is always followed by “IS WHAT I DO” or “IS WHAT WE DO”
o Remarks Label: Replace the list price here with “Contact me to discuss selling your home”.
o Edit the listing description to include some appealing text for a potential seller. In our example we used: “We just sold this home and yours could be next. The interest in your neighbourhood is high right now, strike while the iron is hot.”
