Marketing Listings to a Maximum Buyer Pool

In this episode we share strategies for reaching 4 audiences with your marketing and how to communicate with the seller to re-enforce your value.

Transcript

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Welcome to real estate. Common sense. I'm your host. Lisa Spencer. I grew up in a real estate. Family was a top producing agent and a managing broker for over a decade. Eventually leading an office of over 400 agents. What I've discovered is common sense is not that common. Especially when it comes to launching building or expanding a real estate business. I have interviewed thousands of agents and helped hundreds launch, successful careers.

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Today, we're going to dive into the dangerous waters of marketing. I say dangerous because there are both customary ways of marketing. And individual techniques that agents use to stand out with a unique value proposition that helps them secure listings. This podcast is in no way going to be comprehensive, but it is going to give you the general marketing audiences you need to target. So if you're a seasoned professional tuning in, you might find this information well, common, but drawing on my experience as a managing broker, it is. Is necessary to give newer agents. Or agents that started in the frenzy post COVID market, some resources. According to the 2023 study by the national association of realtors. 90% of buyers use the internet to search for a home. So we're going to talk about the internet first as a way to reach the general public.

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The most popular websites for home search are Zillow, realtor.com and Trulia. So let's begin online and then expand to a multimedia approach. If you're a realtor and you have joined a local board and multiple listing service. Then you'll have an automatic mechanism in place for syndicating or distributing your listings Syndication is the term used to describe the process of allowing multiple websites, such as realtor.com, Zillow, and many others to pull the data from the MLS and restructure it into a consumer friendly format. Our MLS has the ability to syndicate, to hundreds of portals. And as an agent, you, your broker, and most importantly, the seller work together to decide if the listing will be distributed online through syndication. So this is an important point. When you list a property for sale, your seller will access their favorite public portals, looking for their listing. If you, or whoever entered your listing, missed a check box during your data entry the listing may not appear online. So marketing step number one is to confirm that your new listing is appearing online in the best possible position. Have you completed a profile on Zillow or realtor.com or other websites that may enhance your listings appearance, or the ability of a consumer to contact you directly? What process do you have in place to provide the seller with links to the top five syndication sites? So that brings us to another tool. You should employ in your marketing strategy, lIsttrac or list hub and there may be others, but these are the two I'm most familiar with. The multiple listing service usually has either Listtrac or list hub as a part of the service. They provide realtors. These resources provide an easy to read illustrated report that you can send periodically to the seller. It is a practice of our team to send them once a month. These reports detail, how many times the home has been viewed online and can sometimes provide more analytics, like how many times it has been saved or liked. Confirm you are using all the tools that are available within your multiple listing service. Investigate all of the applications and verify the placement of your listings with tools like list track, or by sending screenshots to the seller. It's also important to utilize all the marketing tools provided by your broker. Are you systematically launching marketing campaigns, such as Facebook boosting, Instagram reels, or even TicToc and Pinterest, remember to let the seller know that you're actively marketing their home. Will you offer a virtual tour or go a step further with enhanced or live video? If you're new to real estate, do a YouTube search for homes for sale in the zip code that you are in and see what your competition is up to. Will you employ a videographer with drone capabilities or use your iPad? It is painful to see agents spend tons of money generating leads only to see them skimp on the budget for marketing their listings. Don't be one of those agents. If your financial resources are limited partner with an experienced agent that has the marketing, your listing deserves Or, skip the lead generation spend and grow your business organically and invest in top-notch marketing tools and services. All of this social media based marketing will take the better part of two weeks to execute. So lean into the resources that you pay for through your company or your local realtor tools before you launch into additional marketing expenses. It is important to share your progress with the seller as you navigate through the launch phase of your marketing. These are not free resources. You pay for them through your brokerage fees and board and MLS dues. Think of it as marketing dollars paid in advance. Our lack of communicating our marketing efforts is one reason why sellers question our professional fees. Once you have saturated the internet with your marketing, it may be time to employ a multimedia strategy that touches different layers of your potential buyer pool. In the first few weeks of your listing period, you can take a broad approach of saturating the public at large. We do this through the online tools we just discussed. And, there were a few other marketing hacks we can use like evaluating the feasibility of enhanced signage. Can you host a public open house early in the listing cycle with tons of directional signs complete with extra large pinwheels, our team uses them instead of balloons as escaped, helium balloons are sometimes a hazard. And the pinwheels can be reused. Are you maximizing the effect of your yard sign? Do you have an attractive, easy to read sign? Sign riders, such as" I am beautiful inside" or"fantastic fireplace" or"refreshing swimming pool," may encourage a sign call. My absolute favorite sign rider is"by appointment only." This serves a twofold purpose. It discourages interested buyers from knocking on the door unannounced and sometimes encourages a direct call from the buyer. It is never our intention to discourage anyone from working with an agent. We welcome cooperating agents and immediately encourage buyers to contact their preferred agent. But a call to us sometimes allows us to tout special features and amenities of the home, which may wet the appetite of the buyer. It also gives us the opportunity to reach out to their agent and coordinate a showing and confirm the buyer's qualifications. You can also target the general public through print materials. Although I wouldn't recommend it. You can send print materials such as jumbo, postcards or flyers through the EDDM or every door direct mail service, which is a discount mailing service offered by the us postal service. So to review, your first marketing efforts are a wide net cast to the general public through online marketing, your yard sign and possibly print campaigns. Now it is time to develop a strategy around target marketing. There is a common technique referred to as circle prospecting, which targets a radius around a new listing. Let's say it's 50 to 200 homes. You can announce your new listing through door knocking or cold calling. Of course, remember to pay attention to the do not call registry. There can be up to a$47,792 fine for the first violation of the federal, do not call list. And then the state can add an additional 25,000. If the consumer is also on the state, do not call registry. This is no joke. If you don't want to work up a sweat door knocking and don't have a good resources for scrubbing your phone list, then this is where you may want to send some targeted postcards. Nosy neighbors are a great resource for potential buyers. When a new listing enters the market, there's a buzz on the block. Why not provide some details? You never know who might have a friend or family member that has always wanted to live just around the corner. Another way to develop target marketing is to consider who might move up into this home, or maybe it's a perfect first time home buyer or downsize property. Is your new listing and updated, upgraded 3,500 square foot. Four bedroom home? Use the tax record or other property analytics sites, such as ReMine to help you target an ideal buyer. That may be is in a home that's under 2000 square feet with three bedrooms that they have owned for seven to 10 years. Moving up to your listing may be more affordable than that kitchen and bath renovation. Their home needs. So we've covered marketing to the general public and target marketing. And now let's dive into the most effective marketing. Marketing to your sphere of influence. This is where I feel print marketing is most effective. It was our custom to send a monthly postcard to our sphere of influence. We have talked about this in previous podcasts, but just as a reminder, you want to send a jumbo monthly postcard with your recent listings, pendings and solds. Then put a timely marketing message or story on the back that helps people feel connected to you. These postcards serve as a reminder that they know and engaged, successful professional, always ready to serve realtor. Over time, your sphere will include previous clients, affiliated businesses and other community connections. The great thing about marketing to your sphere is that you should have current email mailing addresses as well as current phone numbers and social media connections with in your database management system. Your sphere of influence listing marketing could include. A, monthly postcard. An email newsletter. An instant messenger, open house announcement, inviting them to stop by and check in and see you. And for your special sphere advocates, a flyer that they can pass out. Or post in their small business. You might want to set up a flow page. You can get two flow pages for free at flowcode.com. You can easily design a custom flow page for your listing or listings complete with an auto-generated customizable QR code. Book market in your phone and share it with everyone you meet. If you can get on someone's smartphone with an easily shareable piece of marketing, you are expanding your reach exponentially. You can check out my flow page as an example at Flowcode.com/page/realestatecommonsense. I cannot emphasize enough how valuable your connections to the community are when it comes to marketing your listings, or your business. There's a fine line between being a vibrant, enthusiastic business owner and a shameful self promoter. And I am here to say, get as close to that line as possible., If you want a big business. Before we move on to our final marketing audience, let's check some boxes. We're marketing to the general public. Check. We are utilizing all of our online resources, signage and open houses. Target marketing. Check. We have a creative and resourceful way of marketing to these targeted consumers, hopefully using some marketing tools provided by our broker in this space. Then sphere of influence check. No excuses. If you don't have a large sphere of influence, get out there and meet people and see how you can help them. There's no better way to build relationships than offering to give. This brings us to our final powerful marketing Audience, fellow Realtors. Yes, I hope you recognize the value of your connections with your colleagues. Just like the advocates in your sphere of influence your efforts of marketing to the real estate professionals that you know has an exponential effect. Any given realtor could have multiple buyers that may be a fit for your listing. Here are just a few of the ways that you can market to the real estate community The first is reverse prospecting, most MLS services have a reverse prospecting feature. This is a tool that helps identify realtors that have search criteria set up for a buyer That are a general match for your listing. Reach out to those realtors to see if you can provide any additional information. Some reverse prospecting tools even identify if the prospect has viewed the home in an online portal. Don't get paranoid about all this AI. You will not see the prospect's name that has viewed the home. You will not see their contact information just a reference number that the agent can use to locate the prospect. Another way to reach agents is with a broker open house or pitch session If your colleagues no longer indulge in caravans or midweek realtor open houses Then look into live or online pitch sessions. And, if your real estate community doesn't have one, maybe you should start one. We have had an unprecedented run of a market that favors sellers with inventory moving at the speed of light. Creating a vehicle for sharing information with local realtors can help us move homes in a transition or buyer's market which we may be headed into. You can also take flyers, postcards or your qr code for your flow page to your real estate community events, such as new construction launches, continuing education courses, or realtor social events. Some agents email brochures to area realtors, but keep in mind that only 20% of emails are opened, so increase your odds with a hook in the subject line. Like,"seller paid closing cost assistance" or"interest rate buy down available"

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Lastly, use your MLS tools to research the agents that sell the most in the community or zip code in which your listing is located. Send a handwritten note, acknowledging their influence in the area and include a couple of your brochures. Asking them to keep your listing in mind. A sincere compliment can open opportunities. Let's wrap this up with a few resources you can tap into if your broker is limited in the technology resources they offer, or if you're an individual practitioner. We already mentioned flow code.com, which provides two free flow pages complete with QR code. You also may want to check out list reports.com for tons of marketing templates, including social media posts. This service is more robust. If you partner with a lender. Both the basic and partnered service plans are free to realtors. And who can survive without canva.com going pro is a must, but it's very affordable. The best video editor that I have found is descript.com, which allows you to edit your video by cutting and pasting from a written script. It is scary good. Again, the free version will quickly frustrate you. So a paid version will be worth it. Animoto.com creates fun and animated slide shows that you can use for virtual tours. And I just love batch geo.com to create maps of community amenities. After all, buyer's purchase the location too. Regardless of the intensity of your marketing plan: which can go well beyond what we've reviewed in this past few minutes, always remember to document and share your efforts with the seller. A major complaint from consumers is that they never hear from their agent. Make it a part of your routine to have regular communication with your people. Many of our marketing efforts are automated and systematized, but that should not stop us from sharing what we are doing to expose our listings to the maximum buyer pool possible. Your sellers will appreciate your efforts and your time. Having regular communication during the marketing period helps us prepare for future negotiations and the inspection and due diligence phases. This helps us familiarize ourselves with the behavioral styles and communication preferences of our sellers that will continue to help us in the process. We hope you enjoyed our sampling of a few marketing techniques and found a nugget or two that you can use to increase your marketing efforts. For a more detailed exploration look for our live training session titled"super power websites" which provides over 30 online resources available for you to market your listings, and your business. In our next episode we will share how to present and negotiate offers. Subscribe to our podcast so you don't miss anything as we share"Real Estate Common Sense," support for agents launching building or expanding their real estate business I'm your host, Lisa Spencer, sending love and wishing you success!