Generating Open House Traffic

Ok, Summer's here and you're getting itchy for a week off, and so are all the consumers out there. They have the same lives we have: kids to the pool, kids to the movies, trying to find a few days to escape to the beach or the mountains or where ever. Summer can be a little slower because we and the consumers both have other things going on. So, how do you keep generating traffic for your Open Houses?

I know some you out there aren't having so much trouble with this, but if you plug this into your situation you might even get more traffic; and isn't that the name of the game?

First of all you have to believe that Open Houses are good. I have always been a big proponent of Open Houses being a big part of your prospecting plan, especially new agents. But they can be more than that. You can get added advertising exposure, added exposure from the signage, and generate some traffic to help provide a broad spectrum of feedback for the seller.

So we all agree trafic is the key, who wants to keep sitting lonely Open Houses all Summer? Then do something about it!

Create a plan (or use one from someone like me) that generates some extra activity and interest - and I'm not talking about food.

Step 1, get going on a good ad two weeks out, stop being redundant talk about the lifestyle not the bedrooms.

Step 2, put that ad everywhere. Use the newspapers, your website, even create an event on your social networks.

Step 3, PUT UP SIGNS. Sorry for shouting but this is critical. On Monday the week of the Open House put up your OPEN SUNDAY signs and get permission from neighbors along the route to put up Open Sundaydirectional signs. If you don't believe me go back and look at all the Open House visitors that said they saw the sign and just stopped in.

Step 4, make new Open House fliers and put them out a week early. Then invite all the neighbors and deliver a flyer to them.

Step 5, Get on the phone!!!! Call everyone you know and ask them to stop by and evaluate the house, call all your buyers and ask them the same, call all your past Open House visitors and ask them to do the same, call all your sellers and expireds and FSBO and ask them to do the same, call all the co-brokes who have shown it and those who did not and ask them also to to give you and evaluation. And keep calling all week. A few of us were discussing this the other day on a long drive back from Pittsburgh and we came up with a great motivator for these friends and consumers to come out to our Open Houses; tell them you are trying to do this like they do it on that TV show from HGTV. Now, who can resist that.

We all do a little of these and we have a little success, some of us just do an ad and a sign in the front yard and hope for the best. But what if we called and called and called, and rounded up 10 people (or even 20 or 30) who have no interest in this house. "Well," you say "at least I won't be lonely." But you missed the big picture. All those people know other people (their sphere) that they now can reach with your listing. The Internet calls this 'going viral.' If 10 people see the house and they each only tell 1 person you have doubled your exposure.

My favorite example is a call I received one gloomy Wednesday afternoon from someone who heard about a house we had for sale from a friend of his at work. This caller wanted to see the house immediately. It seems they recently moved here and their initial relocation house hunting was a bust and they hated the little rental house they ended up in. This guy's friend had visited our Open House and took the flyer to work. The rest is history...

That was the day I started believing some of the other things my boss was trying to teach me.

So the moral of the story is, keep an open mind, try something you may not yet understand, and get your marketing into the hands of some people who can put it into the hands of their sphere and so on.

Now get out there and make it a great Summer, and do something fun too!