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Advertising and Marketing Overload for Open Houses?

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Mortgage and Lending with Central One Federal Credit Union NMLS #2136196

Advertising and Marketing Overload for Open Houses?

 

When I have a listing, I pride myself on using a great variety of tools to promote the home and reach the greatest audience possible.  Similarly, when I have an open house on a listing, I utilize my toolbox to broadcast the event as widely as possible.

Lately, it had been feeling to me that updating my listings and open house announcements was feeling a bit cumbersome, and time-consuming to say the least.  So today I sat down and drew a picture of all the places that my open houses are getting advertised and marketed, and I came up with 12 different sites plus newspaper. 

The 12 sites do not include secondary sites that are reached via syndication from a mother site.  These 12 sites are primary places where I manually update listing information.  No wonder I'm feeling a bit bogged down.

My return on my open house marketing has an extremely low yield.  Yesterday, I had two parties visit my open house.  Two.  After spending hours tweaking, tweeting, and beeping my open house, only two parties visited and neither had found the open house online!  Needless to say, I am feeling that I need to cut out some of the online sites where I post listing information.  Return on investment is l-o-w.

Before I tear my listing plan apart, I'd like to hear from other real estate pros about their open house marketing.  Do you do much more than put your open house in the MLS and newspaper ad?  How many online sites do you push your open house advertising to?  What sites yield the greatest results? 

Thank you for all of your help!

 

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Text and photos copyright Kathryn J. Acciari unless otherwise noted. 
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Kathryn Acciari, Mortgage Loan Originator
Cell: (508) 982-0686   
Email:
kacciari@archomeloans.com

Blog: Kathryn's Blog
Twitter: @kacciari

TeamCHI - Complete Home Inspections, Inc.
Complete Home Inspections, Inc. - Brentwood, TN
Home Inspectons - Nashville, TN area - 615.661.029

Kathryn. Interesting dilemma. I think that there are many who feel the same frustration...

May 16, 2011 02:18 PM
Michele Cadogan 917-861-9166
Fillmore Real Estate 2990 Av U, Bklyn , NY 11229 - Brooklyn, NY
Licensed Real Estate Associate Broker -

 

Dont give up- yesterday there was a post here on Active Rain the the author said that she post here open houses on FaceBook as an Event  its something that I have not tried but I will add it to the list of things that I do.

May 16, 2011 04:49 PM
Kathryn Acciari
Central One Federal Credit Union - Shrewsbury, MA
Mortgage Loan Originator

Michael:  I suppose a lot of it is local.  Our area is quite rural and so there is not a lot of traffic.

Michele:  Thanks for the enocouragement and the tip about Facebook events.  I'll have to try that and see if it brings any results.

May 16, 2011 10:38 PM
Conrad Allen
Re/Max Professional Associates - Webster, MA
Webster, Ma, Realtor

Hi Kathryn - Open houses are like a box of chocolates.  You never know what you are going to get with the same type of advertising.

May 16, 2011 11:28 PM
Kathy Torline
ERA Herman Group Real Estate - Colorado Springs, CO
Colorado Springs Real Estate Blog 719-287-1049

I usually get my best return on visitors for open houses by putting out lots of signage, 15 to 20 signs.    When I ask people how they decided to come to the open house; they almost always say they saw the signs.

May 17, 2011 12:25 AM
Gwynn Carpenter
Gwynn Teal Carpenter-Broker: Home and Hearth Realty (Austin) - Austin, TX
: Broker, Home & Hearth Realty (512)467-6191

Kathryn:  Suggested this post!  I'm not a big fan of open houses but do respect the wishes of my sellers when they ask for one.  But with that said, other than list it in the MLS which takes just a few minutes at most, I rely on the old fashion OPEN HOUSE signs. 

 I believe you get more folks coming via multiple signs (12 at least) because of the visual than you do of putting it online - newspapers have almost become a thing of the past so unless you have very savvy consumers who make it a practice searching for open houses on the internet, I think you'd be better off placing your OPEN HOUSE SIGNS  to drive traffic to you.

May 17, 2011 08:59 AM
Kathryn Acciari
Central One Federal Credit Union - Shrewsbury, MA
Mortgage Loan Originator

Conrad:  Okay, thanks Forrest.  :-)

Kathy:  That's an idea that seems to work - bandit signs and lots of directional signs.  I'll have to order a supply.

Gwynn:  Thank you - that's very nice of you.  I actually enjoy open houses...when they are well-attended.  One of our newspapers gets fairly good readership for open houses, but the other does not.

May 17, 2011 02:22 PM