Renae;

     I found your marketing idea interesting and so I just popped over to zillow.com and went to the bottom of the page of listings in my area based on the number of days the home has been advertised.  You are on to something!  I only searched photos of 5 homes and each of them were homes that could greatly be improved upon with anything from removing wallpaper to simply rearranging furnishings to show the greater potential of the rooms.  I am definitely going to revisit the site when I have a bit more time and get to work on those postcards!

What a wonderful marketing reminder. 

Cheers!

Here is what I posted about this http://activerain.com/blogsview/398715/You-can-t-just

Thanks

BB

I actually tried this technique in January but didn't get any responses.  However, I only sent to about 50 homes as I had decided to narrow my focus and I only tried it once.  Perhaps I gave up to soon.  I also just sent to occupied listings.

This technique was one of my major efforts last July/Aug.  After researching older listings and reviewing them online, I found the sellers via reverse white pages and sent them a letter with a flyer.  I probably sent out 120, and got zero responses.  I've had better luck targeting the REA.

Gina - Glad you like the idea!  That's the point - to get people thinking about other ways to market themselves.  Thanks for commenting.

BB - Thanks for sharing that link.

Sandra - As with most prospecting, you typically don't get a huge response from the first try.  Maybe your marketing piece needs to be revised a bit.  Most likely, you have to try more than once to get the reuslts.

Julia - Sorry to hear you didn't get any responses from your efforts.  However, as I said to Sandra, did you send   out just one piece?  If so, maybe you need to do more than one mailing or revise the marketing piece you sent out.  Glad to hear that you are having succss contacting the agents!

~Renae

I too think it's a great idea!  Thanks for sharing, Renae.

Kathy

Renae, One of the things I like about your post is that you give details concerning the steps which can be taken to make this marketing effort a reality. I notice that you mention in some of the comments that you think it might be a good idea to continue the campaign if (when) there isn't immediate action on the part of the recipients. Do you think the same addresses should be used again for the second mailing? If so, what do you suggest concerning how long to wait before sending the second or follow-up cards? Thanks for the very interesting post! 

Kathy - Thanks! I hope you can take advantage of it!

Yvonne - Definitely!  You use the same addresses for a series of postcards or set up a specific marketing campaign for those addresses.  If you want to reduce your costs, include a combination of postcards, telephone calls (if you have a phone number), and items that you could drop off. That last one might even get you in the door if you pick your times properly. You could wait a week (no more than 7 days) before moving on to the next stage in your marketing campaign.

Let me know if you have any other questions!

~Renae

Cool Renae, Thanks!

Thanks Renae!  Good ideas and great answer to Yvonne!  It would be nice to hear of some successes though...maybe someone will write in! Thanks for thinking of us!! Regards-Kathleen G

Yvonne - You are more than welcome!

Kathleen - I'm eager to hear of success stories as well.  That's the only downside to this.  I have not had the priviledge to work with any stagers to give this one a shot so I don't have any hands-on knowledge of typical results.  I hope someone writes in though.  Thanks for commenting!

~Renae

I do this regularly, but actually contact the REA, not the homeowner.  The problem is that it is a real numbers game.  While you may get work from this (and we definately have) you will need to do maybe a few hundred to get a real job from it.  It's not a bad way to spend an afternoon that you aren't working though.  If you do it via email it is free....

Renae,

I like the idea of contacting  the sellers directly, but when sending a mail piece the biggest hurdle is to get the recipient to actually read it.

Something that has worked for me in the past is to actually take an exterior photo of the property and Photoshop a sold sign on it and make a post card out of it. You can also use a sticker for the sold sign. Then for the text you could say something like "There are 4 things I can do to get your house sold. Give me a call before your next price drop!" It's a little more time consuming but it is more personal and when somebody sees a picture of their own home they are much more likely to stop and read it. 

Susan;

    That is awesome marketing!!!  How much success have you had with that? 

Renae, you obviously have started a lot of us thinking today.  Thanks!

Cheers,

Some good ideas here - thanks for Susan's as well - it takes work and lots of it - we just keep educating here ( not a staging area) and then selling our service.

It's nice that you would think of home stagers in the mix of things...thanks!

Thanks, Renae. for introducing us to zillow.com.  Many real estate sites don't show days on the market...good information for stagers and potential buyers.

Wendy Casey - Vancouver, BC

Great tip!

Sara from Zillow here, now this is a use of Zillow I hadn't heard yet!  I wonder what the conversion ratio would be if you targeted FSBOs vs Agent represented? 

I have spent time looking on line at homes that really need to be staged and I usually contact the agent.  Sometimes I hear back from them and sometimes I don't.  But, as someone else said, it may be worth an afternoon when you  are not working.  A couple of years ago, I tried sending letters to FSBO's and I had NO RESPONSE.  Oh well... always learning. 

Pam Ives, Home Staging of Wilmington

Renae, We used this technique last year and unfortunately did not receive any response.  There were about 20K homes on MLS at that time, so we targeted a particular price range/area.  We will surely try this again using a different set of parameters.  Thanks for the reminder.

Melissa - How often do you mail to the list?  I'd love to hear details of how you've gotten this idea to work for you!

Susan - Thanks for giving such an in-depth explanation of how to work this marketing tactic!  There is a company that you can use to send one postcard to the seller with their home's photo on it.  It is called AmazingMail.com.  Check it out!

Gina - That's my job! To get those creative juices flowing!

~Renae

Kathleen - You are absolutely right!  It does take lots of work but it is definitely worth it!

Cindy - You're welcome.  It happened naturally.  I'm always thinking of marketing ideas so, when I learned about stagers, I started thinking about marketing ideas for them, too!

Wendy - You're welcome.  Actually, it was Susan Peters who told me about Zillow.  I just took the information she gave me and ran with it!

~Renae

Audrey - Thanks for reading!

Sara - That's a really good question!  I wonder if anyone has used this technique to target FSBOs.  If so, I hope they speak up and tell us how it worked for them!

Pam - Did you use the same method to contact the FSBOs - I mean, did you use either the MLS or Zillow to find them?

Gary - You're welcome.  Hopefully this time around, you'll get some success from it!

~Renae

One thing I've noticed from the responses from people who have tried this is that most of you said it didn't work.  I wonder, how many times did you contact the seller (or agent) before giving up?  With our clients, we never stop at one contact.  Statistics have shown that it takes numerous contacts before you receive any kind of response.  Are you putting those people on some type of drip campaign to stay in touch with them? If you don't have time to do that, here is an excellent opportunity to give a Virtual Assistant a try.  This is the perfect "project" to outsource to start getting some regular marketing taken care of without you being the one to wear that hat.

Just something to think about!

~Renae

I will give it a try...I will try anything new at this point. Thanks for sharing

The company that I trained with suggests this approach so I tried it for a while.  I probably sent out a few hundred post cards and got no responses.  I've had better luck targeting the agents.  

Mary - Be sure to set up an actual marketing campaign for these people - not just sending out one postcard.  Let us know how it works for you!

Maureen - Did you do any other follow-up or just sent out the post cards?

~Renae

Hi Renae-

I have sent out postcards to occupied home sellers and included a discount with card, but no response. I did not send any followup information, though.

Kathy

The postcard idea is very good, and works well.  But guessing that we all fall down on the follow up.  Reminders are good for us, no matter how long we've been in the business.

Staged homes are a pleasure to show.

Some great ideas here. We have had limited success with homes that have been on the market 90+ days (or those who are on Realtor number 3 or 4). Too often, these sellers didn't want to do what needed to be done in the first place or they haven't accepted the reality of today's pricing. 

Kathy - Follow-up is key!  I like the idea of a discount card, too!

Terrylynn - It takes a few times of someone seeing your info before they'll actually contact you so follow-up is very important.

Leo and Stephanie - That's exactly what I've been reading on Active Rain!  Thanks for the comment.

Celeste - Have you tried reaching sellers who have only been on the market 30+ days?

~Renae

Hi!  Just joining both this group and this conversation.  Here's my 2 cents...

I used Zillow to look up listings that were still for sale but their listing date was a month old.  Zillow was the only website/resource I could find that would give the address and that listing date.  Then I did reverse address lookup on a couple of "white pages"-type websites to get a name.  I mailed flyers to about 10 listings, and received one back (returned mail) and didn't hear from the others.  I didn't follow up though.

I also purchased a small ad on Zillow in the zip codes where I do my organizing and staging services, and it was really inexpensive.  $25 for 2500 ad views. No feedback on that yet, but you never know!

Patty (Plymouth, MA)

I've thought of doing this in the past, but was going to target the listing REA's (as Melissa mentioned she has had some success with above).  When I get around to doing it, I plan on getting pre-printed postcards with a little space for me to write a personalized note to the REA made up with photos of my work on the front. If staging that particular listing doesn't pan out, I still might be getting in front of an agent that didn't know I was here. It seems like a very affordable marketing idea, especially if you e-mail instead of mailing postcards as mentioned above.  Thanks!

Patty - Follow-up is important!  And it never is too late to start following up on past contacts.  You could start tomorrow!

Sandi - E-mail is fine but you really want to get something in their hands that thy may keep around for a while.  So don't depend solely on e-mail.  Use a mixture!

~Renae

Renae -

My husband actually thought of this and had me go through and pull vacant houses (I seem to specialize in those) that were sitting for a while and he called the agents. It's not my style but he doesn't mind doing that. The feedback wasn't bad, although we didn't get a job from it. We will probably try it again when things slow up. I think it is better to contact the agent.