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On December 15th Launch A Cyber Open House and Rock the Casbah

Where will you be on December 15th?

I will be at my computer along with millions of other Americans Host a Cyber Open House and Rock the Casbah shopping for the rest of my holiday gifts and sprucing up my meal plans for the holiday festivities. The Monday two weeks prior to Christmas is traditionally the heaviest online internet shopping day. It garners even more traffic than Cyber Monday.

Internet traffic jingles December 15th....Go ahead and Get Your Share.

Can a real estate professional break off a piece of that action? You betcha. If you want to get internet foot traffic than jingle jangles on December 15th you've got 7 days until launch. You've got enough time to get serious and get it on.

Launch a Cyber Open House and Rock the Casba. Let me tell you how.

Let's Recap:

Hold an Open House on your website.
Showcase 3 local recipes from local (not franchise) restaurants with gift certificate and/or coupons on holiday brunch specials.
Showcase 3 real estate listings that have a good entertaining setup- nice large kitchen/family room to tie in with the entertainment theme.
Launch the Cyber Open House on December 15, 2008.
Advertise to locals via blog post, video and audio syndication and local newspaper if the readership volume is still high to come to a holdiay open house at your house where you showcase the same content as your cyber open house.
Host an offline Open House Before Christmas. If pressed for time, launch after Christmas and before New Year's Eve.
Include Santa Clause or Father time for the kids attending who will be on Winter Break from School.
Invite a local loan officer is present to handle those financing questions and inform about local and national programs to help finance your guest's house.

Have fun with this and be creative.

Take advantage of the internet foot traffic on December 15th and launch a Cyber Open House that rocks the Casbah.

**UPDATE: I've uploaded a mindmap to illustrate all the different avenues available to you to draw traffic to your Cyber Open House.

The more traffic you bring to your Cyber Open House, the more traffic you can have at your offline open house.**

Posted by Rebecca Levinson, Real Estate Marketing Consultant on 12/08/2008 06:36 PM

Comments (39)

lead generation, december 15th, open house, real estate marketing

Originally posted at: Real Estate Marketing Drips: On December 15th Launch A Cyber Open House and Rock the Casbah

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39 Comments on On December 15th Launch A Cyber Open House and Rock the Casbah

DEC

Sounds like a great idea, I think so many people forget about real estate this time of year... if Realtors would just "work" there would be more business to be had in December!

Hello Rebecca, you always have great information, keep it up!

Wow Rebecca! You go girl! I think this is a great idea. I do have one question. If this is marketed properly, do you foresee any problems with your website running slow due to all of the traffic? My only concern is that people will become frustrated with the waiting time and leave your website.

Aside from that I think that this one fantastic idea. Talk about thinking outside the box!

Please remember to share the results with us! Go Rebecca!

Linda Kemp, Keller Williams Realty, Naperville, IL

I am going to come back tonight and check the links. Excellent idea. I have been studying on my SEO and working on a website so that would be a perfect launch idea.

Robert- I think all business professionals get swept up in the holiday season. Truth be told this is a great month for selling and marketing and planning for 2009. Jubal- Thank you I am glad your enjoying the blog.

Linda- I think you probably should check with your website service provider/webmaster. I was thinking after I wrote this, you might want to have a feeder site/blog for this marketing launch.....for example- http://yourdomain.com/openhouse....or a new site/blog just for this project with links to your about me page, your contact info., etc. from your main website/blog.

I am leaving this in the hands of any interested real estate professional to take the ball and run with. I am a real estate marketing consultant for real estate professionals:-) So Linda, go for it and have fun.

Larry- Awesome!!! Go for it.

Anyone who uses "The Clash" in thier blog deserves to be featured in my book! Not to mention its a great idea.

Rebecca, My friend, you are a genius. I am going to bookmark this post and work on this. You know, I am not the techiest, but I think I can pull some of these off. Thanks for always giving us such good ideas.

Great information to keep the advertising going during the holidays.

Sensational idea. I would have never thougt of something like this, keep the thinking cap going.........

Rebecca,

Great post. I like the turn table. I enjoy your creative ideas. Oh, by the way...keep reading! :)

Rebecca - Really great idea. I unfortunately don't have the traffic to justify this just yet (as I am not 100% operational on my site), but it will be filed in my "great ideas of things to do" list. I also credit you for your mention of The Clash as I was fortunate enough to meet Joe Strummer before his untimely death and I have to say, it was one of those great moments in life for me (he was a genius and a really great guy).

Linda - I don't know how many people you're expecting, but if something like this is a concern for you, you should really look into a new hosting service. These days bandwidth is very available if you choose the right host and shouldn't be a major concern. I have run a site with over 4,000,000 visitors a month (our best day was over 1,000,000 alone) serving a lot of video, images, and audio (streaming as well...so many people kept it running through the day and used up a considerable amount of bandwidth) and never experienced anything in the way of downtime other than scheduled maintenance and two episodes related to hackers. (The site was non-real estate related...just thought I should mention that.)

What a great idea! i think the traffic can be found if you use your social network and blogs! Let us know how it works!

When I think of great content, I do think of wine and cheese.

WHen I think of THe Clash, Sandinista comes to mind

"Charlie don't surf, but we thnk he should..."

I date myself.

Steve

Obeoman

The cyber open houses are an excellent idea ! We could potentially do several across the country and various counties within each state all through Active Rain !! Imagine that : )

Fantastic idea!!! Thanks for sharing how to do it. Great for the whole winter season. And excellent point to share with current and potential sellers during listing presentations. Thanks again!!

Bosshardt Realty- Thank you....the Clash, memories, 'tis the season. Audrey- You are so welcome and I know you can do this, I have read your culinary post, this is one right up your alley girlfriend.

Russ- Never stop branding:-)

Rebecca- The fact that you can see this path, I bet you can think of more than you imagine. Your mind seems to be open and that's key.

Tony- Thank you. The turntable was right from the youtube I embedded, the rest, all mine:-) P.S. I will always keep reading, no worries there.

Matt- I am glad this post reminded you of a fond and memorable time for you:-) I have read posts that have definitely done that for me.

Sonja- It can and I am leaving this to you and any other takers:-)

Steve- I think that would actually make you popular these days, "Dude, you know the Clash":-)

Christopher and Stephanie- I like that thought....alot:-)

Monica- Happy to share. That's the ticket and the real deal. There will be a seller and a buyer in a real estate transaction. The real estate agent is truly the real estate marketer. You want to present your real estate knowledge in a way that makes clients sit up and take notice.

Rebecca, This is a greaat idea. I am starting to work on this tonight. Really thinking outside of the box

DEC

There's a whole lot to think about in this post. I can see the online, but I don't think I'm ready right now for an open house especially with my son's first birthday on 12/18.

A great idea but the question should be a balance of if you invite everyone to an open house to increase traffic aren't you also

increasing security risks?

Rebecca I have been hearing more and more about this kind of marketing avenue. It sounds intriguing. I do not waste my time doing public open houses though as they are a waste of time and energy for my client. Definitely like the song:)

Christine- Understood. You can pare this down. At minimum, I would recommend writing a post, maybe use your own recipe, or contact 1 local restaurant....and create a slidshow of a few properties to add to it. Use keyword discovery to choose your keywords and you can have a pared down version and still look to reap the benefits from the surge in online traffic.

One idea is to concentrate on one food item, a theme. That way you maximize the effort with limited time, like different ways to prepare hot chocolate.

Susan- Awesome. Send me an email I would love to check it out.

Joel- Open house is a name, maybe a misnomer in this case, because you will be holding your house open. More like a Christmas party. I think safety is a concern in general when dealing with the public. You can choose a group to send an invite only to the offline open house. You could also just do the Cyber Open House.

Safety should always be in the plan when working with the public for sure. Thanks Joel.

Bill- The open house is more like a launch party where you extend the "Cyber Open House" into the "real offline" world so you can do the meet and greet. As I said to Joel above, it might be a misnomer, consider it a launch party or a holiday party.

I haven't been reading on this type of marketing, However, I am glad to hear that it's being spoken/written of Because this meshing of the online and offline is a very natural fit thanks to social networking. Social networking is one of the best things that could have happened to marketers and sales professionals. The contact from online to offline is so natural.

Reminds me of another great song- Synchronicity.

Rebecca- What a great post and congrats on your gold star! This is worthy of a feature for the content but also for the variety of presentation. You rock! Beat me to using utterli on my blog:)

Katerina- Thank you. I will continue to mix it up.

Cool tips Rebecca. Thanks for sharing. Also, congrats on the feature!

Thanks John:-)

I like the idea of an "Open House" -thank you for explaining the meshing of offline and on line. a little confusing.

I am not sure how that works for people who work out of their home studios... security issues then become more important.

In some ways it sounds like a gallery opening.

Hi Joel,

I work from my home and have for 8 years. I think you can adopt the ideas here to your own level of comfortability here.

I am glad you found the explanation from online to offline a little easier to digest. I am especially glad because this is an important concept when working on the internet. Not in all, but in many niches and real estate sales there is an important offline component. Eventually the conversation should be carried offline.

DEC

Rock on Ms. creativity! I love it when people think "Outside the box". Thanks for the tips and have a great weekend.

DEC

What a great idea! Thank you for your creativity!

DEC

George- Thank you.....I wanna crush the box, that's my philosophy....it's when you are able to disregard that a box is even there that it becomes invisible. It's when you get down in it and you just CRUSH it.

Evelyn- Thank you I am glad you enjoyed it.

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