We all know that the marketing conditions are...well...not what we are used to. Not bad, just different. Now it's time to really get to work!
Communication should be the biggest key in your relationship with your clients these days. You probably wonder, well what am I supposed to tell my seller that I haven't already told them (now that you've had their home on the market for 60 days)? I just thought I would share a few tips and secrets that I have found sellers really love and keep them up to date with what's going on:
- email any graphs or statistics of active, pending and sold homes in the city their home is located, monthly. This way they can see that it's not just their home, or their tract, that is moving slow, it's the whole city (not to mention the whole nation).
- if their property is on Realtor.com and you are a member, you can go into the back office and go to the reports section (I believe you have to have a slight upgrade to your Realtor.com membership to do this) and you can either print out or email a report directly from Realtor.com. This report will show your client on a monthly, weekly and daily basis how many people are viewing their home and clicking on virtual tours. We send these out monthly.
- always mail sellers all of the print advertising that has come out and highlight/flag their property so it’s easy for them to find and they don’t get distracted looking at other agent ads.
- find interesting articles, or stories that may affect their community and email/mail them to your seller's. This way, you not only look like you are on top of what's going on, but that you care what's going on.
- remind agents about your listings more often. It's helpful to go to office meetings and pitch your properties, even if it's more than once and ESPECIALLY if you have a price change. People forget, they need to be reminded.
- SHOWING FEEDBACK (ugghh...I know), BUT!!!!! there is a great website called HomeFeedBack.com that I have recently started using. You load your property info (minimal), photo, virtual tour link and basic information on this site. Then when you get an agent card or run your lockbox to get the agent showings, you simply enter their info onto this site and it will send the agent an email automatically where they will answer questions that you have already pre-selected and it will email back either only you directly or you and your seller. This is great because the seller can interact with this website and have their own sign-in and check in on what's going on when they want. They can also load the agent cards themselves so the contact to the agent gets out quicker. It's fun, it keeps everybody in the loop and it seems to be working. Everybody loves feedback!
Also, a great marketing tool that not too many people use yet is HomeCards. They are business card sized brochures of your listings and sellers LOVE THEM! They always think that they can sell their home the best so they pass them out at community events, friends…and not to mention, you can carry all of your listings with you at once, they’re great when you're out networking or simply the unexpected. I can't begin to tell you the positive response I have gotten with these and the relief of having brochures of my listings everywhere I go, instead of trying desperately to describe a house to somebody.
Good luck all, the market's a changin' but so is our capability of communication, advertising and technology...let's take advantage of it AND USE IT!
DOES ANYBODY ELSE OUT THERE HAVE SOMETHING THEY'VE FOUND REALLY EFFECTIVE WITH THEIR CLIENTS?
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