Letting people know about your Grand Rapids, Michigan Real Estate Open House is probably the most important goal to accomplish if the event is going to be successful in marketing and selling your homes. This is a daunting task in a world where most people are trying to figure out how to NOT to read advertisements.
Traditional Vs. Creative Approaches...
It is important to use traditional mediums of exposure AND be be Creative in your approach to utilize New Methods to promote your Open House in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Traditional mediums include newspapers advertising, an Open House notification on the real estate board and real estate postcards sent to the surrounding neighborhood homes. Traditional Advertising needs a minimum of a 2 week lead time...more time is better!
However, we have found that many potential home buyers do not respond to traditional methods in the same manner that they did a decade ago. So, we've compiled some additional suggestions to increase your response rate.
1. Invite the Neighbors for Coffee:
Calling the neighbors around your neighborhood in Grand Rapids to invite them to tour the home and have a snack and a cup of coffee to talk about what's going on in the real estate market and get a Free copy of the Neighborhood Heat Map can also encourage Open House traffic. The main issue is to provide a good reason why neighbors would want to receive some education about the market. You can make this a mini-seminar about Neighborhood Investments or Foreclosures etc. Enlist the expertise of your real estate agent!
While these neighbors may not be in the market to buy the home, they may know someone who is. We have Sold houses to Neighbors who knew someone who was the perfect buyer for the home we were holding open.
Encourage your Neighbors to come by calling them personally. This will generate an even higher response rate than your real estate agent calling and enhance your real estate agent's traditional advertising. If your agent is giving away prizes for attendance, make sure your friends, neighbors and family members know about this!
2. Tell A Story...
Story Telling can be a very effective method to market a home. Many consumer products are now being marketed by short stories which portray nostalgic moments or highlight the vision of the product founders. The organic food industry has done this brilliantly.
The next time you pick up an organic food product in the grocery store, turn it over and look past the label. Invariably you'll see a short tale of cows enjoying the green pasture and being nurtured so they produce more milk. Just what it takes to make you buy that gallon of milk for $1.50 MORE than the generic brand!
Applying this principle to marketing a home can be very effective. One of the best tools is through Blogging. You can set up a blog about your home yourself. It's fairly easy to do. However, the challenge is getting people to read your Home Blog. If your agent has a blog, this situation can be remedied.
3. How We Can Help...
At Audu Real Estate, we have several successful real estate blogs and a website which rank on pages 1 and 2 on Google and other search engines for a number of real estate terms in the Grand Rapids, Michigan area. When we post your listings online, your home address will index when entered into a search profile.
Our blog traffic brought over 140,000 visitors to our sites last year and thousands of comments from our readers. Many of these visitors had the opportunity to view our listed homes. An Open House advertisement on a good real estate website or blog can be an extraordinary way to Expand Your Open House Reach.
Lastly, Lola Audu has taught a number of real estate related courses. If you'd be interested in holding a FREE mini-Neighborhood Seminar, (30 minutes) contact us at info@auduhomes.com to schedule your booking.
If you'd like to see some examples of how our marketing can help you sell your Grand Rapids, Michigan home, please e-mail us at info@auduhomes.com.
In Part 5 of this series, we will look at Holding a Virtual Open House and other interesting Open House tactics.
To Read other entries in this series...Click here.
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