Suspicious of Traditional Methods? So Are We.

A speaker in a recent Real Estate Coaching Class commented that the past few years of real estate have been a little too easy on real estate agents. He went on to say that our listing skills might have gotten a little lazy and maybe we should re-evaluate...sharpen some skills that might be necessary for a changing market.

Got me thinking (I know, I really need to stop that. I could break something.) Too late. It got me thinking about our own bozTEAM listing marketing and one of our first upside-down ads created by the brilliant marketing team at firecracker:

What does this ad mean? It's not that traditional methods don't work. It's just that, because we limit the number of buyers and sellers we work with; we have to be SURE to spend our time and money wisely on the RIGHT METHODS FOR THAT PARTICULAR PROPERTY.

We DON'T:

1. Throw money at a homes magazines or register tape ads or bus bench marketing.
   
2. Place weekly ads in a laundry list of print or websites because of a promise we made in a listing presentation so our list could be longer than some other agent's list.
3. Hold an open house every weekend.

 Why not?

1. Because ads everywhere won't sell your house. And many of those ad locations are about publicizing an agent, not a house. That works for agents who want a lot of business. But we work with a limited number of buyers and sellers at a time. We don't want to market US. And, while it does make sellers happy to see their house in lots of print locations...if the house doesn't sell because it's not placed in the right locations and there's not enough money left because of all those wrong locations and all that personal marketing; the seller won't be happy for long.  We'd rather target the marketing to the RIGHT places and have them be happy because their house SOLD. So a balance of selective print ads will do more work for our sellers than ads everywhere, every week.
   
2. Because we don't have 'list' envy. We don't want our website list or print publication list to be longer than someone else's list. It takes time, even with the available time-saving tools to build all that marketing and distribute to all those places. Our goal is to find out where the BEST places are and spend our time and money OPTIMIZING those places for maximum exposure to the target market for THAT house.
3. Because open houses rarely sell houses. They help agents find new buyers to work with. Ok, that's maybe a little oversimplified. But our goal is to market LESS open houses MORE specifically. We make sure our open houses bring VALUE to the potential buyer and/or buyer's agent, not just to people who want to see the inside of our seller's home. We make sure that our open houses are well suited to the home's target market. That the open house is an EVENT. Example: Art opening in artsy loft, croquet party on the big lawn of the country house...

And we didn't just make this stuff up. We based our marketing choices some basic marketing analysis provided by the experts:

WHERE ARE BUYERS LOOKING?                                        WHERE ARE BUYERS BUYING?

print ads: 20%                                                           Agent: 36%

yard signs: 22%                                                         Internet: 24%

internet: 28%                                                             Yard sign: 15%

agents:  30%                                                              Friend: 8%

                                                                                   Builder: 8%

                                                                                   Print ad: 5%

                                                                                   Seller: 3%

                                                                                   Home book: 1%

So, on the bozTEAM, we will remain suspicious of traditional methods and ever-alert for methods that will help sell our clients homes faster and smarter. And this may be more challenging as the market changes.