Marketing help!

[MR.CJ-7]

Are there any marketing guru's on the board? I'd like to market my real estate business a little bit, but I could use some ideas on how to best spend my modest advertising budget.

I want to target homeowner's looking to sell.

As a homeowner what would get your attention and ultimately your business when the time is right to sell?

I'm not looking to be the top earner in the state, but I could use a little more business than what I have now. I've tried the knock on door approach, direct mail, facebook ads & google ads.

The junk mail approach got me the most calls, but no solid leads. Facebook got me the most web visits and customer registrations, but all had bogus phone numbers and were non-responsive to email followup so that was a bust. Google had a modest number of web visits and one non-motivated buyer that might turn in to something one day.

Any ideas?

 

[Cody]

I say direct mail, but only because that's what I do for a living.

You can do a lot of things with lists, but the problem is how saturated the market is with homes for sale--especially in the 250-500k range. even if you list the home, you still have to problem of selling it to worry about.

 

[Seven]

I am not a marketing guru. I also would like to know how to spend my small advertising budget and get the biggest return.
My question to you though is are you involved in any outside groups such as networking and hobby groups. I am involved in 6 of them and they can meet anywhere from once a month to once a week. 4 of those are free, and one even gives me a free lunch once a month. The other 2 are very reasonable. I am fairly new to the ogden area and have found this to be a good way to meet some people. I also feel that as I get to know some other people within this group that they will become a good referral source for me. I have even got some of these people to become patients and have gotten a couple of referrals from them. I would think that your business is probably a lot like mine in that referrals are the best leads.

Hope that helps

 

[Caleb]

I agree with Cody, direct mail is where it's at. I worked for a large company that does the direct mail quite heavily for some of the major auto mfgs, for a couple large realtors (their mail campaigns were in the 6 figures), some major colleges, etc. Seeing the kind of results they could get was quite impressive. They also did a lot of direct marketing on the web. The thing you need to concentrate on is how to get the right piece of mail or the right advertisement in front of the right person. Their ads needs to be catered to them and their preferences...that's the difficult part

 

[jsudar]

Direct mail works pretty well, but you have to send out stuff to the same people several times before they start to notice you. Pick an area and farm it, baby.

Honestly, I would milk your friends and family for referrals too.

My wife is an agent and she is doing pretty well right now. What has been working lately is first time home buyers. Screw listings, like Cody said the market is saturated and it's harder to sell right now. Find people that don't have a place they need to sell and get them into a house. Interest rates are super low, there are tons of houses to choose from and sellers are getting more and more desperate. Financing is a little more difficult now, but it is doable. I'd farm an area with lots of rentals and apartments.

 

[MR.CJ-7]

I've had pretty good luck at getting first time buyers and yes they are "gold" because they don't need to sell and move. In fact over the last year I haven't done any marketing to speak of for listings. Sure it takes a little longer because they are nervous making such a big purchase, but I don't mind at all taking a little more time with them.

Sure the market is saturated right now, but if you get a nice house at the right price it will sell rather quickly. I wanted to target listings because when you get a good "starter home", in the $150K to $200K range, I can market the hell out of those! Hold open houses on the weekends and first time buyers come out of everywhere!

My company is very small which is something I love about it, but because my co-workers have been at it for 10+ years they all work referrals only and usually only list homes in the $500K to $1M range. They are always after me to hold those open houses for them, but that is a total waste of time.

I think I'll give the junk mail ads a little more effort. I sent a batch out yesterday to a community where I had a listing in last fall. Hopefully that will get results since their are no active listings in the community now, just the die hard FSBO's that were there before and after my listing came and went. Also I have a townhouse under contract for a client that should close in the first part of March. Maybe I'll mail it with "just sold" post cards and follow it up with a door-door introduction.

If anyone has any ideas for web marketing please share!