5 Marketing Techniques for the Fastest Sale
You gotta move fast, especially in a fast market. Fresh listings are the most attractive to buyers. Some people suspect there’s something wrong with a house that’s been sitting on the market a while.
To attract qualified buyers and quick offers, you need to venture beyond the typical, bust through the expected. Think about ways to use all the available marketing tools to surprise and intrigue buyers who are likely blind to the usual advertising tricks.
Lay the Groundwork
Before taking pictures, listing the property, and holding open houses, consider a few preparation tips:
Marketing Ideas for Fast Sales
So, which marketing techniques can you employ to sell that house faster?
1. Professional Photographer
With tons of photo editing apps, we all fancy ourselves great photographers now. But this isn’t a Facebook selfie or Instagram food portrait. Listing photos are among a handful of factors that’ll inspire buyers to take a closer look at a property. It’s not a time for cutting corners.
After a few weeks of viewing listing photos and videos, they can start to look the same. Advise sellers to add unique touches to grab eyeballs like new landscaping or a renovated walkway. Then hire a professional photographer to take high-quality photos with strong lighting and color. Professional photos will look better across a variety of online and paper media.
2. Slick Video Tours
If buyers can watch professional-looking, comprehensive video tours before the first in-person viewing, they’ll be that much closer to making an offer. Drones are the hot new toy for real estate marketing. “Drones on demand” services like Gofor allow you to hire a drone to shoot aerial footage of the property and the neighborhood. Or get your own drone for a few hundred bucks and direct live aerial tours on social media. If you really want to get high tech, incorporate virtual reality to get people buzzing.
3. Broadcast the Benefits
The old marketing advice is emphasize the benefits consumers will get from a product or feature. They buy the story and the experience. Marketers often create a “customer persona” from data on the most likely consumer of their product. Then they design marketing strategies targeted to these specific people.
The house you live in and the home you make of it is tied to your lifestyle. Identify the most likely buyers of your property and brainstorm the “lifestyle benefits” that will be most attractive to them. Then design marketing materials, social media posts, and a web site devoted just to this property highlighting these specific lifestyle benefits.
4. Agent Tours
Use resources like the local MLS to identify active buyer agents in your area. Produce professional brochures and flyers with eye-catching photos and make sure those agents get them. Then conduct “exclusive” agent tours of pristine properties with excellent staging to get on these active agents’ radar. And why not ask for feedback?
5. Sell the Community
Real estate is a statement of self-expression; where you live and the house you live in can say a lot about who you are. Include information, reviews, and recommendations about the great local dining, culture, and nightlife amenities in your marketing materials. What’s it like to live in this house in this neighborhood?
Help buyers explore the area. Conduct neighborhood tours and book a lunch at a popular local restaurant. Host a Meetup in the property and invite neighbors and prospective buyers to discuss neighborhood improvement. If you get qualified buyers to fall in love with the neighborhood, they'll be more inspired to make an offer because they're excited about becoming part of the community.
Clear quality visuals, adept use of the latest tools, and a variety of information tailored to the needs of specific customers facilitate fast sales. The more you know about the market, advertising concepts, and buyer behavior, the easier it is to design an effective marketing strategy and inspire buyer offers that are great for your clients.
- Get the property move-in ready and invest in strategic upgrades, particularly for older houses with outdated features. Buyers weigh the pros and cons before making an offer. Reduce the “cons” to make that decision easier and move buyers from “maybe” to “yes” faster.
- Stand out from the neighbors with distinguishing improvements. Chose widely appealing designs and colors. A house in a residential subdivision may look too similar to the other houses. Cookie-cutter houses won’t sell fast unless they’re super cheap.
- Price it right the first time. A fair price based on local market data will attract more buyers than a price based on the seller’s profit desires. The more the price is reduced, the longer it stays on the market and the lower the eventual selling price.
- Don’t forget mobile and social media marketing. All the techniques below can be turbo charged with a mobile-compatible, social integrated marketing plan. Before getting started, make sure you’re on all the top real estate apps and social media platforms.
Marketing Ideas for Fast Sales
So, which marketing techniques can you employ to sell that house faster?
1. Professional Photographer
With tons of photo editing apps, we all fancy ourselves great photographers now. But this isn’t a Facebook selfie or Instagram food portrait. Listing photos are among a handful of factors that’ll inspire buyers to take a closer look at a property. It’s not a time for cutting corners.
After a few weeks of viewing listing photos and videos, they can start to look the same. Advise sellers to add unique touches to grab eyeballs like new landscaping or a renovated walkway. Then hire a professional photographer to take high-quality photos with strong lighting and color. Professional photos will look better across a variety of online and paper media.
2. Slick Video Tours
If buyers can watch professional-looking, comprehensive video tours before the first in-person viewing, they’ll be that much closer to making an offer. Drones are the hot new toy for real estate marketing. “Drones on demand” services like Gofor allow you to hire a drone to shoot aerial footage of the property and the neighborhood. Or get your own drone for a few hundred bucks and direct live aerial tours on social media. If you really want to get high tech, incorporate virtual reality to get people buzzing.
3. Broadcast the Benefits
The old marketing advice is emphasize the benefits consumers will get from a product or feature. They buy the story and the experience. Marketers often create a “customer persona” from data on the most likely consumer of their product. Then they design marketing strategies targeted to these specific people.
The house you live in and the home you make of it is tied to your lifestyle. Identify the most likely buyers of your property and brainstorm the “lifestyle benefits” that will be most attractive to them. Then design marketing materials, social media posts, and a web site devoted just to this property highlighting these specific lifestyle benefits.
4. Agent Tours
Use resources like the local MLS to identify active buyer agents in your area. Produce professional brochures and flyers with eye-catching photos and make sure those agents get them. Then conduct “exclusive” agent tours of pristine properties with excellent staging to get on these active agents’ radar. And why not ask for feedback?
5. Sell the Community
Real estate is a statement of self-expression; where you live and the house you live in can say a lot about who you are. Include information, reviews, and recommendations about the great local dining, culture, and nightlife amenities in your marketing materials. What’s it like to live in this house in this neighborhood?
Help buyers explore the area. Conduct neighborhood tours and book a lunch at a popular local restaurant. Host a Meetup in the property and invite neighbors and prospective buyers to discuss neighborhood improvement. If you get qualified buyers to fall in love with the neighborhood, they'll be more inspired to make an offer because they're excited about becoming part of the community.
Clear quality visuals, adept use of the latest tools, and a variety of information tailored to the needs of specific customers facilitate fast sales. The more you know about the market, advertising concepts, and buyer behavior, the easier it is to design an effective marketing strategy and inspire buyer offers that are great for your clients.
