MARKETING STRATEGIESOutside the Box Thinking to Sell Your Home Fast

Written by: Kristin Binford - Home Seller and Marketer at Heart

GOALPosition your home in front of as many buyers

in your target market as possible to SELL IT FAST.

FIRST THING’S FIRST

➤ Declutter & Stage Your Home

➤ You love your stuff, buyers don’t. Remove all personal photos, clear your counters, fix those lingering projects around the house, paint neutral colors, etc.

➤ Invest in a few fresh rugs, bathroom towels, candles, etc.

➤ Deep clean - yes, really.

➤ Does this sound like a lot of work? Sure. Do you want to get top dollar and sell it fast? Do it.

MARKETING STRATEGIES - OVERVIEW

➤ Hire a professional photographer

➤ Create a website dedicated to the sale of your home

➤ Create a dedicated Facebook page for selling your home

➤ Post your home for sale in social media channels and ask for your friends to share / repost

➤ Ask your photographer to post the photos in their social media channels with a link to your home’s website

MARKETING STRATEGIES - OVERVIEW

➤ Join local Facebook groups with a high member count, such as an online swap or garage sale group - post your home there (with permission)

➤ Test market $50 worth of paid Facebook advertising

➤ Post your home on Zillow (Don’t miss my trick here!)

➤ Decide if you are going to work with a realtor or handle the paperwork yourself

HIRE A PHOTOGRAPHERLet me show you why.

This is what our house looks like most of the time. iPhone used to take photos.

This is what is looks like staged and photographed by a professional. Yep, that was worth $50 and a few hours of hard work decluttering.

PRETTY OBVIOUS RIGHT?

HIRING A PHOTOGRAPHER

➤ Don’t be cheap, find the right talent. Then don’t be afraid to ask for a deal.

➤ Look for a local photographer with as many followers on Facebook as possible. (3,500+ is ideal.)

➤ (Nicely) ask the photographer their rates, then provide a counter offer. Our photographer often charges $175 for home photography. It is totally worth that price. I asked if he would do it for $50 and if someone who found our house because of his social media posts bought our house, I would add $500. Seems like a cheap and effective form of advertising to me! I’m not out the money up front, and he has the opportunity to make a lot more if he (or she) helps me sell it.

CREATE A WEBSITELet show you why.

WHY CREATING A WEBSITE IS IMPORTANT

➤ It gives you a place to send potential buyers who find your home through your marketing strategies

➤ It allows you to capture those potential buyer’s contact information and schedule home showings

➤ It is often better looking than the MLS allowing you to really “set the mood” in a way that makes your home feel more desirable

➤ Even if you are working with a realtor, you have the potential to keep a second realtor out of the mix and pay half the commission - see my trick on Zillow to learn how

HOW TO CREATE A WEBSITE

➤ Sign up for Squarespace at www.squarespace.com

➤ Create a $12 website using those snazzy new photos you had taken by a professional photographer

➤ Be thoughtful with your home description - authentic, engaging, and without too many buzzwords (We used “affordable luxury” instead of “unique” or “spacious”

➤ Make sure to include a form at the bottom for potential buyers to complete if they are interested in scheduling a tour

➤ Don’t be afraid to ask buyers if they have a pre approval letter for a home in this price range

➤ Click “publish” on the website and then share the link with a few friends for proofreading before you share it with the world

TIME TO SOCIALIZETips and tricks for using social media effectively.

CREATE A FACEBOOK PAGE FOR YOUR HOME

CREATING A FACEBOOK PAGE

➤ This step takes a little time, but is critical

➤ Login to Facebook

➤ In the upper right corner select the drop down and choose “Create Page”

➤ Follow the steps on Facebook to setup your page

➤ Create your first post to sell your home - be engaging but brief!

PROMOTE YOUR HOME FOR FREE

PHOTOGRAPHER’S SOCIAL CHANNELS

➤ Ask your photographer to share the photos on their social channels (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc)

➤ Ask them to link to your new website

➤ Don’t forget to give your photographer credit when you use their photos as well

➤ This is a free form of advertising - don’t skip it

Shout out to J Design Studios! Thanks for the great photos!

ASK YOUR FRIEND TO SHARE

➤ Be thoughtful about how you word your request starting with something like “Would you please share?”

➤ Include a link to your website in the post

➤ Take the time to thank everyone who shares your post

➤ We had 94 shares on Facebook for free that resulted in three showings the next day

LOCAL SWAP SITES

➤ Find local social sites on Facebook and join them

➤ The group to the right has 25,000+ local members!

➤ Read their rules and ask the admins if you are allowed to post your home for sale

➤ Posting our home here received over 100 comments and more than 180 ‘likes’

➤ Post on Craigslist

TRY A LITTLE PAID ADVERTISING

It’s cheap and worth testing.

FACEBOOK ADVERTISING➤ Facebook allows you to choose a

specific radius or zip code to market to

➤ Additionally, you can add filters that more specifically target your potential buyer

➤ Example: Facebook users 15 miles from the home with $100k+ income

➤ Run a two week test campaign for about $50

➤ Our campaign got 350 people in our target market to visit our website in two weeks!

➤ Bonus: You can advertise on Instagram in a few clicks when setting up your Facebook advertising for cheap!

POST YOUR HOME ON ZILLOW

Even if you plan to list on the MLS.

POSTING YOUR HOME ON ZILLOW

➤ Posting on Zillow allows you to potentially find buyers who don’t yet have a realtor, which means you could pay a much lower commission rate

➤ Priceless Tip: Start your Zillow description with a link to your website. Why? Because Zillow encourages you to contact the buyer through one of their realtors. If the buyer knows how to contact you, they may not get another realtor in the mix. Consider a teaser like “More photos can be seen at www.”

ARE YOU USING A REALTOR?

Don’t wait to figure this out like I did.

I’M A HOMEOWNER & MARKETER.

I AM NOT A REALTOR.

DON’T WAIT UNTIL YOU HAVE AN OFFER

➤ We realized we knew how to market our house, not sell it. [Insert panic when two offers arrived the same day.]

➤ Selling your home is a legal and binding process, you don’t want to get it wrong.

➤ Luckily our friend Shane at Murney & Associates stepped in to help us out and we didn’t have to pay the full 6% commission. He helped us through the paperwork and ensured everything was legal. [Thanks again Shane!]

DOES THIS WORK?It did for me! See the results.

CASE STUDY

➤ Using these strategies we saw these results without listing on the MLS:

➤ 5,000+ People visited our website in the first three days

➤ Seven showings the first day

➤ Two offers in the first ten days

➤ Accepted offer was for 98% of asking with the terms we requested from a lovely family!

THAT’S A WRAP.Thanks for reading.

Have thoughts? Better ideas you want me to share?

Reach me on Linkedin here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristinbinford