Seven tips for marketing your home open

Trying to achieve a fast sale at a price you want can seem farfetched in such an underwhelming housing market. Home opens are a vital part to selling your home, so marketing it right can drive more traffic to your home, generating more eyes on your property.

Choosing the right marketing campaign for you and your property requires direction from an expert in the field. A sales agent can really streamline this process and take the guess work out of what marketing techniques to use for a home open in today's real estate industry.

We spoke with Paul DiLanzo from Realmark Coastal about how to market a home open so that as much attention is drawn to it as possible.

Here are his seven top tips for successfully marketing your home open.

1. Identify your target audience

Firstly, you need to identify with your agent who your buyers are and where they will come from. Not all houses are the same and not every buyer will be attracted to the same home.

To be able to market your home successfully, you need to understand which type of buyer you're marketing to. Generally speaking, there are three types of buyers:

• Active-logical buyers that are searching the web every day looking for a home. This buyer is marketed through web pages and online sources.
• Unconscious-emotional buyers are those that see something and act on impulse and before they know it, have just bought a new home and weren't even looking.
• The digital buyers that aren't really buyers, but like everything they see until all of a sudden they are buying a new home.

2. Be open-minded with your marketing campaign

Don't limit your marketing to one medium or channel, diversity will give your campaign more reach.

You need a comprehensive 360-degree marketing campaign that includes some old school print media as well as digital. Print still works too, and combining new and old ways of marketing will help leverage your marketing campaign even more.

Above all, your strategy needs to be clear. Digital marketing is a strong tool if used well and can enhance the number of people looking at your home.

Social media marketing that is paid for should be targeted to maximise its effect in creating a viral campaign that is shared amongst you influenced group of friends/followers.

Video is another great avenue to utilise. But ask yourself, who are you targeting and why are you doing it? You must maximise its reach into the digital world or it's just another video otherwise.

3. Launch at the right time

Discuss with your agent what your strategy is and when the ideal time is to launch the home to market.

Highest web traffic and social traffic is usually Friday and Monday. It is a good idea to launch your listing on a Thursday so that it hits the market Friday and allows the property to attract buyers before you open your home say, for example, on the following Wednesday and then Saturday.

You will make the most of the allowing time for the property to soak in the market before you open it. You will have so much more momentum at the first home-open. It will open up all sorts of opportunities to show the more serious buyers through before the home open.

Also consider a twilight home open as your first open, as you're more likely to get a bigger turn out in the evening. Don't just wing it. By promoting your home on the highest traffic days online, you are simultaneously encouraging consumer competition and creating more viewing time for your property.

4. Go big

Discuss with your agent all of the advertising options available to you, the bigger you go, the better reach you will get. Hit all the major websites and social media all on the first day of your home open and also create a database of buyers who have shown you their interest. Inform and send out a message to every buyer on your list of the time and dates of the home opens.

Don't put your home-open time up the day before the weekend. It's best to do it at the latest on a Wednesday but preferably Tuesday. Aim to have the online advertising shared as much as you can- that's where you will maximise your reach and help get people in the door.

5. Presentation is key

Presentation of your home-open is a very important marketing technique.

If your home, whether furnished or unfurnished, is dirty, or does not look appealing, it will automatically deter potential buyers from being interested. You have to put yourself in the buyer's shoes, and the presentation of your home is a great way of luring the buyer in. If they can picture themselves living there, then that is a step in the right direction.

Be fanatical about the presentation of the property. Have the very best photos of the home and floor plan with every property.

6. Plan ahead

It is always a good idea to plan ahead when selling your home. Having an end goal will keep you on track during the process. However, not all things go to plan and it's extremely important in today's market, to have established a clear plan with your agent about what you will do come week two, three or four if your property still hasn't sold.

7. Create a sense of urgency

In today's modern society, everyone wants everything quick and fast. So overlap all your marketing in the first week especially all your web based and digital marketing.

Compress your home opens to 30 minutes so you can have more buyers attend in a shorter time, which will also create a sense of competition between prospective buyers.

Social proof of a busy home open helps buyers make a decision quicker. It can create urgency in a not-so-urgent market. Humans are far more attracted to something when everyone else seems to want it too.

Don't wait till Monday to follow up all your buyers that give their interest, have a standard text you can send later in the day that reinforces strength and urgency. It gets them thinking about the home again too. Waiting until the start of the next week gives them too much time to forget about the home or lose interest.

Are you beginning your selling journey? reiwa.com offers large advertising options for your listing, get started by contacting a REIWA agent in your area to discuss your options.