Calling All Real Estate Professionals - Make Your Open House Stand Out!

Make Your Open House Stand Out!
Hold open houses after work or during lunchtime on weekdays. Hold the home Open at different times to get different people inside. Hold the open all day long from unconventional times of 9am to 6 pm. If the property has an amazing view of sunset, hold your Open House during that time.
Provide easy to eat snacks and cold beverages, offer iced tea and lemonade or fresh squeezed orange juice in the summer, warm tea and coffee or cocoa in the winter, warm apple cider in the fall. If it's hot out, have water bottles made with custom labels.
Have your visitors enter a raffle for a giftcard, a gas card, a cook book, ceramic pots, gardening utensils Don't have a sign in sheet - Instead use Registration Cards. Something like Seven Basic Question on large Index Cards: Name Phone # E-Mail Do you have an Agent: Agent Name Agent Phone What do you want in a home? Very simple - basic and non threatening. You can ask more questions latter. Make professional custom packets for the property including a color brochure or flyer of the property, neighborhood and school information, an itemized list of annual utility costs,  lists of improvements made, noting the year and cost, and copies of any structural surveys or appraisals you’ve had done within the last year ... OR ...  Put out the related information on a display board and offer to send a copy to anyone who registers with you. Put an "Open House" sign with day/time in the yard a few days in advance. If the home is still occupied think about pairing the open house with a yard/garage sale. Put out 30 plus signs from the freeway exits all the way to your listing. Prepare virtual tour CDs and matching jewel cases. Invite a mortgage professional to attend and prequalify buyers. Make up a questionnaire asking visitors for a room by room feedback. Put this on a clip board to carry with them as they go room to room and give them one of your pens with your info on it. Have a contract completely filled out waiting the buyer's signature. Put on  a DVD slide show with pictures of the local area and the house with light background music.

Marketing with Postcards

       
       

What has a better chance of getting read, letters or postcards? If you chose postcards, you’re right. According to the United States Postal Service®, studies show that while on average only 14% of letters get read, postcards have a 94% success rate. With postcards from BWMedia Designs and Zazzle, you’re on your way to creating effective direct mail that gets noticed.

It’s not just their readability that makes postcards a valuable marketing tool. Postcards are also inexpensive to produce and mail, too. Once you’ve decided to use postcards to market your business, how can you make sure you use them effectively?

Select the Right Postcard Format

The first step is to select a mailing format. Will a simple standard postcard serve your purpose, or should you use an oversized card, a self-mailer, or some other format? To decide, you need to ask yourself what you want to accomplish with the mailing. If you’re looking to generate traffic to your business, a single postcard with a call to action might easily fill the bill. Tell recipients to bring in the card when they visit, and they will receive something special for doing so. If you’re looking for sales leads, you’ll need a way for customers to respond. In that case, a double postcard with a business reply feature might be the appropriate format.

Design for Effectiveness

Now you’re ready to add content and design to your postcard. To create an effective message, Heisler provides these recommendations. Use a bold headline to entice recipients to read more. Keep your postcard clean, uncluttered, and easy to read. Focus on benefits. Give your potential customers a way to respond. And never, ever bury your contact information.

Compile a Mailing List

Of course, the perfect format and the most beautiful design won’t do you any good unless you send your mailing to an appropriate audience. Will you send your postcards to your existing customer base or do you want to reach out to new potential customers by renting a mailing list? There are many types of lists available: resident lists, lifestyle lists, new homeowner lists, etc. Do your research and reach out to available resources to help you compile your own mailing list.

Track Your Results

Always track your results. Tracking responses is vital to your success with direct mail. And measuring results doesn’t have to be a complicated procedure. It can be as simple as keeping a record in a notebook or, for the business that does a lot of direct mail, tracking it on your computer. Let’s say you sent out a postcard asking people to request a copy of your catalog. Here’s some information you might consider recording and tracking:

- How many postcards did you mail?
- How many people responded to your mailing?
- What is the response as a percentage of the total postcards mailed out?
- Of those who responded, how many ultimately bought something?
- What are the names and addresses of those who responded?
- What was the value of their order?
- Did they pay their bill?
- Did they order again?

You’ll want to keep this information with an actual sample of what you mailed, the quantity mailed, date mailed, and mailing list used. Good records are the key to your success with direct mail. Start out with the right tools in place and you will be able to measure the effectiveness of your own postcards.

Creative Ways To Use Business Cards

Creative Ways To Use Business Cards

1. Attach a business card to an ad specialty: For example, give business card holders as a thank you gift and place your business card in as the first one.
2. If you routinely give out seasonal gifts or specialties, attach your business card. Examples: candy canes at Christmas, heart shaped containers filled with candy for Valentine's Day, or even a sandwich bag of candy with a card stapled to it.
3. Tuck them into the product before delivery: If you are a florist, cut a hole in it and tie a ribbon around the flowers and through the business card. If you sell gift baskets, Tuck one inside the basket before delivering it to your customer. The same goes for Mary Kay or Avon Cosmetics - place your card in the bag. You've seen how some restaurants staple a menu to their bags for takeout; if you use bags, staple your card to the outside of the bag.
4. Place them in library books as if you used them as bookmarks. Visit bookstores place them in books related to your business.
5. Use them as bookmarks so you'll always have some readily available if you meet someone at school, in the library, on the bus, or at the park where you like to read.
6. Keep a stack of cards everywhere you might need them - in your car, your jacket pocket, your briefcase, your purse or wallet, in your planner, at home, anywhere you can think of. Then you'll always have some on hand when you meet a prospect. Never leave home without them.
7. If you do seminars, have your participants exchange cards with each other. Have them write a compliment about the person on the back before they hand them out. Everyone will have a wealth of contacts; they will remember each other and it will also give participants a boost of confidence.
8. Ask neighborhood businesses if you may display your cards near their registers.
9. Tack them to bulletin boards at supermarkets, restaurants, retail stores and the library - anyplace that has a bulletin board.
10. Give out two cards at a time - one for your prospect or client, and one for her/him to give away.

Key things to remember when creating a business card?

Include all your contact information: name, company, company’s logo, address, e-mail, phone numbers and Web page.

• Name - If your last name is hard to pronounce, consider putting the phonetic spelling in parentheses so that people won’t hesitate to call you for fear of embarrassing themselves.
• Email - Keep your email address professional.
• Phone numbers - Unless you feel it is absolutely necessary a stack of phone numbers is the number one mistake people make on their business cards. Instead of saying “Look how easy I am to reach,” those crowded cards say, “Look how hard you’ll have to work to find me.” Usually a cell number and fax number will suffice.
• Web page
• Always put your slogan, tag line or unique selling proposition on your business card, but try to keep it to 7 words or less.
• If people will be coming to your business and it is hard to find put a landmark or cross streets in parentheses to make it easier to find. i.e. 1234 Main Street (behind the Home Depot)

Use both sides of the business card. Think of the front of the card as a billboard that people are driving by and only put the most important information on the front. Use the back for the address, professional designations and other non-brand information.

Put something of value on the back of the card; feint lines so they are encouraged to write, conversion table, calendar or anything else that will make your card a reference tool.

What to put on the back of business cards

1. Print a team's sports schedule on the back. Fans will keep them handy and keep your name in front of them
2. Print a special discount offer or coupon on the back. People will keep it because they intend to use the coupon.
3. If you do seminars, print key principals on the back. Your attendees will refer to them later and think of you.
4. Hand write on the back your "unlisted" 800 number. This adds value to your card, making people keep it longer because they don't want to lose the special number.
5. An offer where they can get a free report from your website
6. Map/directions to your office
7. A coupon
8. Benefits from using your service
9. A place to write a reminder about their next appointment
10. A list of your services
11. How to request a free catalog
12. Your 30 second introduction
13. A calendar
14. Put pictures of your products

What not to do on a business card

1. DO NOT USE ALL CAPS AS THEY ARE HARD TO READ
2. Do not cross out information and write in correct information. Get new business cards instead when information changes.
3. Avoid fancy type faces that cannot be read.
4. Choose the right size type face for all readers. If your customers are in their 40’s and above many of them will have to pull out reading glasses to read small print so make sure your name and phone number stand out.

To Get started on your business cards visit Zazzle today and use your existing card design or choose from thousands of different templates available.