Marketing Strategy- Oakland and Lapeer County Real Estate
Marketing a home or land is more involved than one would think. Experience, trial and error, continuously updating my education- they lead to knowledge. Below is my current incarnation of an ever evolving marketing strategy.
Why List With Jackie- An Overview
The basics
This first part should go without saying; it literally is basic. Things a client should be able to take for granted, so I will keep this section short. Quality photos, complete, accurate description of the house/property, color flyers left at the house, color info box flyers.
I know this sounds a bit petty, but an accurate MLS description is about the only place to try to sell the listing to both the buyer and his/her agent.
Using The Price To Market
One tactic that does NOT work is starting low and hoping for a bidding war to bid the price up. Too many people thought this worked back when foreclosures ruled, but the facts are they started low, bid up but still sold lower than they should have.
Several years ago I worked with a builder who bought dumps, fixed them up and re-sold. We listed his houses quite high with scheduled price reductions every 2 weeks, with a bottom end where we would stop reducing. We almost always sold before the final, scheduled price reduction. Obviously, with this method you don’t expect to sell the first week or two.
Targeted Mailing- Both Snail Mail and Email
Mailers have always had decent success. I sent just listed cards back in 1991 and I still do today. There have been changes over the years. I still mail paper post cards to your neighbors. And I still get a small response- a neighbor who has friends or family who want to live in the neighborhood. But the real responses come from emailing just listed cards. I have several thousand email addresses in a data base; I have access to a program that sells me email addresses by geographic location and income bracket. For example if you live on a lake, I will send cards to nearby houses with lake access with owners who have sufficient income. I figure I put these emails in front of more eyeballs than the Homes Magazines did in the old days 🙂
Extensive Internet Exposure
This is probably the most important section on this page; mostly because it utilizes most of the above. Those well written ads and beautiful photos need to be displayed somewhere besides the MLS. The emails need to link back to a very nice and complete online ad. This is pretty much step 1. Step 2- it needs to be found. And step 2 is the part that gets constantly updated with the advances in technology.
So the easy part of step 2 is the email strategy outlined above. The rest requires more skill. And thought. First I need to optimize both my web site and blog so they get found in Google searches. I used a search tool that Google supplies to determine the key words I want the site, the blog and interior pages of the site to be found with. Example Lake Orion MI is searched more than Lake Orion Michigan is searched.
My Primary Web Site
This is my primary web site, and as of today (10-1-2024) it’s a new site that I’m in the process of building AND OPTIMIZING. Optimizing is probably the most important part- it does no good to have beautiful ads that nobody can find.
One thing I do differently than most other agents is I optimize interior pages. Some of those pages have their own domain names, too. There’s a section of the site where I display my listings, and I link those listings (individually) to optimized pages. For example- you live on a lake in Lapeer County, your house will be displayed on the Lapeer Lakes page, the page for the lake you live on, and on the Oakland County Lakes page. Many people start looking farther south and find they can get more house/land/etc just going a little north. Thus the reason for linking a Lapeer listing to an Oakland County page.
Social Marketing
I utilize Facebook and LinkedIn quite a bit differently. On Facebook I of course post an ad on my feed and on my business page. Both ads have links back to the ad on my web site that offers more detail and my contact information. What I do on FB that is different is A) I share the ad in several groups. If you are on acreage or near state land, I will post you in various hunting sites. Probably some prepping sites. Some homesteading sites. Equine sites if the property is appropriate. And of course different properties will get posted in different groups.
And B) I run sponsored ads in the appropriate areas. An example- you have a golf course house to sell in Oxford. I would find new construction, golf course neighborhoods a bit more expensive than yours, usually south of yours. An ad should hit their phone/computer/tablet when they drive through that neighborhood. The reason for new construction is twofold. Most people won’t want to wait for new construction to be built. And in a sub with new construction lets the listing agent’s advertising draw people to my ads. The criteria of where to market changes with each listing.
On my Linked In account I made connections with about 1200 people who mostly live or work in the North Oakland and Lapeer County areas. People with jobs- all kinds of jobs. Mostly local people- not a bunch of Realtor friends. It needs updating, so that 1200 number will be increasing. So when I post an ad now, 1200+ local people get notified.
Geo-fencing
I am still learning about this. I’ve read some and intend on knowing everything there is over the next few weeks
