Imagine if every open house you hosted could become a fun event that attracts people from the local area. And when they attend, they advertise the house for you — via Snapchat.
If you’re looking to target those elusive millennials, you’ve just discovered your medium. On any given day, Snapchat reaches 41 percent of all 18 to 34 year-olds in the United States. And it’s incredibly easy to advertise your next open house event — while it’s going on — to anyone using the app within the area.
A major feature Snapchat rolled out last year was geotagging, or a filter you can add to your picture based on your geographic location.
When you snap a picture or video on Snapchat, you can scroll through options to add details, such as the time and temperature, but if you find yourself in an area where there’s a geotag, you can add it to your photo as well.
With the recent addition of on-demand geofilters, Snapchat changed the game completely. Users can now design, create and submit (for a fee) their filters for a specific time and place (and for a fee) to Snapchat for a particular event.
Weddings, birthday parties or community gatherings are just a few of the events you can create your filter for.
And their On-Demand Business Geofilter certainly could come in particularly handy for advertising or alerting people about open houses in their neighborhood as well. With a creative on-demand filter, you could easily grab their attention by advertising for your open house right on their Snapchat.
[Tweet “With the recent addition of on-demand geofilters, Snapchat changed the game completely. “]
4 quick steps to host the best open house with a Snapchat geofilter
1. Design your filter
Snapchat has a strict no logo or hashtag (#) policy when it comes to its on-demand filters. You can find the business guidelines here.
But if you don’t have the graphic design or photoshop experience, it could feel like a daunting task.
There are plenty of graphic designers for hire online that could whip up a design, and there’s even a full community on Reddit that discusses filters and offers help to those who might need it. Include a fun graphic — something relevant to the neighborhood — and don’t take up too much of the area. Be sure to include information that’ll get your audience to the open house.
2. Pick your time and place
Head to snapchat.com/on-demand, and make sure you have an account already. If you don’t, you’ll need to download the app and sign up on your phone.
You’ll need to then geofence the area you want your filter to cover on a map and pick the date and time frame you want your filter to be available. The cost is calculated based on the square footage and how many hours the filter will be available.
Keep it to a relevant area and don’t try and cover too much, or else you’ll end up paying a lot for people in areas who might not be your targeted audience.
Our recommendation is to geofence the neighborhood around your open house and make sure to include any restaurants, shopping or pedestrian areas (and, of course, the house you’re showing, too!)
[Tweet “Geofence the neighborhood around your open house, and include any restaurants or shopping areas.”]
3. Promote on social
Because we know you’ll already be promoting your open house event on your social media platforms, it’s worth it to also mention that people should check in on Snapchat for a special
surprise on the day of the event.
This promotion should also give your contacts the information to add you on Snapchat. Yes, though you might know Snapchat as a personal messaging system, it’s more so becoming a platform that can be used for businesses.
Take this as an opportunity to hop on and try it out for yourself. Just make sure you keep it professional. Share your information, and encourage your contacts and network to keep in touch with you there as well.
It’ll also give them a chance to see your geofilter in action on the day of, and it could even prompt them to stop by.
4. Grab leads through snaps
Encourage leads who come into the open house to use the Snapchat filter to share pictures and videos of the house and themselves there with their friends. Or even encourage them to share on other social media platforms (with you tagged of course).
Get these visitors to add you on Snapchat, and utilize it as an unconventional way to grab leads. Unfortunately Snapchat hasn’t rolled out any way to track who actually utilizes geofilters and aggregate those photos much like a hashtag (#) functions on Twitter or Instagram.
But also use it as a chance to — much like any other social platform — interact with your potential leads in a less sales-y and a more personal way that can influence them just the same in warming them up to becoming a hot lead.
[Tweet “Get open house visitors to add you on Snapchat — utilize it as an unconventional way to grab leads.”]
If your targeted audience is millennials or a younger demographic looking to buy, Snapchat is one of the best options to try out for some new social media marketing. Promoting it on social media, utilizing it yourself and getting established on Snapchat are all great tests to see what your audience is interested in and how to best reel them in.
Our bet is that you’ll certainly get their attention. What do you have to lose?
Katharina Cavano is a content strategist for Contactually. Follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.
