SAN FRANCISCO — Have you ever avoided a call from your sellers because you didn’t know what to say? What else could you possibly tell them about what you are doing to sell their home?
Lindsay Listanski
On stage at Inman Connect San Francisco, Lindsay Listanski — senior manager of media engagement at Coldwell Banker Real Estate — said there’s always something to say. You should be telling your sellers just how much you are doing to get their home sold, and that should include geographic marketing.
Social media marketing
Social media is the perfect place to start implementing geographic marketing. Listanski advocates using freshly created Facebook ads, putting them on Instagram and being active on YouTube — with YouTube TrueView video ads, specifically.
While Facebook is a must, Instagram’s cost per lead is 40 percent lower than Facebook’s, it scores three times higher on search, and its click-through rate is 16 times better than that of Facebook, said Listanski. Meanwhile, 85 percent of clients want their agents to use video.
Let the home tell you what to say
When Coldwell Banker president and chief executive Charlie Young couldn’t sell his New Jersey home, he called on Listanski to work her magic.
She asked Young to describe the property. He told her it was a historic home in Princeton, New Jersey, with a few acres of land.
Listanski told him, “You just wrote three ads for yourself: It’s a historic house — you can target people who love historic homes. Then, with the land, you can target farming people. And because it’s near Princeton University, you should be running an ad targeted toward Princeton people and alumna.”
After two months, he had an offer from a Princeton alumna.
Geographic marketing doesn’t always have to start with a keyboard and screen. Think about the home’s features and location. Is there anything you can connect to a specific group like Listanski did with Princeton alumna and farmers?
Sometimes it’s literally just a matter of getting the attention of the local crowd — finding common ground with the house, the seller and potential buyers — and then moving that story online. “Nobody tells a better story about a home than the person living in it,” she said.
Convincing your sellers to be flexible
Making the effort on social media doesn’t always end how you want it to — even with the use of geographic marketing. In those cases, however, you’ll likely realize that the home is overpriced.
The good news is you’ll have concrete data to back you up when you ask your sellers to reduce the price.
Listanski spent $100 on a Facebook advertising campaign to help her mother — Coldwell Banker agent Suzen Jacob — with a sale. But even though the ad reached 10,000 people and got 523 clicks, the home still didn’t sell. Only then was Listanski able to convince the sellers to drop their price.