Marketing Ideas For Realtors – Not Your Typical Open House Prospecting

When you hold an open house, you probably do it to sell your own personal listing and generate buyer leads. Or you might have the same intentions when holding another Realtor’s or agent’s open house that’s in your office. It’s a common marketing method. Nothing new, right?

But what marketing materials do you use other than your mouth and a business card?

Think like one of your prospects for second: would you be more likely to follow up with a Realtor or agent who hands you a business card and flyer OR one that hands you a stunning, hi-resolution DVD with animated listing pictures as well as video clips portraying him as a top producer?

Hold on. If you don’t know who Animoto.com is, check out the video samples on their homepage for 30 seconds and come right back.

You’re back? Great. Now that you know what Animoto can do with video on your website or blog, let’s talk about using it at open houses, the Shiloh Street University way, so you can capture a boat load of leads.

For you, the Realtor or agent, the goal of the open house is to generate leads. It’s a marketing time for you. The seller may think you’re just trying to sell their house but that’s only half the goal, right? You’re trying to capture buyer and seller leads for your business. You don’t care which ones they are, you just want them!

So with this marketing technique, you can use the same DVD for both types of prospects; buyers and sellers. It makes life easier for you so you’re not making different marketing videos for different prospects. And this DVD isn’t going to be your typical “virtual media tour” that you’re used to. This sucker is going to make your prospect’s jaw drop.

With regular virtual media tours on DVD, they bring you through a home picture-by-picture; not much text, animation, video clips or music. It’s basically just a slide show of pictures, right? It’s a decent marketing tool and definitely better than just a boring listing flyer. But what you can do is spice up the video like you saw Animoto do.

You’ll throw all your listing pictures into the marketing video as usual but you can add……

* video clips of the beach, just like the video on the right side of this page.

* the right music that will sell that house before lunch time.

(Animoto already has these clips, images and music for you, by the way).

Think about the emotion you will create in your prospect. Include images and video clips that will inspire that for them.

People don’t buy “rationally”, as much as we rational folks would like to think. Buying is all about emotion, as you already know as a Realtor or agent. Inspire that emotion in your prospect and they’ll act accordingly.

It’s like creating a mini motion picture for your prospects. Imagine what that’ll do, not just for selling your listing but for building and marketing your personal brand and reputation as a Realtor or agent.

In addition to trying to sell them on the particular listing you’re holding open, you’ll want to use the 2nd half of the video to include images and video clips that convey YOU; your brand, your reputation, your image.

If they don’t end up buying this house, you want to sell yourself so they use you on the next one. The same principles apply here as they did when trying to sell the house in the first half of the video. It’s all about images, video clips, scenes and music that create that emotion in your prospect.

This is why I say to use Animoto because I don’t know of a better video marketing company. Once I started using them for my video marketing, I was hooked. From a brand standpoint, it enhances and solidifies your image beyond what almost every other media can do.

Think about the movie industry. It’s like a “bajillion” dollar industry, right? People pay big bucks to go to the movies because they love stories. They love the emotion that goes along with watching a movie.

Books don’t give the user that same experience. Radio doesn’t either. But when you add words, images and sound together, like a movie does, it moves people. That’s what you can create with a DVD like we’re talking about.

Where do you think prospects will rank you among all the Realtors or agents they’ve had brief contact with after they watch a DVD like this? Far higher than the last guy, who handed them a business card and smooth talked them as if they just walked up on a used car lot.

If they haven’t chosen a Realtor or agent to work with yet, who do you think burnt the best impression in their minds? YOU. Without a doubt. This will put you so far above every other “business-card-handing-out-Realtor” in your area. They’ll all be trying to catch up to you.

And at the end of the video, just as with any other marketing piece, tell them what you want them to do. Throw in your website address and phone number. Add some text about giving away something for free if they go to your website and fill out the “opt-in box”.

When you hand out the DVD let them know there’s some kind of freebie offer at the end, so they’re enticed to watch the whole video. Curiosity never hurt anyone.

I hope this marketing idea made sense. I feel like my words aren’t conveying the power of what this marketing tool can do for your brand and lead generation. But it’s the best I can do so it’ll have to do. Just watch some videos from Animoto again and you’ll get the idea.

Now go start burning some DVDs with Animoto and find an open house to hold!

About the Author

Josh Sanders is a Real Estate Broker and the Founder of Shiloh Street University in Seattle, WA.

Shiloh Street University is an online marketing school for Real Estate Agents, dedicated to “Creating Wealthy Agents through World-Class Marketing“ by providing step-by-step video lead-generation tutorials.

Get your “FREE 5 Day Sneak Peek” at http://www.ShilohStreetUniversity.com

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