On Saturday I did my first open house for Angel Lynn - our charming little short sale listing on 1009 Dolores Way, Sacramento. It was a last minute thing so we didn't get a chance to promote it properly but it still worked out.
The home's nice location off J street (by Big Spoon, Bon Lair, shops, restaurants, etc) in the heart of East Sac is awesome for advertising an open house:
It was a nice hot Sacramento day. Summer is here! Putting out those signs you work up a little sweat. (It was pretty sweet to have that Ferrari ride by just as I snapped.)
Nobody came at first so I had a chance to start on taking some good pictures of the house, something I want to do on all our listings.
Then Angel stopped by for a little bit with kids. What a great day to take the convertible BMW out, fits the neighborhood:
She also brought over more flyers. The flyer box keeps getting empty on this listing. It's a great location! Angel proudly posing in front of her sign:
People did start coming by later for a while and I was there to engage in pleasant conversation. Mostly neighbors though, and maybe one or two lookie loos. But we like lookie loos, they help create an idea of demand and excitement. Do you want to be the only person at an open house?
We discussed some ideas for promoting and improving our open house experience, and also how I can maybe do these on a regular basis. I proposed we get a wireless internet card for my laptop so I can blog from location and stay productive.
There is no reason why I can't be working on marketing, blogging, and even broadcasting live from a different house every day. We would only be increasing the chances of a potential buyer stumbling in through the (open) door and putting in an offer. It's a great way to meet neighbors and potential clients.
Maybe we can think of ways to make the open houses fun and exciting. Angel Lynn's open houses should be the talk of the town!
I plan to sort and upload some nice photos of the house soon, but here is one of the front:
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
25 comments:
Putting together a page for each listing would also be a good idea... kinda like I had on IAFF with the status of the short sale, pictures, map, detailed info, etc.
Hi Unbelievable, no the asking price is not 75K. You may not be familiar with East Sacramento, this is a very desirable area and has not gone down as much as the rest of Sacramento. You can see the current listing price here.
Why is that Bruce? What was wrong with the last post about Angel's recommendation of Yoga and giving out exclusive discounts to her followers? Please provide specific feedback so we may improve the blog. Thanks.
There is a time and place for everything. If this blog is about short sales and trying to increase business, that's what is should be about. I don't think you can turn this into a 'reality show' which is what you want to do.
Unless, you really want to return this to the days of I am facing foreclosure, whereupon you will ultimately compromise Angel's name and standing in the real estate community.
You need to think about that (from a friend).
Ultimately, it is up to you.
Bruce, thanks for your concern. I know you mean well.
What is wrong with a Reality TV style blog about a real estate business?
I think we can develop quite a following of people who want to see how a real estate business actually runs. What happens behind the scenes. And the stories of the people who make it happen.
That will make us stand apart from the thousands of Realtor blogs out there who are not bold enough to do that.
Talking about your business will generate business. I think the two are not mutually exclusive. In fact potential clients should be impressed with our level of transparency and our personal approach.
But of course, we're still fine-tuning our approach, so these comments are helpful. Thanks to everybody.
>>I think we can develop quite a following of people who want to see how a real estate business actually runs. What happens behind the scenes. And the stories of the people who make it happen.<<
Could be. I only have a perspective- my own. So, I could be wrong. Overall, there have been some interesting posts here.
Bruce
Lawnmower man: "... What is the purpose of this blog, and what is its target audience? Decide that and focus appropriately; at the moment it's flip-flopping between promoting Angel's services and documenting Casey's job."
What's wrong with that?
The audience is going to read whatever they want to read and different things will appeal to different people. Whether I'm talking about the latest short sale that we're closing, an open house I'm helping run or some marketing campaign that I'm putting together for us, it's all on a similar topic and is helping develop this blog quickly and raise SEO. It's all good guys. Tough crowd today. Man!
thanks for mentioning that Serinitis... so is your work blocking all of Flickr? What other photo services would they be blocking?
That's right Lawnmower Man the traffic HAS exploded since my involvement with Angel's team has leaked out.
We no have some kind of a "starter" audience (you guys, thanks!!)
The blog has sprung to life. I'm much more motivated to blog now and we're only going to achieve our SEO goals that much faster.
BTC, i noted your comment (but didn't publish) and brought it up to Angel's attention. Thank you.
"achieve our SEO goals"
Which are? Traffic, placements... or conversions?
SEO, itsallgood, letsdoit, YES!; but the metric Angel should be measuring you on is how many clients your activities bring her.
How's that going? It sounded like you got a client from the doorhanger marketing, right? That's cool.
The old followers are having a talkcast today at 5:30pm to discuss the latest happenings. Here is the link. I know the people running it and I hope I can trust them to make it a positive and constructive show. We'll give it a shot. Angel should be joining too at some point.
Thanks Serinitis, will consider that going forward. Your last sentence seems to imply that I am clueless about targeting our audience. Is that what you may be implying? I'm sorry that you got that impression.
That's right and a skilled promoter will take into account both audiences.
Casey followers are great for "priming the pump" with starter traffic, comments and motivation to keep blogging for Casey. Thank you for that.
Now with consistent daily blogging on the topics we're targeting will be our long-term SEO strategy.
Any marketer knows that SEO is not an overnight strategy. But it's the most cost-effective and long-lasting. The best way to do is by giving the search engines what they want: daily content (blog posts) and building inbound links.
Links will come naturally if we have a fun blog and lots of interaction (hence the comments). Human nature - people like to go where there is a crowd.
I also want to start doing manual link building by reaching out to bloggers, etc. I didn't do as much of that before because the media wave carried me for a while but this time I don't want to count on it.
This is fun... exciting to see what will happen next!
We're definitely going in the right direction.
Also in talking with Angel today, we feel I'm spending way too much of my time answering repetitive questions. Seems like some people are not very interested in answers or keeping the conversation on topic... but rather how they can trip me up and criticize whatever I do. But that's OK. We can learn from every comment that comes through, even if we don't publish the comment to the blog.
It was nice talking to everyone that was on the talkcast today. Like I said if you ever have any questions please feel free to ask.
I missed the Talkshoe.
I thought the video that you and Angel did for youtube was pretty good. In my opinion, that's the kind of advice people will be seeking out when they come here.
Bruce
Are you single?
Wow. That Ferrari is sweet!
Post a Comment