Open Houses are a great way for you to connect with potential buyers. In order to see some great results from your real estate open house, it’s important to market using effective methods. We’ve got some great tips, ideas and resources for you so that your open house event stands out from the competition. Be sure to scroll all the way down to download our real estate open house checklist!
Prior to your Real Estate Open House
1 Tell a Story About the Property
Before you even start marketing, you need some great content to market. This is where video comes in. You can make this a simple video using a DJI Osmo Gimbal and your phone or a more professional video with someone filming for you. Either way, the goal is to give people a sneak peak of the home and tell a story.
Brian Ladd, one of our Top 50 Real Estate Video Influencer’s, knows how to set the stage and invest in all the right corners to create the most memorable and beautiful videos. He lets the buyer know what makes the house different from other options and through that he tells a story. “People don’t buy per square foot, they don’t buy bedroom or bathroom counts, they buy a story.”
So how do you go about creating a video that informs people as well as tells a story? Whether you hire a videographer or take the video yourself, the key is to share more than just standard details such as bedroom count or property size. Find out what the previous owner loved best about the house. Tell what it’s like to live in the neighborhood. Help the viewer see what it’d be like to live life in that home.
Here are 10 Tips, Tricks and Insights to Creating a Killer Listing Video
2 Create a Sphere Campaign
Now it’s time to work on an email campaign focused on all the potential buyers in your database. Email campaigns can be crucial to catch the attention of potential clients. In your email campaigns you should create specific emails that include your announcement, video tour, reminder, and follow-up. People lead busy lives so it’s important to make sure this campaign includes all the info a recipient would potentially need. It’s also important to only send it to relevant contacts in your database.
Whether you send this through Gmail or your BombBomb account, make sure that your emails answer as many potential questions as possible. Some things that should be included are:
- Video Tour
- Open House Time
- Open House Location-Home Details
- Your Contact Information
3 Create a Lead Capture Form
Time to get the word out. Forms can be a really great way to get contact information from potential clients. Michael Nathanson, a successful real estate agent, uses BombBomb Forms to inform people about his open house events. After a lead fills out their information, they go to a landing page and receive an email with the Open House details. The great thing about this process is that it captures leads.
While you’re creating the form, include these things to make sure you get the most valuable responses.
- Set it up so your video email that includes all the open house details is sent out to everyone who fills out the form.
- Create a new email list that all these contacts will automatically be added to. This way, you can easily send a thank you emails later on. You can also contact these people all at once if your property price changes or something important regarding the open house comes up.
- Add the contacts to your drip campaigns that we suggested you create earlier. This will save you time so you don’t have to manually add these contacts later. Anyone who fills out the form will automatically get future campaigns unless they opt out.
Your form questions may differ depending on the event, but here are some important things to always include in your form:
- Name
- Address
- Phone Number
- Are you currently working with a Realtor? If so, who?
Once your form is done and ready to go, you’re able to get the URL that you can paste anywhere you want to share it. Here are Dan’s examples of a video email and a form attached.
4 Post on Social Media
Posting on Social media is a fantastic way to promote and advertise your upcoming open house. Give some brief info in your posts but make sure to ultimately encourage people to fill out the form for all the details. You can also share your story video over social so people are intrigued and left wanting more information. The goal is to pique interest. You could also consider sharing just a short video clip of the home. People may fill out the form just to see the rest of your video in the email.
5 Utilize Facebook Ads
You should also highly consider using Facebook ads for your form. Essentially, what you’re doing for this is creating an ad in Facebook that targets local buyers. On Facebook when you boost a post, you’re able to select a very specific audience. One good filter would be to target people in the same area as your upcoming Open House. All you need to do is create a post that includes your form as a landing page and then boost it for your particular audience.
Here’s a great webinar that touches on BombBomb Forms and Facebook Ads!
During the Real Estate Open House
6 Set Up an iPad for Getting Email Addresses
iPads can be a worthwhile investment as a real estate agent when they’re optimized with great apps. The key to this is making sure you encourage the lead capture process by providing real value. Let your guests know that they will get email updates on the property and other properties in the neighborhood when they sign up on the iPad. Some of your open house guests will likely be residents of the neighborhood who might be interested in selling their own home. By getting their contact info and creating that potential relationship, you’re increasing your chance of landing more future sales.
If you think it will be a stretch to get people to sign up just for future emails they may not want, you could take a different approach. Partner with a local coffee shop and offer “free coffee” coupons to people who sign-in. The iPad can announce “Sign-Up for a Free Coffee!” Then you can set it up so whoever signs-in with an email will receive a coupon in their inbox.
You can also download a fantastic app for open home sign-ins called Spacio. This is a customizable, automating visitor registration and it also can be integrated with your BombBomb account if you have one. You can send automated video emails from BombBomb to all your contacts in Spacio. Saving you from having to remember every single open house guest who walks through the door.
7 Send Out Follow Up Videos from the House
Once everyone has left your Open House, it’s a good idea to send out some personalized videos while details are fresh in your mind. You can carry a small notepad around to help yourself get better at remembering certain details. Did a couple particularly like the patio out back? Take a quick selfie video on your phone while standing on the patio. You can remind them of your contact info and thank them for swinging by.
After the Real Estate Open House
8 Send a Thank You Video Email to All the Guests
Now it’s time to thank all your Open House guests! We recommend sending a video email to show your sincerity and expertise.
Here are some things your video could include:
– A general thank you video while you’re still at the property. You can also send personalized thank you videos for each guest if you are able.
-Answers to any questions asked at the Open House. Did some of the visitors ask you some questions you just didn’t have answers to on the spot? If you jot those questions down during the open house, you can figure out helpful answers later on to add to your follow up emails.
-Check in to see where everyone is at in the home buying process. You can provide additional value by giving a competitive home analysis. You could also help some clients get pre-approved with a preferred lender.
9 Create Follow Up Automations
Like the Thank You Videos, these follow up automations can be sent out in bulk to all who were interested in the home, or they can be personalized videos sent to each individual. Whether the house has sold or the price has changed, it’s good to keep everyone in your database updated.
A great idea for your update emails is to include some links to other homes or open houses that they might be interested in. You don’t want to lose them as a potential lead just because the house sold. Continuing contact will help you maintain a larger potential customer base.
Download our Real Estate Open House Checklist!
We know these are a lot of steps and tips to remember! Download our “How to Market Your Open House Checklist” below so you stay on track during your next Open House.