If you’ve ever seen a presentation by Australia’s Ian Grace, “Mr. Advertising”, these notes will mean more than if you haven’t. Either way, there’s stuff you can learn from them. Enjoy.
3 parts to transaction:
1 – Win the listing
2 – Advertising Campaign $$ – how much and who pays
Why do the ads in different locations look so different – email, internet, print, feature sheets, etc.? If they were all the same, they would build on each other and thus be much more powerful.
People need to see the same image/ad at least 3 times before they will react to it, often more. As you see it more and more, you read more into it and notice more and react to it more.
Reach and frequency is what advertising is all about.
Look at tv – how many times is that same ad on? And then you’re listening to the radio, and you’ll hear the ad for the same product, sand it is the audio from the tv ad, and hearing it makes your brain pull up the image from the tv ad. And then, you see an ad in the paper, and it is also the same picture as the tv ad, with the same verbiage, which again recalls the tv ad. They all build on each other. Which makes for a much powerful impression.
Think of all the different venues we have to market a property, and then imagine the branding power if they all work in harmony; the same ads. Compare that to different ads in each venue. Which will be more effective?
The spending on advertising across all industries is around 2%. Do we, as real estate agents, spend 2% on advertising our listings? That’s 2% of sale price.
In areas where the agent pays for the ads, they are, 99% of the time, as small as they can get away with. Contrast that to places where the seller pays for it, and they tend to be bigger, fancier, and much more effective ads.
Why get seller advertising contribution?
– Builds your profile
– Save more money
– Win more listings
– Achieve a better end NET result for the seller.
The last one is the ONLY reason to do it; if you don’t do it for that reason, don’t do it.
Get an ad/article run telling sellers to expect to pay for ads (look for article from queensland realtor association) in this turned market. Also find REM articles by Iam Grace.
3 – Sell for the best possible price. That means best possible end NET result.
[Re commission cutting - think of it as your salary. If someone asks you to give back part of your salary, would you? Then why give back part of your commission-based salary? When people sell based on cutting their commission, it is because they have nothing else to offer - there is no other reason for them to reduce their fee.]
“Mr and mrs seller, if the only thing that is important to you is the lowest commission, then let’s just say a polite good night right now. However, what concerns me is that you might well be underselling your house by thinking that way. Why not let me show you a system that will get you the highest possible price, and see if that makes more sense to you?”
THE ONLY WAY TO ACHIEVE THE HIGHEST PRICE:
Reach as many of the RIGHT buyers who will SEE THE MOST VALE in the property
Reach them enough times for them to react
REMEMBER – people need to see the same ad/image 3 times or more, on average, before they will react.
[Why else would newspapers have discount programs for multiple insertions of the same ad?]
Run different ads for same property if it is going to appeal to multiple buyer groups. Ideally, you’ll run the ads simultaneously, so that all groups are interested at the same time.
When we run an ad that tries to appeal to multiple buyer groups in same ad, we can’t talk to either of them – ie ‘Perfect for first-time buyers or investors’
An effectively targeted ad campaign with the same ad will reach them.
It can take great copywriters hours or even days, to write the great campaigns; why do we as realtors think we can whip it out in the last 5 minutes before deadline.
If we aren’t enthusiastic about writing ads, how can we possibly expect to do a good job of it?
Good advertising gets rid of the people you don’t want to speak to!
Good advertising lowers the number of people who have to view your ad before it sells.
Sellers should pay for advertising so that it is not underpromoted and they will nett more money.
Use big photo sign boards for each listing – show the inside of the property. You stand out. The signboard will then become a part of your effective advertising campaign, whereas a for sale sign isn’t because it only advises that the property is available.
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What effective advertising is all about:
HOODOO
WHO to talk to and how to talk to them
DO. – what they will be able to DO as a result of their purchase.
Ads have to talk TO SOMEONE not ABOUT SOMETHING.
WHERE to talk to them – your media mix.
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Don’t be afraid to have people, pets, etc in the picture – humanizes it.
We don’t sell houses; we are selling ‘living there’ in our advertising. We just want them to bring ‘their home’ and put it in that particular house.
http://netlab.com – virtual tour interactive with pop-up photos.
When you’re writing an ad / web description, pretend that you are selling the place over the phone, remembering HOODOO, with no pictures or internet – just the words you are using. REMEMBER HOODOO!!
If you are going to take a photograph, don’t compromise – if you need sunny day, wait for a sunny day.
Stop using pic of front of the house in ads, web, etc. – use pictures of what you are selling.
Photo and headline must work together in the ad. If they don’t, they won’t get past them and the ad will not do its intended job.
Only 20% of people read past the headline of any ad, so it doesn’t matter how clever everything else is if they don’t get past the headline & photo.
Should the headline match the photo, or should the photo match the headline? The photo should match the headline!!
When we use all the superlatives in our ads, its like we’re trying to make the house things that its not. Just talk as if you’re talking to a friend and describing it.
Think about what you want to tell them AND THEN take the pictures to it. The photos must match both the headline and the body text – every benefit you talk about, have a photo to match it.
Think of a time when you’ve pulled up to a house with buyers and they haven’t wanted to even look at it based on the look of the front of a house. Now think that your ads that feature the front of the house may easily be turning people away in the same fashion. However, if you show them the interesting point of the house first, they will come and see it to see how that part of it looks in reality.
Our brains filter and throw away so many advertising images every single day, BUT if we see the same ad over and over, we recognize it and at least think twice. That’s one more reason to run same advertising in different media.
Use the same ad for signboard, internet, flyer, newspaper, etc. So that the ads are not automatically filtered by people without their even noticing it.
So, on the signboard, don’t put a picture of the front of the house (because the signboard is sitting outside the house) but put a picture of something that is a selling point.
Be the first to use a picture signboard in your area.
They need to be able to read intro sentence(s) of ad and think “I’d love to live there and be able to do that”
Use people in photos when they sell the benefit you are referring to and when it fits.
Use people and photos to match the picture that prospective buyers already have in their mind.
When you have some success using this new approach, run a follow up ad to let people know that the approach works.
Always think about the target buyer group, the ones you want to hit; don’t worry about the ones you miss, because they weren’t targetting them anyway!!!
Write your ads with emotion – that’s how we buy things, and we justify our purchases with logic.
People only buy things if they can see a picture of what it will do for them AND a picture of them enjoying it.
Even in a classisifed ad, you can paint a picture of what people can do once they’ve bought it.
A ‘campaign’ uses the same message across the different media. Your headline, photo and message have to match across the media.
Change the way you think – in ads, put the words ‘offers over’ in front of the list price, so it woulfor d read something like ‘For Sale Offers Over $xxxxxx’ when xxxxxx is the list price.
Why not put the address and OH time at the bottom of the ad, and the headline at the top, because people don’t care about address etc. If the aren’t interested in the property and they won’t know if they’re interested until they’ve read the ad.
We are too logical in our writing, which stymies our creativity.
We trytoo hard to be clever.
TARGET YOUR MARKET!
– Geographically – you will then know where to advertise and you’ll also know how to talk to them.
– Demographic – will know how to talk to them, based on the demographics
– Psychographic – if you know their expectations and aspirations, you know how to talk to them.
WHEN YOU START TARGETTING YOUR ADS, THEY WILL START JUMPING OUT OF THE PAGE AT YOUR TARGET READERS.
THREE MUSTS!:
1 – get the right information – invest time
2 – grandmother
3 – schedule your ad writing time.
To come up with things to say about a house, do a ‘brain dump’ and write down everything that comes to mind and then choose the things that tell us WHO we can write our ad to. Because we’re not selling the house, we’re selling living here!
Ie – Big Backyard = ‘peace of mind for kids and pets’ comes from fully-fenced yard. Couple of trees leads to lazy sunday afternoons relaxing in the hammock sipping a cold beverage. Etc.
Headlines have to have a benefit, or implied benefit, have news, and create curiosity.
Instead of pic of front of house, have pic taken through kitchen window showing yard, preferrably kids playing in ti, and use headline ‘you’ll love to watch the kids playing in the yard while you cook dinner’
LISTING PRESENTATION
“No matter what anyone may tell you, the only way to achieve the best possible price for you, is to reach as many of the people out there who will see the most value in your property.”
” It is possible to reach them, but only with an effectively targeted media mix advertising campaign.
“Should you be happy to list your property with me, please allow me to show you the system we work with, to ensure we gather all the right kind of information – to establish who these people are who will see the most value in your property, that we must attract, to give you the best possible results. Then, I’ll let you be the judge.”
Then, you fill out a ‘very important seller information sheet’ with them – why did you buy, what do you like most, what will you miss, etc. Then fill out ‘why will someone buy your home?’ sheet.
