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Aug.13,2010Ask a person trying to sell their home how they distinguish themselves from the millions of other homes listed. Chance are you’ll hear:
* We painted the exterior.
* We planted new flowers.
* We keep it sparkling clean 24/7.
These are all worthwhile. But they don’t address the root of the problem.
Your home has to get discovered before any prospective buyer purposefully comes to view it.
You can advertise in the paper…and pay a lot of money for very little space. You can list your home with a Realtor…and compete against thousands of others.
Or, you can do like the family from North Texas, and put up your sign on the www: “For Sale By Owner”.
The family created a frenzy that drove crowds of hungry buyers to their private home sale. Here are the Internet Marketing Secrets they used to generate a huge “Buzz” for their sale.
Step 1: Assess the situation – Before beginning your sale preparation, it’s important to visualize the result and strategize how you will achieve it. Know your market. Get a Competitive Market Analysis and know what other homes are listed for sale and what prices comparable homes recently sold for.
Are your expectations reasonable? You can’t dictate fair market value. The process of attracting a large group of prospective buyers will help you get reasonable offers. But eventually the law of supply and demand takes over. The end result will probably be a sale of your home at a price that is not too high for the buyer, nor too low for you, the seller.
Step 2: Create a domain – There are loads of websites advertising hundreds of thousands of homes for sale. How do you expect yours to stand out?
Instead, of competing head-to-head, tilt the playing field to your advantage. Purchase your own domain at a site like Go Daddy. Come up with a clever name or simply use your address. One tip: try to keep it short so it’s easy to advertise.
Step 3: Set up a “squeeze page”. This is a very important step that is often glossed over. However, the impact of your “squeeze page” can greatly affect your ability to attract buyers to your home. The purpose of this page is to capture contact information, especially the email address, from each and every visitor to your website.
Why is this important? Because doing so “opts in” the visitor to your follow up system. From here on out, the visitors will receive information and enticements to make them want to come to your sale and buy your home!
An effective “squeeze page” contains certain elements.
Begin with an attention grabbing headline that makes readers want to learn more. For instance, “You’ve Never Seen A Home Sale Like This!”
Next give the readers just enough information to make them want to learn more. REMEMBER: the goal of this page is to persuade the visitor to trade their email address in exchange for more information about your sale.
Resist the temptation to describe every aspect of your house. DO NOT show dozens of pictures of every room (one photo of the front of your home should do fine.) There’ll be plenty of time and better places to show off all your home’s great charm and features!
Most importantly: Do not provide any other links on this page. Resist the urge to put Google Adwords on this page. The value of capturing an email address is infinitely greater than the penny you might earn by somebody clicking away from your page.
Finally, set up an email address capture form on the TOP RIGHT CORNER of the “squeeze page”. Most autoresponder companies, such as aWeber, give you the tools to do this easily. Go ahead and sign up for an account. You will need it to send out the series of messages to the list of prospective buyers you will soon build!
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