Effective & Ineffective Advertising
I differ in opinion from the real estate agent community in the effectiveness of two types of advertising. The first are ads in the Open House section of the Contra Costa Times. Not the big ad with the fancy picture, I’m talking about the smaller ad with the vital stats about Sunday open houses. In Clayton, I get an average of 15 parties (about 35 people) per open house. I also do open houses on Thursday, Saturday and Sundays for new listings. In all my research over the past 6 months, I have had only one person reveal that they were visiting because of that ad. I still advertise there because my sellers expect me to, but you also never know where that buyer is going to come from.
My favorite advertisements are my directional signs I put up before open houses. These are the “A” frame signs you see on the streets usually on Sundays. I call them my “temporary billboards” because that’s how effective they are, especially in our area, where billboards are not permitted. I try to put out as many as possible for my target neighborhoods to see and I put them up an hour before and take them down an hour after other agents. My neighborhoods recognize that I’m working hard at selling properties and they know I’m an area expert. I also get more brand exposure, become more familiar to them and believe it or not, they end up trusting me more. Interesting. But the biggest perk is that I can put them up for free anytime.
