Is Your Eau Claire Real Estate Agent Truly Marketing Your Home?

 This might seem like an easy enough question with a simple enough answer. You would probably say yes almost immediately, after all they said they were marketing your home so you probably just assume that they are. In fact they are marketing your home when they put the sign in the yard. They are marketing the home to anyone who happens to drive by. They are also marketing the home when they put it in the MLS system. Once the listing of your home is there it’s easy for anyone with MLS access to see your home and with a mouse click or a phone call come and see it. They might even do an open house for you and when they do the open house is probably advertised in the weekend paper. The open house might even appear online if they bother to even make this available on their website that is if they even have a website.

Now that their marketing system is complete what’s next? Well so far they have simply managed to put your home on a level playing field with every other MLS listing! I can tell you from experience that this might get your home sold. The key word here is might because it also might not get your home sold. If you really think about this “marketing plan” it’s not really much of a marketing plan. It’s just the most basic marketing any agent can and will do for you. Sure some won’t do open houses so I guess that puts your listing with that agent at an even greater deficit compared to those agents or agencies that do host open houses, but ask your Eau Claire real estate agent what they are doing specifically to market your home. I have a feeling they will come up with something but it’s probably not a straight answer. 

To be fair much of the marketing plan they aren’t discussing with you is advertising for their specific company. Much of our advertising budget is spent on this type of advertising and it works well. We are a very successful real estate company and we sell a lot of homes. This can be directly attributed to our overall marketing efforts. Very few companies spend as much money as we do and the numbers speak for themselves. But asking your agent to specifically market your home is probably not going to happen.

Why?

Well it’s a combination of a few things that basically makes it impossible for them to market your home. First of all most agents don’t know much about marketing. This isn’t something you are just born knowing how to do and most agents come from various backgrounds that have absolutely no specific marketing training. So marketing isn’t just going to happen magically and it’s something that they probably just don’t know how to do. Sure they will still sell homes because people have heard of their company and just listing it can sometimes get a home sold regardless of what the specific agent does. That’s because in order for someone to buy that specific house they have to buy it through that agent. But because of the lack of marketing potential buyers often buy something else!

The other problem associated with marketing is that traditional marketing is expensive. An ad in the paper can be hundreds of dollars and only appears for a short time. Real estate magazine ads are equally expensive and can easily be overlooked. What about mass mail marketing? This is extremely expensive as well. To target a large number of people you could spend thousands of dollars. None of these methods are cost effective. If you look at the average commission and start doing any of these things there is quickly nothing left. That’s one half of the coin as to why most agents don’t use these techniques.

The other half of the coin is that they just don’t work! If they did work, regardless of cost, more agents would use these methods simply because of the sheer volume of sales. Instead the actual number of people who call about a home after seeing an ad like this or getting a mailer approaches 1% or less (guesstimate). That’s the number who actually bother to call but out of that there are far less that want any more information other than price. Chances are the people who read the ad or got the flyer aren’t even in the market for a home, that’s right you are blasting a large number of people with advertising but it’s not focused and it’s not in the right target market. That’s why it doesn’t work!

So what happens is your agent is left with a choice, stick the sign in the yard and just wait for something to happen or spend hundreds if not thousands of dollars hoping that just by sheer chance they get someone to buy the house. But this directly affects their bottom line and most agents are not going to risk selling a house for absolutely no profit. After all they are a business and what business can afford to stay open if they are not making any money?

So what does this mean for you trying to sell your house in Eau Claire, Altoona or Chippewa Falls?

If you hired a traditional agent and they are a pretty good agent then you probably have an ok chance to sell your house. Eventually it will sell because the price will be driven so low that someone would have to be crazy not to buy it. If it’s the only house in that particular area then people don’t have a choice but to buy your house.

But wouldn’t it be nice to know that your agent is working hard to specifically sell your house?

Wouldn’t it be nice to see ads for your home all over the place?

*Try to do that infomercial voice in your head here*

“Hold on just a minute Shane! You just said that marketing is expensive and ineffective!”

Traditional marketing is extremely expensive and hardly effective. But there are non-traditional ways that are quickly becoming “the thing” to do. If you would like to see a demonstration of how I can market your home in a way that no other agent in our area is capable of simply give me a call or email me today. In today’s market you want a competitive advantage. You don’t want a level playing field when it comes to your house.

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If you would like to work with an agent who is leading the way call 715-894-1001 today or send me an email.

Buy or Sell, I’ll Treat You Well!
(In case you do not agree with something I said or feel that my blog or my beliefs could be construed as libelous I hereby declare that my entire blog is meant as a joke. I consider myself to be a comedian and everything I say or have said should be considered comedy. I want nothing I say to be taken seriously and if you do take it seriously take a break. If you do not think what I said is funny then that is your opinion. But for anyone who wants to sue me everything I said or say is meant purely as satire.The only thing that is not a joke is this disclaimer.)