Selling Your Home? Then You Need A Marketing Plan

Marketing your home is more than placing a sign in your yard and placing an ad in the local newspaper. To get the most exposure for your home, you should have a marketing plan that has clear objectives and specifically outlines the resources that will be used to reach potential buyers.

Each marketing plan should be designed around your property and capitalize on its most desirable features. Therefore, you need to be honest with your real estate professional about the condition of your home, and what's the final price you will accept for your home. Your real estate professional may advise you to get a home inspection upfront to determine the current condition, so that you have time to make any corrective work. This can make your home more salable and help avoid unpleasant surprises and expenses later on.

Rarely is the successful marketing of a property the result of a single activity. Therefore the marketing plan should list the types of tools that will be used to expose your home to buyers. Yard signs, newspaper ads, and listing with a Multiple Listing Service should only be the beginning. Other resources may include company tours, Open Houses, "Just Listed" postcards to clients and surrounding neighborhood, and referrals.

And don't forget technological tools. Studies show that more and more people are using the Internet during their home search. Your exposure can now be worldwide instead of just contained in your neighborhood. So you want to make sure that your marketing plan reflects how you will reach that audience. Besides listings on their personal websites, your real estate professional may list your home on Realtor.com or their affiliations' website such as Prudential.com. Another popular technological tool he or she may use to market your home is virtual tours, which allows viewers to get a 360-degree preview of your home without leaving their computer.

When marketing your property, there are really two audiences you are trying to reach—home buyers and other real estate professionals. Make sure the plan includes action steps on how each audience will be marketed to.

An effective marketing plan will also spell out specific dates for marketing activities such as company and broker tours, Open Houses, postcard mailings, and newspaper advertisements. Yet, it should leave room for unscheduled events such as following up with sales professionals or brokers who preview or show the home.

The action steps should also include checkpoints, possibly at the 15-, 30- and 45-day mark, to review activity on the home and determine if changes need to be made to the marketing plan.

As the home seller, you should be kept in the loop on activity of your home. The marketing plan should state how (such as by mail, phone email, or even through a website) and the frequency (daily, weekly).

Of course these are just guidelines, but can give you an idea if the marketing plan your real estate professional has proposed to you has to be refined. You need to be comfortable with the marketing strategy for your home. An effective plan will not only put you at ease, but give your home maximum exposure so that hopefully you will have a quick sell.

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