It's time to think about holiday marketing
The holiday marketing season begins with Halloween, so let’s start there.
Halloween is an opportunity to reach out to all of your past clients and those in your sphere. Send them a spooky, silly greeting, along with your wishes for a joyful season.
And of course, do include your offer to assist them or their friends and family. Remind them that you're there to answer their real estate questions and of course to assist when they are ready to buy or sell.
If you're not a real estate agent - apply the same thinking to your own product or service.
Next, if you’d like to be known by more of your neighbors, give personalized, individually wrapped candies or lollipops to your trick-or-treaters. You know that moms and dads do get into that Halloween candy!
Lastly, be sure to instruct your listing clients about Halloween décor. Some do tend to overdo it, and that’s not wise if you have a house for sale.
Get noticed with a give-away!
One year, by way of kicking off holiday marketing for my real estate brokerage, I ordered two bins of small pumpkins – the kind of bins you see piled high in the grocery stores. ?We advertised one free per child who came to the office with a parent, and I think half the children in town showed up!
We created good will, and we also got good press out of it – a story with photos in our weekly newspaper two weeks in a row.
Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving is another opportunity to send a card or at least a Happy Thanksgiving email to your sphere and to past clients. Let them know that they are on your list of reasons to give thanks.
For the special people on your list – like the ones who regularly refer clients to you – you could hand-deliver a memorable Thanksgiving thank you in the form of a potted mum or a pumpkin pie. Or – if they’re Starbucks fans – a certificate for a few pumpkin drinks.
If you’re working on some listing leads, the lead-up to Thanksgiving is the perfect time to begin using my Holiday Listing Letters set. These 5 letters explain why having your home on the market over Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Hanukkah is a good idea. You can intersperse these letters with other prospecting letters you’re sending and could also add them to your blog or social media posts.
REMINDER: If you already own this set of letters, take them out of mothballs and put them to use. They won’t help you if they’re stuck away in the back closet of your computer files.
Some people do have the misconception that real estate doesn’t sell during the holiday season. These letters will help you dispel that myth – and possibly bring you a new closing or two to help brighten the new year.
Now is the time for planning your December events and give-aways.
Right now is when you should begin planning for special client appreciation parties or ordering holiday gifts and small give-away items.
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Consider ordering small gifts that will be useful and will cause you to be remembered.
Ordering now is especially important if you want to give away personalized items – and why wouldn’t you?
A quick search online showed me plenty of interesting items suitable for holiday marketing give-aways. Most were under $1 each. The list included:
When ordering, do consider how you will deliver these trinkets. One year I ordered a whole case of notepads with my name and photo, the company name, and my contact information.
Since many of my past clients lived far away, I planned to mail a good number of them. Too bad I didn’t think about that when I ordered the 4 X 6 size. I had to buy special envelopes for? to fit them. The pocket calendars were better – they, along with a letter, fit into a regular #10 envelope.
You can, of course, spend more. When I had a real estate brokerage, I got ads every year trying to sell me cases of wine that they would personalize with our company name, etc.
There’s no limit to the kind of client appreciation party you could host.
Your weather might dictate whether you want to celebrate indoors or outdoors. Then your budget might dictate the type of party you’d hold.
I know agents who host BBQ parties at their homes, those who rent a ballroom and have a catered buffet and live music for dancing, and those who arrange for a private movie screening for their past clients.
Some have a quiet open house at the office, where they serve light refreshments and give away calendars or other small gifts.?Others arrange to bring Santa to their office for an afternoon – and of course they invite past, current, and future clients, plus those in their sphere. They serve punch and cookies and have someone taking photos.
You could do anything in between. And – if a party seems too much to do all by yourself, you could go together with one or two other people. It could be colleagues in your office, or perhaps your favorite mortgage lender or title rep.
Use your imagination, but if you want to do something, do start planning now.?If you wait to think about holiday marketing until December, it will be too late to do anything without causing yourself undue stress.
Do remember to advise your listing clients about decorating.
Just as some do with Halloween, some people tend to go all out with Christmas and Hanukkah decor. Remind them to keep a light touch. Make the house warm, inviting, and attractive, but don’t cover every surface to the extent that people can’t see what the house looks like!
This advice would be equally important for both indoors and out.
Happy Holiday Thinking!
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