Owners Using Blogs To Market Their Homes

RedCArpetKeimWillCooperate posted on the “home blogs” phenomenon—-owners using blogs to market their homes. Like any new technology, enterprising people will adapt blogging to suit their needs. Blogs are free and easy to use. With plug-ins, there are many presentation/interaction possibilites. With the high cost of print ads, it seems like a no-lose option.

Why not try adding this to your lawn sign (or online or print ad): “This Home Has A Blog, Stop By and Tell Us What You Think”. It is a novel way to attract attention and great for those gun shy buyers who would rather visit the home from the comfort of their own. You might even get feedback, via comments, to help in your marketing. Perhaps add a questionaire of like and dislikes of the home. Or add a Skype or chat box. Of course, the visitor tracking will be helpful. In the same way owners can use blogs, so can listing brokers, perhaps with a link to their own blog and/or website. Experiment and see what happens. Can you think of other marketing options/tools for a home blog?

Check out this home blog.

Blog As Home Journal

It might be interesting for any homeowner to start a blog to keep a journal of the home—-repairs, improvements, additions, maintenance, seasonal photos, etc. (I keep a written journal of our home—dates of repairs, purchases of major appliances, model numbers, warranty information, contact numbers for repairmen, vendors (like my wood supplier), etc.). If it comes time to sell, the owner can pass the blog link to interested buyers who can see the home’s documented past. Just a thought. Any others?

teresa boardman

I have built blogs for some of my listings. So far I have no evidence that it helps. Maybe it works better if the homeowner does it?

sellsius°

Have you provided the blog link in your ads? Do the blogs get visitors? Comments? Does it help you get the listing?

The problem with blogs (& websites) is attracting visitors. Once you can get the traffic to the home blogs, then you can better determine their effectiveness.

Here's something to try: adding a talking avatar via oddcast.com. I think the basic model is free or very low cost.

http://blog.sellsiusrealestate.com/2006/08/30/m...

Sandra

Thanks Sellsius for dropping by. One of the things which is helping our blog is to advertise listings on other boards such as craigslist and then give a link back to the blog if people want more information. You may want to list different homes on the craiglist post and the blog so people have a reason to check back on your blog listings. Although we are new to this, the traffic does come back from craigs to the blog and the same traffic visits the blog regularly.

I really liked the idea of the sign with the blog. Like anything else one has to do blatant promotion. In fact just writing this and seeing your post has given me other ideas: on the marquee in front of the office we should put the website address and also cafepress.com has some great totebags, hats etc. which you can use for promoting your online advertising.

Thanks for being here Sellsius.

sellsius°

Thank you Sandra. You have a good sense of how to use this new technology. You are a creative marketer. Please come by to share your thoughts and ideas with us.

geno petro

I think its a good idea for homeowners to write blogs as they no doubt have a whole lot of time on their hands waiting for someone to show their houses to.

Tongue out of cheek now--its is clearly the direction things are heading real estate-wise. Less print, more cyber.
But just like a business card, a flyer or even a webpage, the more exposure the better. After all the 'Seller' only needs 1 'Buyer' per property. And sometimes they just appear out of thin air...

sellsius°

Well said Geno. You never know where the buyer is going to come from.
The fact that not everyone does it, does not mean it can't work.

Sellsius real estate marketing blog

Owners Using Blogs To Market Their Homes