Open houses are a tried and true way to get you or your team’s name out there, and are also a great way to convert leads into prospective buyers. Sellers are impressed with the effort when you take the time to show their home to several potential buyers. However, to understand the true value of an open house, it’s important to first evaluate the different ways of marketing a home and decide which strategy will be most beneficial for you and your seller in regard to a virtual open house or an in-person open house.
When it comes to a virtual open house, there are a lot of questions that come up. You or your team members may just think that these types of open houses are not worth the effort. However, virtual open houses can be a huge advantage over traditional open houses for a few reasons. First, it allows you to scale your efforts so you could do 10 or 11 open houses in a week instead of just one or two. Not only can you do more of them, but you can also get more people “at” each open house, allowing you to get hundreds of views online and tons of leads rather than just a dozen people coming through a physical open house. Sellers love this! The exposure is great and they don’t have to worry about a ton of people in their home.
In fact, there is actually a big advantage to doing an open house in this upgraded, virtual way because of the reusability. So you can do one open house and get a ton of mileage out of it. You can send a link to the open house to buyers who missed it, increasing your lead generation. This means that you can keep the open house going in perpetuity, increasing the amount of money-making activities that you are doing without putting in as much effort.
If you want your team to create a more impactful open house, encourage them to go to the home alone and shoot a Facebook Live video. Just set up an event in advance on Facebook and invite friends, prospects and area homeowners to the event. You’ll be surprised by how much attention the video will get. If you’re not comfortable getting on video, jump in and get it done; the world is changing, and your agents need to adapt to stay successful. That’s just the truth.
Now, if they are going to do a live video from the home, here are a few tips:
– Use a high-quality camera—a smartphone works perfectly for this.
– Get a stabilizer to mount your phone onto to eliminate shaky cam and bad quality.
– For loud and clear audio, a lapel mic is a great start to ensure better audio quality.
– If possible, we recommend filming with a panoramic/360° camera. This makes the experiences much more immersive for a prospective buyer since they can view each room from every angle and “turn” to look around as you talk, mimicking what they would see in person.
Remember, just like with a physical open house, you want your agents to give their best first impression. Poor video/audio quality might affect a prospective buyer’s opinion of the home or you as an agent. Make sure it’s as polished and professional looking as possible. To provide the support and get the same quality of presentation across the whole team, it may be best to invest in equipment that they can use, in addition to teaching tips and tricks at your weekly meetings.
Verl Workman is the founder and CEO of Workman Success Systems (385-282-7112), an international speaking, consulting, and coaching company that specializes in performance coaching and building successful power agents and teams. Contact him at Verl@WorkmanSuccessSystems.com. For more information, please visit www.WorkmanSuccess.com.
