How to make THOUSANDS EXTRA by Investing in Modern Marketing to Sell your Perth Property

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Hi there its Jarrad Mahon from Investors Edge Real Estate bringing you the next in our video series on How to make Thousands Extra for your property when you’re next selling. And today we’re joined by Logan Duncan Smith, one of my savvy sales agents. Thanks for joining us Logan. And in this particular video we’re going to go deep into why you should be investing in your marketing.

Jarrad: Logan take us through your analogy that comes to mind when you are chatting to owners and they are trying to decide whether to spend the money.

Logan: The best one I’ve heard was a few weeks ago at a training course it came down to… When you go to a car mechanic and you get your invoice for the car regardless of how the car is running you have a labour component, and a parts component. The way we see marketing is basically imagine us as a car mechanic, you don’t actually pay the labour component until the car is running to the way you want to. But the parts component is the marketing, we just needs some help with the parts, effectively it just like we need some help with the marketing so that we can get the best result and we don’t get paid for the labour until the property gets settled.

Jarrad: I guess we as agents, I guess we’re giving up our time and investing our time in the sale and what we ask for is for the client to invest in their marketing and not paying for the labour component (our time) until they’re happy with the result in the price that they get.

Downsides of Agent Paid Marketing

Jarrad: So, what happens when an agent is paying for the marketing? A lot of sellers might not even decide to list with someone if they can go and get another agent to pay for it instead. So what would you say?

Logan: Yeah, be careful.  Typically speaking it just means that there not going to invest too much into the sale itself, it’s going to be pretty minimal. There are free ways of advertising properties, it comes down to less exposure, the worst the sale price and this is a hard fact.

Jarrad: Its pretty hard to sell a secret isn’t it?

Logan: You can be the world’s best secret but it’s not going to get a sale.

So what’s the dynamic in the office as well when we’ve got marketing money outstanding, the owner such as myself puts a bit of pressure on the agent to get that sale and what does that do for the agent when they’ve got their marketing on the line?

Logan: It just becomes a matter of trying to get an outcome not the best outcome because in the end the agent doesn’t really care too much because it’s not his money. If he’s got 10 listing at $1,500 each for marketing and he’s not too concerned but then he’s got Directors and people above him that are going hey how are we going with this sale we’ve got 1,500 dollars owing on each of these, time to get them sold, and it’s not necessary, desperation coming from the agent himself but it’s coming from above him that then creates a desperation. And it just creates desperation as wanting to get an outcome, not the best outcome.

Components of Modern Marketing

Jarrad: So let’s run through some of the components of marketing just to give you a feel at home what typical marketing plan involves, then we’ll go a bit deeper into some of the ways that we approach things. What would you look to include in the marketing plan.

Logan: Well the key thing is pro photography. It’s really the shop front for the property in the listing and it’s on the website, it’s on the brochures, it’s everywhere.

Jarrad: What are some of the things you do differently with the photography?

Logan: Well, we do like afternoon shoots. Twilight shoots create a bit more emotion, a bit nicer, if you’ve got lamps they look really cool, lights are on and pop, you got a bit of pink sky. So it just creates a lot more emotion. But other key things as I’ve see brochures, you want something to really stand out, something that is professionally done.

Jarrad:  Something that feels quality, you can’t sell a quality house if you are using something black and white that has been run off on the photocopier.

Logan: That’s it and you want to leave a good impression with buyers as well and there’s a lot of properties on the market, especially in today’s market so you want to make sure that when they go home, and are going through the different brochures, we have had some buyers say that they looked through 10 properties on that weekend and they only remembered us coz we gave them a quality brochure and a buyer gift bag.

Jarrad: Little points of the difference, to stand out.

Logan: Yeah, I mean obviously then there’s always online online marketing, realestate.com, domain, reiwa, that sorts.

Jarrad: Most agents can get you on those websites that’s nothing special. Is there anything that we do to get up above them?

Logan: Yeah, we obviously then try to drive traffic to those adverts as well through social media which you can obviously highly target, demographics and what not.

Jarrad: What’s couple of things that people should do but most don’t?

Logan: Furnishing and Video. Furnishing does come at quite a cost anywhere from $2,500 grand to $3,500 per month. Understandably it’s not within everyone’s budget but it is highly recommended. It’s very reflective in the outcomes that are achieved and the other thing that we do as a standard, is video, it’s the way things are going, with facebook and social media videos play almost automatically.

Jarrad: We don’t want to be showing people everything in the video, we want to be showing them just enough to get them in the door by wetting their interest.

Logan: That’s it. Creates some excitement and again emotion.

How to avoid wasting money

Jarrad: Alright, that’s at the components. What does a typical agent do to somewhat waste money from the owner as a seller myself I’m always asking a question, am I getting a return from this investment in marketing. How do they waste some of the money?

Logan: With the newspapers and magazines, nowadays no one is really reading them anymore.

Jarrad: So very expensive.

Logan: Ah yeah, very very expensive and it’s not measurable like you just don’t know unless the agent specifically asks how did you find that property, where did you first see it, unless you really deep with that client, they saw it in the newspaper and then from the newspaper they went online then from online they registered for the home open and then from that they came to the home open so…

Jarrad: That’s not measurable

Logan: That’s it, so at least with online marketing or social media marketing, highly targeted, it’s measurable, you paid for what you return so, by paying per click for example. You’re not just, it’s not just an airy fairy figure that’s been thrown out there expecting a return, we can actually see the return and we…

Jarrad: When you say targeted, I mean its laser targeted. If you’re selling a boutique apartment, and you have worked out it’s ideal for the 25-35 age group. We can actually target adverts to the age group and geo target down to where they live as well. We can really go and find the right buyer online, very cost effectively now.

Logan: No definitely, and unfortunately it’ just one of the things in today’s world, a phone is an extension of ourselves it’s just where eyes are going and you would be stupid not to be on it.

Jarrad: Much rather invest in social and online side and that’s where you are going to get you your best return on investment.

Cost of Modern Marketing

Jarrad: So what is typical cost with our customized marketing plan. What are sellers going to be looking at?

Logan: Typically speaking, the marketing plan that we put together anywhere $1,400 to $1,800 when you start to add furniture, can go up, can be from anywhere from additional $2,600 again to $3,600. Again it’s highly recommended, it’s not going to suit everyone and it is for first month but at the same time it is very reflective in the outcomes that are achieved be the lower time on the market price able to achieve.

Why should someone invest in their marketing?

Jarrad: So why should someone ultimately invest in their marketing?

Logan: Well, again, it comes down to we can’t sell it twice, we can’t sell it with furniture and then without furniture and see the difference. We only get one shot at it. You really want to make sure you get the maximum exposure and just ensure that you’re not wasting money but as I said before you hate to get to the end of the whole process and be signing off on the offer and think maybe we should have furnished it, it’s the worst feeling

Jarrad: Or maybe we should have done the social media side of things. Just feeling of missing out or leaving money on the table and that’s where the regret comes from isn’t it?

So yeah, make sure you invest in your marketing. It’s one of the best ways to make tens of thousands extra when next selling your Perth property. We’re more than happy to meet and go through our customized marketing plan.

Thanks so much for sharing with us Logan!

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