Newspaper advertising can be best utilized for 2 things: advertising a specific event you’re holding and advertising an open house. In the good old days, you could put in a simple classified ad advertising a property for sale, without mentioning your name or real estate office. Since many people read the classifieds scanning for For Sale By Owners (FSBO) ads, they would call assuming the property is a FSBO. Now that the Real Estate Commission made it so that you must include your real estate office, phone number and your name, consumers scanning for FSBOs are unlikely to call.

Advertising an Event

Say you decide to hold an event, maybe something like an expo for current renters, or an information session for first time home buyers. Taking out a big ad in the Sunday newspaper can be a great way to market the event (but definitely not the ONLY way you should be marketing the event). As with any print ads you do, don’t just stick a big picture of your face along with your name and phone number – that will not generate interest in the least. Instead, come up with simple and compelling content for the ad that will effectively outline the benefits people can receive just by showing up. It doesn’t hurt to throw in free refreshments or door prizes, so that if the important information you’re offering isn’t enough to pull them in, the thought of free stuff should.

At the event, be sure to have various business cards and handouts with you name and contact information on it, and have some sort of contact form for guests to fill out to enter the drawings for door prizes. By the end of the night, you’ve hopefully marketed your services to over 50 people, who, if you did it right, will be telling their friends, family and acquaintances all about you. Plus, thanks to the contact forms for door prizes, you’ve got a whole new list of leads to add to your mailing list!

Advertising an Open House

First thing you want to realize about open houses is you don’t hold them to sell the home (of course if you do, that’s just an added bonus!), you hold them to meet new buyers and market yourself to a whole new group of people. When advertising your open house, the Sunday paper is one of the best places to focus, as many people sift through the open house section and pick out properties they want to see based on these criteria:

• description of property
• cool and flattering pictures
• how close it is
• how easy it is to get there

Don’t be cheap when it comes to ad size and quality. Open houses are one of the best places to cultivate new leads, so you can’t skimp on the advertising. Get great pictures of the home and come up with a captivating description. Follow it up with basic directions to the home, and throw in an offer of free food and refreshments and even balloons for the kiddies. You can even track how well the ad worked by including a blurb about how if a consumer calls to RSVP they’ll be entered in a raffle to win a $50 gift card to somewhere like Lowes or Best Buy. (Side note: Visa now does gift cards that are accepted most anywhere, if you’re looking for a more flexible gift.)

Remember, all of the marketing you do should be to generate phone calls and e-mails. Newspaper ads just listing properties are not likely to get you a ton of calls, whereas with an event or open house, you have something valuable to offer the consumer, making it much more likely that you’ll get calls in response to your ad.

Of course, some agents may say these are “junk calls” and the people calling are just “tire kickers.” Marketing is only the first step to gain new business, once you’ve made contact with new leads, you’ve gotta sell ‘em on your service, which means converting calls to appointments. You’re a real estate agent, which is like being a business owner, sales person and customer service representative all in one package, so you need to hone all three skills. If you have trouble turning your calls to meetings, definitely take a look at our Converting Calls to Appointments piece, written from personal experience by GetMyHomesValue co-founder Dave Conklin.