Your Open Houses and Your Website

As you well know, open houses are a powerful way to find find new clients, generate new leads and keep your seller happy. Not bad for a Sunday afternoon’s work.

Your website can play a major role in both promoting open houses and helping you get more listings.

Here are the bases you’ll need to cover:

• Schedule the open house – preferably at least a week or two in advance so you’ve got time to do your homework.
• Help the seller see what needs to be done. This might be as simple as making sure the house is picked up to as complex as calling in a professional home stager.
• You’ll want to take some dynamite pictures.
• Upload your best photos to your site.
• Post your open house on your site with date, time and directions.
• Send your seller the url to the announcement of their open house and urge them to let everyone on their lists know.
• Post the open house url to all the social media you’re using.
• Make sure the date and location is listed with your office and any other place you normally announce and/or advertise.
• Add a blog post about the website and make sure to send that link to your seller too.

Demo your website at every open house

Bring your computer to the open house, making sure you also bring whatever you need to run it off the home’s current – you don’t want to risk running out of battery life. In fact, it can make sense to feed your website to a larger screen if you’ve got that technology available.

Open the computer to your listings. Sure, you’re there to sell the house that’s open, but lots of the folks who come by will want to look at what else you have to offer.

Showing off your listings on  your computer also lets folks know that you’re using the best kind of technology when it comes to helping both buyers and sellers.

A stack of your business cards near the computer is a good idea – so is a form for collecting names, phone numbers and email addresses.

In many ways, your computer can act as a focal point during the open house without taking anything away from the house itself. It represents you while you’re pointing out the back yard, for example.

When you get your open house on your computer, and your computer to your open house you have the tools you need to connect with the clients you want.