It’s not too long ago that buyers would hike to their local real estate agency on a weekend to look at the properties for sale in the window.
But today, properties pop up in front of potential buyers while they’re shopping for shoes, writing messages to their mates, and checking out the latest celebrity gossip on their digital devices.
Digital and social media advertising is the new norm and no one understands that better than Coronis Burpengary Director Jason Watson.
Amplifying his results
Jason says he uses Coronis Amplify on all of his properties to extend and increase audience engagement through social, display ads and native ads, to find buyers and sellers whenever and wherever they are online.
“Digital and social media advertising has been proven to work and it’s not just where it (advertising) is starting to head, it has headed there and it’s getting bigger,” he says.
That’s why when Jason listed 38 Spring Lane, Caboolture, north of Brisbane, in September, he knew a digital marketing campaign had an integral role to play in securing a buyer.
Jason says the vendors wanted to sell as fast as possible, so he threw everything, and the kitchen sink, at the marketing campaign for the four-bedroom, two-bathroom luxury family home, that came complete with an inground pool, moveable Balinese cabana, and a double-bay Colorbond shed.
“We used everything we would normally use including professional photos, a floor plan and we definitely needed drone shots to showcase the proximity of the home to the motorway, shops, and schools,” he says.
“We also used a lot of digital marketing and social media with view.com.au.”
The Coronis Amplify platform is powered by view.resi’s off-portal performance product called Acquire, which was then customised to ensure the Coronis brand remained at the forefront of its marketing efforts.
Find buyers wherever they are
Jason says not only was the listing featured on Coronis’ website it also appeared on view.com.au and was magnified across social media and other targeted digital platforms to ensure the property reached as many active and passive buyers as possible.
“This really allowed us to target audiences at a wider level,” he says.
“We have buyers that would call us or message us on a Saturday morning asking when the next open was because they had been scrolling through Facebook at the coffee shop that morning and spotted the property.
“It doesn’t have the open times so they have to get in touch.
“In our area, our demographic is always on social media and always looking at their phone, so we target the ads.
“They might be looking at shoes on the internet and then the ads will pop up when there’s sales on certain brands and things like that.”
Jason notes that using Amplify does exactly as the name suggests, it puts properties in front of more prospective buyers and drives them to the open homes.
Get more buyers at open homes
He says without Amplify, the average number of groups through an open would be between five and eight, but with the platform, it’s not unusual to see between 15 and 20 groups at an inspection.
“A lot of the buyers we ended up getting through Spring Lane we hadn’t met before,” Jason reveals.
“They were new to the area and new to our database, so this was a great technique to maximise people through the door.
“On social media, we targeted different areas, different locations throughout the region, and southern buyers.”
With such strong numbers through the open homes, including several offers and interest from interstate buyers, Jason says they were able to sell the home in three weeks for $1.3 million – a price the vendors were incredibly happy about.
“We also used high presence on view.com.au, as we knew from past open homes that every time we’ve used these products we’ve gained more feet through the door and hence been able to generate more offers,” he says.
Boosting your personal brand
He says using Amplify not only boosts his vendors’ properties but his agency and personal brand as well.
It also helps him secure new listings.
“That’s the biggest thing, we want feet through the door because, at the moment, a lot of our listings are generated from people coming through the open homes,” Jason says.
“What we’ve found is that younger demographics go out and start looking at homes, even before they’ve sold theirs and before they have an agent.
“They’re out shopping around and doing research, so it’s an opportunity to get in the door with a new vendor.”
Jason notes that another thing that helps push his brand is that the Acquire product can be customised to any agency and all leads are connected straight back to their portal.
“As soon as people view the ad they’re clicking through to our Coronis (website),” he says.
Digital all the way
Jason notes that other marketing methods are still needed in a campaign, including quality photos, floor plans, brochures, and more, but he says agents can’t afford not to advertise on social media and other digital platforms.
“The biggest thing we learned from this sale (Spring Lane) was that you definitely need to push social media a lot more because this was key in the transaction,” Jason says.
“It allows us to push more people through the doors.
“We’ve also used it on a couple of test properties where some did have Amplify on it and others didn’t and we’ve always been able to achieve more numbers through the open homes that did have it compared to the ones that didn’t.”
“Now I use it on all my listings, I don’t put one up without it.”
