Marketing ideas to get ahead this holiday season

When December rolls around and the property market begins to wind down a lot of agents see it as the perfect opportunity to take time off and go an extended holiday. For this reason, December and January are great times of year for planning and prospecting to get ahead of your competition while they’re sunning themselves on a beach somewhere.

Here are nine marketing ideas to make the most of real estate’s off season and get a leg up on your competition in 2017.

1. This time of year everyone loves getting into the giving spirit and who doesn’t love a freebie? Try hosting a contest across your social media channels encouraging people to share their Christmas home decorations to enter the draw to win a Christmas hamper or something similar. This is a fun way to get to know, reward and grow your fans and followers.

2. Prepare and print a handout and/or blog posts on why summer is a great time to buy/sell a home. Share this with your email subscribers, social media fans and followers and local households. Focus on advantages like lower stock, less competition, faster transactions and sellers/buyers that are generally more motivated than other times of year.

3. Write up case studies of your best sales of 2016 to add to your website, share on social media and send to your email database. If you get into the habit of doing this every December eventually you’ll have an amazing library of all your years of hard work and dedication to getting the best results for vendors for past, present and prospective clients to see.

4. Become a Premier Agent. In a slower-market you need to explore every marketing avenue you can to capture as many leads as possible. Premier Agent gives you 10X more exposure among motivated buyers and sellers in your market. It gives you priority positioning in Agent Finder and showcases agent controlled reviews, your neighbourhood knowledge and performance stats.

5. The good thing about the summer holidays is that many of your current and past clients will have taken time off and have the time to chat over the phone or fill out customer testimonial forms. Better yet, touch base with current and past clients and drop off festive treats, like mini Christmas puddings, cookies or candy canes for the kids. See how they’re going and whether they know of anyone interested in buying or selling in the area.

6. Put together an infographic or market wrap-up for 2016 to be used in a direct mail campaign in your service suburbs. Provide information that someone considering selling in the next year or so would want to know about their local property market. Include data on house price growth, record sales from the past year and your own personal analysis and forecasts for the year ahead.

7. Send out fridge magnet calendars with your contact details as well as postcards to locals, and past and present clients with a holiday greeting. For your extra special clients send a hand-written Christmas card to make them feel appreciated and thank them for their business.

8. Get active on homely.com.au’s Questions pages. Over the festive season and summer our Questions pages run hot with people looking for school holiday activities, the best beaches in their city and New Years events, just to name a few. If you know of a great Christmas lights display in your neighbourhood or a rooftop bar worth checking out be sure to market yourself as the local expert by answering locals’ questions or starting your own topics. Not only does it get your name out there, it’s also a valuable tool and way to gain insight into what the important issues are in your community right now.

9. Get in the festive spirit. Upload Christmassy videos/photos to your professional Facebook and Instagram accounts of shots or your local community. Think Christmas decorations down the main street, local Xmas light displays or even a pic with Santa at the local shopping centre. Festive snaps and fun videos are always a winner on social media and an easy way to engage with clients, colleagues and people from your service suburbs.

If you work hard at marketing your services over the festive season to maintain your pipeline of new clients, you’ll be all set for a prosperous and successful 2017.

Having said that don’t forget to take a break. Even the very best agents need time away from work to unwind and recharge. So, unplug the tech, turn off the smartphone, put away the laptop and do something just for you over the summer. You’ve earned it!