by Chett Coombs, on May 1, 2016
Building and maintaining a Geo Farm can be one of your best investments of time and resources. Leads and referrals may not come immediately, but over time your Geo Farm will provide a steady flow of business.There are many ways to successfully build a Geo Farm. Here are a few tips on getting started.
Selecting a Geographic Farm
If you are an experienced agent, selecting a Geo Farm can be as simple as putting all your transactions into Google Maps and finding out where the majority of your past transactions occurred. If 50% of your business happened in a particular part of town, you probably already know more about that area than the average agent. Plus, you may already have some brand recognition built. Your experience and brand recognition in that area is a great place to start building a Geo Farm.If you are a new agent, consider your current relationships, interests, and skills to determine if you more likely to be successful in suburbs, luxury real estate, or another market. Find an area that fits your interests and has a minimum of 6% turnover. An area with greater than 6% turnover will have enough people moving in and out to produce regular listings.
What is my budget?
All of your geo farm marketing will fall under two categories: sweat equity and check equity. If you’re a new agent without much of a marketing budget and all the time in the world, sweat equity, or putting in the manual work instead of paying someone to do it, might be the best option. Experienced agents probably have more marketing budget than spare time and usually prefer using paid advertising options to develop a Geo Farm.See and be seen is the core to building a geographic farm, especially if you are building it with sweat equity marketing. Take advantage of any opportunity to put your face in front of your Geo Farm. For example, knocking doors and offering a warm smile and friendly handshake is a tried and proven strategy that only costs you time and a little rubber on the bottom of your shoes. By using Landvoice Neighborhood Search, you can know the name of each homeowner before you knock on their door.
Start Farming
Once a geographic area and budget are chosen, the only thing left to do is work your new Geo Farm. Here are a few ideas.
Even thought digital marketing is the current trend, Direct mail is still alive and strong in real estate. If you are building a new Geo Farm, sending three mailers each month for three months can help establish brand recognition. Once you have been developing an area for a few months, continue to send one or two mail pieces each month, including a community newsletter. News about a home that sold very quickly or above asking price is very exciting for a neighborhood. Always include a call-to-action, such as a URL for them to visit and request a estimation of their home value.
Holding an open house is a good idea for any listing. However, if you want to really make an impact on your Geo Farm, holding a Mega Open House can help establish yourself as the go-to real estate professional for the area. A Mega Open House is different that your typical open house. Prior the open house, hold a special luncheon and showing that is exclusive to the community. This is a unique opportunity for you to bring the community together. After seeing all the work you have put into selling the house at maximum price, community members will want you to do the same thing for them when they are ready to sell. More often than not, community members will want to speak with you about getting an estimated value for their home. A Mega Open House is an excellent way to cement yourself as the local real estate expert.
You will develop many relationships after a few years of working in a geographic area, which will make you very resourceful to community members. Use these relationships to help community members in need connect with others that can provide a solution. Doing this establishes yourself as more than just a real estate agent, but a valuable member of a community that others can rely on and trust.
Landvoice solutions offer subscription services to get you over the hump from calling expired listings to doing business entirely from happy client referrals. Bundle subscriptions and save—not only time, but money. Landvoice is the one provider you need that offers services like Neighborhood Search and Call Capture, which generate leads, to effortlessly supply you with expired MLS leads and FSBO leads right to your inbox. Choose Landvoice and you’ll save valuable time that you can dedicate to taking your business to the next level.
