The number one goal of any marketing campaign is to bring as many buyers through your home in the shortest amount of time to maximize your final sales price. There are a number of methods that we use to ensure that your home has maximum exposure. The obvious method used by us as well as all other real estate brokerages is the Multiple Listing Service (MLS), which provides information on properties listed by real estate companies throughout Northeast Ohio. The MLS serves as the “great equalizer” for all real estate companies who use it. In other words, if your property goes on the market it will be instantly visible by other Realtors searching the MLS for their buyers. Moreover, the properties in the MLS get sent on an hourly or daily basis to websites around the globe, websites such as Realtor.com, local and national real estate company websites, etc. Today, the real estate market is changing and most buyers seek on-line sources to gather property information via the Internet. The Internet has transformed the shopping habits of consumers as a whole, and certainly property buyers, specifically. Therefore, I utilize this vital resource for marketing all of our properties.

Want a buyer? First impressions are the most important!

All the properties we list for sale are entered into the Multiple Listing Service (MLS).
Pricing recommendation.
Yard sign.
Multiple photos.
• Sunday Open House—We hold an Open House within the first month your home is on the market. An advertisement is placed in the Plain Dealer and invitations are sent to your neighbors. Subsequent open houses and advertising for open houses are at our discretion.  Here is an inside secret: Open houses primarily benefit the agent/broker as it: 1) Brands the real estate brokerage, 2) Brands the listing agent, 3) Allows current/potential sellers to check out their competition as well as neighbors thereby providing an opportunity for the listing agent to obtain more listings and 4) allows the listing agent to meet and perhaps work with unrepresented buyers.  No data is collected in the real estate industry regarding: The actual buyer who came through the open house actually bought that specific house. Open houses are a wonderful marketing tool for the brokerage and agent, but not necessarily the seller themselves.  A seller should ask a prospective listing agent: Show me proof that a buyer attended one of your open houses and bought that exact house?  Then ask, how many buyers have come through the total of all your open houses.  Do the division and you will obtain your percentage chance of selling using this technique.  I don't think you will get an answer to the 1st question, nor the 2nd.
• Broker's Open House—This is when a new listing comes on the market, and on the next available Tuesday, the agent either holds it open or puts it on lockbox so agents can tour at their leisure, during a specific window (ie. 11-2).  Enticements such as food, gas cards, etc., are sometimes used to encourage more agents to attend.  Rarely does the agent touring actually have a present buyer for the home.  If an agent does have a buyer for the home, the buyer will most likely know about it via the Internet, automated searches, interactive searches, etc.  The effectiveness of this technique is almost nill, and again, I'm not aware of any data that is kept to properly analyze the usefulness of this technique.

In addition to the above, here are many other results-oriented, cutting-edge marketing techniques we employ to both expand the reach of your home as well as to have your home viewed in the best possible light:

Realtor.com—REALTOR.com is the world's largest real estate database of homes for sale and the official site of the National Association of REALTORS. This is the #1 website used by buyers to search for homes. We offer the premium “showcase/enhanced” package to our clients which includes up to 25 home pictures, title, banner, scrolling text, long textual descriptions, contact information, website address, etc. We also include a true virtual tour of your home, shown as the “red spinning house." If an individual Realtor does not pay for the “showcase/enhanced” package (the overwhelming majority of Realtors do not), then your home does not have direct Realtor contact info, no long text descriptions, no direct links to the Realtor’s website, etc., making it very difficult for a consumer to learn about a property and more importantly, makes it very difficult for a consumer to contact the Realtor to inquire about the property.
OlsenZiegler.com—Our company website includes all featured listings with property details and virtual tours and an MLS link to the property description.  Our website name is on all of advertising, including print ads, For Sale signs, flyers, business cards, etc.
ChrisOlsenRealtor.com—My Realtor website includes first page visibility for major search engines (Goggle and Yahoo).  This website also directs people to the Olsen Ziegler Realty website.
First-page results on Google, Yahoo, Bing.—Buyers, neighbors, etc., will oftentimes use search engines such as Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc., to search for homes, specific community information, etc.  While there are never any guarantees when it comes to organic search engine placement, our listings are usually plastered all over page 1 of the results.
Global reach and hyper-local blogging using Social Media such as ActiveRain (the largest real estate professional network in the world), Facebook and Twitter.
We syndicate your listing to dozens of major real estate internet portal websites, such as GoogleBase, Yahoo, Trulia, Zillow, AOL, etc.
We enlist a top podcasting company to create a podcast virtual tour (MP4) with professional voice-over plus photography sent to over 100 video sites and video podcsting directories, including iTunes, YouTube, Yahoo, etc. Moreover, due to their technical capabilities, this podcast will end up on the first page of Google search results.
Professionally-designed virtual tour displayed on various websites. 
High-quality digial and wide-angle lense photography. We use exceptional digital photography, desktop publishing and technology skills to showcase your home and make it stand out from your competition. These photographs represent your home in marketing flyers, the Multiple Listing Service, and Realtor.com.
Just Listed Cards—We send out postcards showcasing your home as “Just Listed” to notify your community that your property is for sale.  Sometimes word of mouth from neighbors, etc., can also spread the word.
• For Sale Flyer in full color.
• Special Features & Highlights Sheet.

Now...bringing the conversation back to the practical, no amount of marketing will sell a home if:

1. The home is over-priced based on recent sales and local market conditions, and/or
2. The current condition of the home is not in tune with the asking price.  In other words, homes that are more dated and less updated will sell for comparable homes that have more updates (kitchen, baths, roof, windows, furnace, AC, flooring, paint, etc.).  Homes that have not been updated in decades can still sell, but in this current high-inventory market, the price has to really reflect this.  We have sold homes in top-notch condition (some of which we renovated and staged for the sellers) and have fetched multiple offers while many/most of the homes in the neighborhood sit unsold.

Marketing needs to be kept in context as one element of creating the right environment for a sale to occur.  Marketing is not the silver bullet.  Marketing is not the magic answer. 

The real answer to acheiving a successful home sale lies in what occurs BEFORE the home is placed on the market, specifically, the complex relationship between:

• Price,
• Condition,
• Location and
• Current market demand.

If the partnership between the agent and home seller gets the previous four bullets right, marketing is the icing on the cake.  Get it wrong, and no amount of marketing will overcome this deficiency, plain and simple.  Even our innovative and broad-reaching marketing cannot overcome missing the boat on these four, crucial elements.