When searching the internet, have you ever noticed banner advertisements popping up on the side, top, bottom or middle of your screen advertising lots of different products or companies?

Have you ever noticed that many of these advertisements seem to be specifically targeted towards you or the things you’ve been recently searching?

Many of you will know that this doesn’t happen by accident.

I’ve heard it called ‘Guerrilla marketing’, ‘viral marketing’ or lots of different variations.

The best example of this I can describe is that I recently researched a holiday that’s I’m intending to take on Hamilton Island.

After I clicked around on hotels, airfares and accommodation, I immediately started to see advertisements for Hamilton Island pop up on the edges of other websites that I was frequenting…websites such as realestate.com.au, ninemsn.com.au, news.com.au etc.

You may know that this form of advertising has be proven to be very effective given how much time we spend online these days.

When you think about it…if a potential customer has taken the time to research that particular product or service, it makes sense that you would focus on them knowing that they’re the customer that’s likely to buy that product or service if you keep reminding them of it.

It will probably be no surprise to you that you can market individual properties to buyers in the very same manner.

I’ve mentioned before in these blogs how powerful Social Media can be…and how we’re now selling properties directly from targeted advertisements on various websites such as Facebook and Instagram.

An agent that’s competent in this area will know that you can market directly to buyers that have recently clicked on properties in the same general area and same general price range…and like most forms of digital marketing, the value for money is still relatively cheap compared to the reach that you’d experience in more traditional forms of marketing such as letterbox drops or newspaper advertisements.

So, does this form of ‘guerrilla marketing’ actually work?

We receive some detailed reports detailing how many ‘click throughs’ this form of marketing attracts so I can tell you that the results can be outstanding.

We also take note of every enquiry and inspection…always asking how the buyers saw our properties advertised and again, you’d be surprised how many buyers attend an open home after seeing one of these types of online ads.

So, is this the best buyer to attract if they are searching in suburbs and areas that are a little outside of where our listing might be?

The short answer is a resounding ‘Yes’.

Remember that many buyers will end up spending more than they first anticipate that they will spend and will often end up purchasing in an area that’s outside of where they start searching…and more importantly, it’s often buyers that aren’t local and don’t know the market very intimately that will often pay the highest price so this is a great way to attract them.

So why is this a topic for today’s blog?

We’ve just sold two properties in the past week for prices that the locals said we wouldn’t achieve (including some of the neighbours in the street) so it’s just highlighted to us how powerful this form of marketing is!

Traditional online methods still bring in the majority of buyers, but I can tell you that it’s vitally important to engage an agent that uses some ‘out of the box’ strategies like these to market your home.

Make sure you interview an agent and ask them how they attract buyers and if this isn’t a method that they use, you might only be exposing your home to a smaller buyer pool and more importantly, you might be neglecting the buyer or buyers that are prepared to pay the highest price for your home.

On another note, I tried to stay up and watch the cricket World Cup final and Men’s Wimbledon final on Sunday night but ended up falling asleep on the couch when the Kiwis were struggling after their first ten overs and the final wasn’t looking like it would be the game that it was.

I woke up to discover that I’d missed what has been described as the greatest cricket match in International cricket history and the greatest Wimbledon final in history.

Not happy Jan! I should have had some more coffee!

Until next week…Happy Listing & Happy Selling!