Selling a home in 2016? Checkout these inexpensive and creative strategies to help sell your home fast.

1. MARKETING STRATEGIES
Outside the Box Thinking to Sell Your Home Fast
Written by: Kristin Binford - Home Seller and Marketer at Heart

2. GOAL
Position your home in front of as many buyers
in your target market as possible to
SELL IT FAST.

3. FIRST THING’S FIRST
➤ Declutter & Stage Your Home
➤ You love your stuff, buyers don’t. Remove all personal
photos, clear your counters, fix those lingering projects
around the house, paint neutral colors, etc.
➤ Invest in a few fresh rugs, bathroom towels, candles, etc.
➤ Deep clean - yes, really.
➤ Does this sound like a lot of work? Sure. Do you want to
get top dollar and sell it fast? Do it.

4. MARKETING STRATEGIES - OVERVIEW
➤ Hire a professional
photographer
➤ Create a website dedicated to
the sale of your home
➤ Create a dedicated Facebook
page for selling your home
➤ Post your home for sale in social
media channels and ask for your
friends to share / repost
➤ Ask your photographer to post
the photos in their social media
channels with a link to your
home’s website

5. MARKETING STRATEGIES - OVERVIEW
➤ Join local Facebook groups
with a high member count,
such as an online swap or
garage sale group - post your
home there (with permission)
➤ Test market $50 worth of paid
Facebook advertising
➤ Post your home on Zillow
(Don’t miss my trick here!)
➤ Decide if you are going to
work with a realtor or handle
the paperwork yourself

6. HIRE A PHOTOGRAPHER
Let me show you why.

7. This is what our house looks like most of the time. iPhone used to take photos.

8. This is what is looks like staged and photographed by a professional. Yep, that was
worth $50 and a few hours of hard work decluttering.

9. PRETTY OBVIOUS RIGHT?

10. HIRING A PHOTOGRAPHER
➤ Don’t be cheap, find the right talent. Then don’t be afraid to
ask for a deal.
➤ Look for a local photographer with as many followers on
Facebook as possible. (3,500+ is ideal.)
➤ (Nicely) ask the photographer their rates, then provide a
counter offer. Our photographer often charges $175 for home
photography. It is totally worth that price. I asked if he would
do it for $50 and if someone who found our house because of
his social media posts bought our house, I would add $500.
Seems like a cheap and effective form of advertising to me! I’m
not out the money up front, and he has the opportunity to
make a lot more if he (or she) helps me sell it.

11. CREATE A WEBSITE
Let show you why.

14. WHY CREATING A WEBSITE IS IMPORTANT
➤ It gives you a place to send potential buyers who find your
home through your marketing strategies
➤ It allows you to capture those potential buyer’s contact
information and schedule home showings
➤ It is often better looking than the MLS allowing you to really
“set the mood” in a way that makes your home feel more
desirable
➤ Even if you are working with a realtor, you have the potential
to keep a second realtor out of the mix and pay half the
commission - see my trick on Zillow to learn how

15. HOW TO CREATE A WEBSITE
➤ Sign up for Squarespace at www.squarespace.com
➤ Create a $12 website using those snazzy new photos you had taken
by a professional photographer
➤ Be thoughtful with your home description - authentic, engaging, and
without too many buzzwords (We used “affordable luxury” instead
of “unique” or “spacious”
➤ Make sure to include a form at the bottom for potential buyers to
complete if they are interested in scheduling a tour
➤ Don’t be afraid to ask buyers if they have a pre approval letter for a
home in this price range
➤ Click “publish” on the website and then share the link with a few
friends for proofreading before you share it with the world

16. TIME TO SOCIALIZE
Tips and tricks for using social media effectively.

17. CREATE A FACEBOOK
PAGE FOR YOUR HOME

18. CREATING A FACEBOOK PAGE
➤ This step takes a little time, but
is critical
➤ Login to Facebook
➤ In the upper right corner
select the drop down and
choose “Create Page”
➤ Follow the steps on Facebook
to setup your page
➤ Create your first post to sell
your home - be engaging but
brief!

19. PROMOTE YOUR HOME
FOR FREE

20. PHOTOGRAPHER’S SOCIAL CHANNELS
➤ Ask your photographer to
share the photos on their social
channels (Facebook,
Instagram, Twitter, etc)
➤ Ask them to link to your new
website
➤ Don’t forget to give your
photographer credit when you
use their photos as well
➤ This is a free form of
advertising - don’t skip it
Shout out to J Design Studios! Thanks for the great photos!

21. ASK YOUR FRIEND TO SHARE
➤ Be thoughtful about how you
word your request starting
with something like “Would
you please share?”
➤ Include a link to your website
in the post
➤ Take the time to thank
everyone who shares your
post
➤ We had 94 shares on Facebook
for free that resulted in three
showings the next day

22. LOCAL SWAP SITES
➤ Find local social sites on
Facebook and join them
➤ The group to the right has
25,000+ local members!
➤ Read their rules and ask the
admins if you are allowed to
post your home for sale
➤ Posting our home here
received over 100
comments and more than
180 ‘likes’
➤ Post on Craigslist

23. TRY A LITTLE PAID
ADVERTISING
It’s cheap and worth testing.

24. FACEBOOK ADVERTISING
➤ Facebook allows you to choose a
specific radius or zip code to market to
➤ Additionally, you can add filters that
more specifically target your potential
buyer
➤ Example: Facebook users 15 miles
from the home with $100k+
income
➤ Run a two week test campaign for
about $50
➤ Our campaign got 350 people in our
target market to visit our website in
two weeks!
➤ Bonus: You can advertise on Instagram
in a few clicks when setting up your
Facebook advertising for cheap!

25. POST YOUR HOME ON
ZILLOW
Even if you plan to list on the MLS.

26. POSTING YOUR HOME ON ZILLOW
➤ Posting on Zillow allows you to potentially find buyers who
don’t yet have a realtor, which means you could pay a much
lower commission rate
➤ Priceless Tip: Start your Zillow description with a link to
your website. Why? Because Zillow encourages you to
contact the buyer through one of their realtors. If the buyer
knows how to contact you, they may not get another realtor
in the mix. Consider a teaser like “More photos can be seen
at www.”

28. ARE YOU USING A
REALTOR?
Don’t wait to figure this out like I did.

29. I’M A HOMEOWNER & MARKETER.
I AM NOT A REALTOR.

30. DON’T WAIT UNTIL YOU HAVE AN OFFER
➤ We realized we knew how to market our house, not sell it.
[Insert panic when two offers arrived the same day.]
➤ Selling your home is a legal and binding process, you don’t
want to get it wrong.
➤ Luckily our friend Shane at Murney & Associates stepped in
to help us out and we didn’t have to pay the full 6%
commission. He helped us through the paperwork and
ensured everything was legal. [Thanks again Shane!]

31. DOES THIS WORK?
It did for me! See the results.

32. CASE STUDY
➤ Using these strategies we saw
these results without listing on
the MLS:
➤ 5,000+ People visited our
website in the first three
days
➤ Seven showings the first day
➤ Two offers in the first ten
days
➤ Accepted offer was for 98%
of asking with the terms we
requested from a lovely
family!

33. THAT’S A WRAP.
Thanks for reading.
Have thoughts? Better ideas you want me to share?
Reach me on Linkedin here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristinbinford