Strategies to encourage vendor paid advertising

In our opinion, vendor paid advertising (VPA) is a win-win for both vendors and real estate agents.

We know that investing in extra marketing leads to greater exposure, a speedier sale and top price outcomes for vendors. While at the same time your vendor is paying for advertising that actively promotes your listings, your profile and your agency.

However, sometimes convincing vendors of the strategic value of VPA is the tricky bit. It can be a challenging sell to vendors who are hesitant to spend extra money when they’re looking to profit from the sale of their home.

Some agents avoid bringing up advertising costs for fear of losing a listing altogether.

So, we’ve outlined some strategies agents can use to encourage VPA and that’ll help deal with common client objections.

Explain the benefits

During the pre-listing process, ensure vendors have a clear understanding of the value of VPA and what they’ll potentially be missing out on if they don’t invest in marketing. The best way to deal with the objection ‘I don’t want to pay for advertising’ or similar, is to explain exactly why they should pay for advertising and what is at stake if they don’t.

Key benefits of VPA to draw your vendor’s attention to-

• It gives maximum exposure to their listing.

• It helps attract as many qualified buyers & competitive offers as possible (which is especially important if selling at auction).

• Investing in marketing now will lead to better returns later- hopefully resulting in a great sale price sooner.

If a vendor is still wary fill them in on a hypothetical worst-case scenario- if the property is not marketed properly from the outset, fails to draw interest and then sits on the market for a long while, people start to wonder what is wrong with it. The whole sales process is then drawn out and may reduce the perceived worth of the property. Better to invest now rather than take the risk and lose out later.

Utilise case studies

At listing presentations show vendors exactly how the marketing campaign will work using past success stories. Have two or three recent comparable sale examples at the ready. Use these as evidence of how VPA helps clients reduce days on the market, attract buyers and achieve sales results above and beyond their expectations.

In each case study include the number of open for inspection attendees, the number of leads acquired and where they came from (online, print or signage), how many contracts were issued and the number of offers made and how many registered bidders attended the auction. For the knockout punch, include the final buyer source (which will usually be from one of the VPA channels) to help justify the extra expense of VPA in your vendor’s mind.

Another highly persuasive feature to add to your case study document is to include the original appraisal estimate, the owner’s expectation, the vendor marketing investment and the selling price. Typically, the selling price will be higher than the owner’s expectations and the profit will well exceed the ad spend. These facts will help to further substantiate the value of VPA and illustrate they’ll recoup the cost of advertising and then some upon settlement.

Offer a range of packages

For those clients that are hesitant to invest in marketing, it can be helpful to get them over the line to offer a variety of different VPA packages at different price points. Have different packages made up ranging from basic (signage, online ads and brochures), to moderate (premium online placements, mail outs, database alerts) to the full royal treatment (unique property websites, newspaper features, drone videos etc.) so they understand what’s available.

Sometimes in cases where vendors opt for no VPA or a basic package, you’ll find they’ll want to upgrade their advertising a couple of weeks into the campaign to put their best foot forward and drum up maximum interest, especially if there is a lack thereof thus far.

Also, remind vendors a great thing about VPA is that you’ll be able to monitor interest levels and leads throughout the duration of the campaign. You’ll be able to keep them up to date with detailed stats on enquiries and also validate they made the right choice to invest in marketing.

Flexible ways to pay

Some vendors are put off VPA because they weren’t expecting to have to pay such a high fee to run an effective marketing campaign to get the best price for their home. Vendors may simply not have the money upfront or others may need time to discuss what package they want to go with and how to divide the cost amongst other co-owners.

As a last resort, to cope with these hurdles you could offer your client a payment plan to make it more manageable to pay off the advertising fee in instalments over time. Alternatively, if you were comfortable doing so you could negotiate an arrangement where the vendor pays you for the advertising upon settlement.

We hope these tips help you to overcome VPA reluctance at your next listing presentation.

For more property marketing advice check out our home staging tips for top-price outcomes and what to avoid in listing description copy.

To learn about homely’s vendor paid product please get in touch on 1300 466 359 or [email protected].