In-Person Marketing Tips

Even a terrific personal marketing campaign isn’t a substitute for getting out into your community, meeting people, and making a good impression on potential home buyers and sellers.

Personal appearances, participation in community events, and chatting to people you encounter in the course of your daily life adds another dimension to your marketing.

To be extra effective, train your personal assistants in personal promotion; they are often your first line of contact with the client.

When selecting in-person marketing efforts, try to find groups that cater to the same people you are targeting with your other marketing efforts. Here are some ideas to get you started.

10 Great In-Person Promotional Ideas:
Be a Familiar Face in the Neighborhood

1. Rent a popular venue in your city for an evening. Invite all your clients to a private party. Sharon Stock and Kim Laforet, sales associates with Briarwood Realty in East Lansing, Mich., rent a movie theater once a year and invite past and current customers to a free screening of a children’s movie.

2. Take Polaroid photos of Halloween trick-or-treaters. Slip the photos into photo jackets printed with your name and telephone number and give them to the kids to take home to their parents. Or, throw a big halloween party at a popular venue and hold a costume contest. Encourage clients to bring guests.

3. Select favorite recipes and photos from your prospects and customers. Assemble the recipes into a cookbook. Give away copies or sell them and donate the profits to a local school or charity.

4. Offer a $500 or $1,000 college scholarship to a high school senior in your community. Hold a ceremony to present the check.

5. Sponsor or coach a children’s soccer or baseball team in your community.

6. Buy a block of tickets. Get tickets to a concert or play and hold a drawing in your office. Call your prospects and ask whether they’d like their names to be in the hopper.

7. Hand out your personal brochure or business card at every opportunity. Sales superstar Ralph Roberts once gave a brochure to a restaurant waiter, then sold homes to him and two of his relatives.

8. Sponsor a home-repair demonstration. Or, hold a lecture at a local hardware or home improvement store. Hand out flyers or place an ad in the local newspaper to let everyone know about it.

9. Rent an ice cream truck, a la a sales associate in Grand Blanc, Mich. The salesperson gave away free frozen goodies in local targeted neighborhoods. An in-advance postcard mailing informed residences about the promotion.

10. Organize a group to go caroling. Who doesn't like carolers? When your group is finished singing, leave behind a Happy Holidays card from your company.

Community involvement is another powerful promotional way to get to know people in your market area. Making a significant monetary donation to a local group is a great starting point, but getting personally involved is even better. Keep your focus narrow and localized.