I heard my first holiday song of the season on Halloween. At around that same time, the big box stores started clearing out their garden centers to make way for the thousands of pallets of holiday décor.
Even the biggest procrastinators among us can’t miss retailers’ attempts to start the winter holidays early.
If you aren’t in the spirit yet, it’s time to take a cue from the retail industry. Especially if your CRM is crammed full of contacts, the time to start was yesterday.
Add an extra blog post every week during the holiday season
In many cities and towns, the weeks between Thanksgiving and the new year are full of local activities. These are activities that folks love to attend so let them know about what’s happening in your town or city.
The best way to do that? By blogging and then promoting those posts on social media.
“Create a holiday gift guide featuring local vendors,” suggests Ada Ciuca with Keller Williams. She goes on to add this brilliant tip: “If you can secure discount coupons as well, even better! This will not only help your sphere, but also establish goodwill with local businesses.”
Here are some additional ideas of blog posts you can punch out in under an hour:
- Neighborhoods with amazing holiday light displays
- A list of “Adopt a Family for the Holidays” charities in your area
- Best hot chocolate spots in your town
- Best places to ski, sled, ice skate
- Local restaurants serving holiday dinners and brunches
- Ways to help the less fortunate in your area over the holidays
- How and where to shop locally for a holiday tree
- Winter weekend nearby getaways
- Best Christmas brunch in [name of town]
- A list of holiday concerts and performances (the symphony, the Nutcracker, etc.)
- A list of local retailers where the reader can buy cheap holiday décor
- New Year’s Eve events
- New Year’s Eve events for families
- A rundown of top economists’ housing market predictions for 2022, niched down to your market
- A list of New Year’s resolutions for homeowners, such as “work on increasing your emergency fund,” “routinely change HVAC filters (mention local retailers that sell them),” etc.
Remember to keep these posts focused on the hyper-local, include business addresses or website URLs whenever possible and link back to any earlier, pertinent posts on your blog. Internal linking is great for SEO.
Finally, don’t skimp when it comes to photos. Shannon Johnson at hubspot.com. talks about an experiment they performed that finds “… the click-through rate of posts containing photos is 128% higher than the CTR of posts containing videos or links.”
She goes on to conclude that they “… also know photos on Facebook generate 53% more ‘likes’ than the average post.”
Promote those blog posts
Blog posts should never be permanently rooted on your website. Propagate them and share on your social media platforms.
Hyper-local topics (which is what we’re dealing with here) are eminently sharable.
“Cross-promoting your content on social media can help drive traffic to your blog,” according to Melanie Tamble at socialmediaexaminer.com. It also helps generate additional exposure for your brand.
Some social media experts recommend changing the message according to social media platform.
“… if you push out the same message to all of your networks, you’ll miss opportunities for outreach and engagement. Instead, you need to tailor your posts to each network and audience,” cautions Tamble.
Makes sense when you think about how much your Facebook audience differs from those you hope to reach on LinkedIn.
Just be careful if you choose an email campaign to get the word out there about your blogs – You’ll want to avoid these annoying cliches.
Whichever platforms you use, ensure that what links back to your blog contains a catchy headline. Then, engage, engage, engage with commenters.
Hit the road
If you’re short on cash (and who isn’t right now?) save this one for the hottest of the hottest leads and referral sources in your CRM.
It’s time for the seasonal pop-by. In fact, this time of year presents the perfect excuse to stop by and leave a small gift. Here are some ideas:
- Deliver boxes of cookies or confections (homemade are especially appreciated)
- Toys for the pet(s)
- Goodies for the kids
- Boxes of sparklers for New Year’s Eve
- Champagne or champagne glasses to toast the new year
- Hot chocolate kit. You can make these yourself to save money. Open hot chocolate mix packets into a small cellophane bag and use a shiny twist tie to secure it. Place this in a basket or larger bag along with a peppermint stick and small marshmallows.
Tip: If you look for pop-by gift ideas online you’ll find that many recommend adding a completely over-the-top-hokey tag to the gift. For instance, included with the gift of a jar of local or homemade jam, is a tag that reads “Real Estate is my JAM!”
Please. Don’t.
A handwritten tag that simply, and with class, wishes the best of the holiday season or an amazing 2022 will suffice and cast you in a far better light.
As for the pop-by itself, depending on how the pandemic is impacting your area, you may just want to leave your offering by the front door. Or, knock and back off a foot or two.
Keep the visit quick. In fact, the folks at First American Home Warranty suggest that you “Keep your car running. You’ll be less inclined to stay longer if your car is idling in the driveway.”
They also recommend that you keep pop-by gifts in your car. “You never know when you’ll be out showing a house and find yourself in the neighborhood of one of your favorite clients.”
One final tip: Don’t forget to include your business card.
Go traditional
There is a reason our mailboxes fill up with holiday cards every year: it’s a relatively inexpensive way to reach out.
Since you, as an agent, want the card to perform double duty (to remind them you’re still out there selling real estate and wish them the best during the season), timing is everything.
Forget Christmas cards.
Why?
Americans send 1.6 billion Christmas cards each year, according to studies from the Greeting Card Association. That number balloons to 17.9 billion cards sent between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Eve.
If you don’t want your greeting to get lost in a sea of others in your SOI’s mailbox, send New Year’s greetings instead. These can be mailed even up to a week or two after the first of the year and they’ll be far more likely to be noticed.
Look for Holiday and New Year’s cards online at:
Heading into the holidays can very often be a hectic time for agents, what with trying to close before all the lenders, title and escrow folks and attorneys are taking time off.
If you start now, however, you can slay those holiday touches out and reap the benefits in 2022.
Looking for more winter marketing techniques? Check out our list!