How to Turn Real Estate Closing Gifts into Clients

With referrals by friends, neighbors, or relatives the number one way that most buyers find their real estate agent, wouldn’t you love to create more conversations about your brand?

Memorable gifts are a great way to leverage the power of Word of Mouth marketing to attract and engage with potential customers and create a positive emotional connection to your brand.

Brands that create a high emotional connection receive 3x as much word-of-mouth than less emotionally-connected brands.*

Chart: Percent consumers who rely on word-of-mouth as a key influencer in their purchasing decision [Ogilvy/Google/TNS]

As a marketing tool, closing gifts can increase your sales and referrals as you continue to build a recognizable brand in your community.   Thoughtful thank you gifts not only have the power to show your clients you appreciate them, they can also convey what your company stands for and create social currency for your clients to talk about you and their experience with your company both online and offline.

Incentives greatly increase an influencers chances of referring a brand* 

Chart: Number of Daily Brand Conversations by Customers [WOMMA]

[ See related: Referral Gifts: How to stay top of mind and generate Leads ]

Let’s face it, buying and selling a home is an emotional journey and has been shown to cause more stress than divorce, death and bankruptcy. The excitement of finding the perfect home is often coupled with 48 days of ups and downs as the market swings, surprises are uncovered during inspection and a sea of packing boxes overwhelms even the most organized mover. Is it any wonder everyone shows up to the closing table joyful, yet a little bit worn from the home buying process?

 Word-of-mouth marketing has been shown to improve marketing effectiveness by up to 54%* 

A closing gift is the final point of interaction during the current transaction with your customer; an opportunity to leave a lasting impression of the experience and create a strong personal connection to your brand. A meaningful gift with a ‘Wow’ factor keeps your customers excited about their experience with you and keeps your brand top of mind; which is key to driving referrals and growing brand awareness.

According to the National Association of Realtors, referrals by friends, neighbors or relatives continue to be the way that most buyers find their real estate agent.

Chart: Percent of referrals, inquiries and sales volume for real estate agents [National Association of Realtors / Nielsen Company]

As you gear up for peak home buying seasons, consider these 6 stats as you set your marketing budget*: 

• Word-of-mouth marketing has been shown to improve marketing effectiveness by up to 54% [MarketShare]. 
• Brands that create a high emotional connection receive 3x as much word-of-mouth than less emotionally-connected brands [Keller Fay Group] 
• More than 50% of homebuyers in 2017 will be first-time buyers and of those buyers, 61 % will be millenials [Realtor.com]
• Millennials ranked word-of-mouth as the #1 influencer in their purchasing decisions [Radius Global]
• Incentives greatly increase an influencers chances of referring a brand [Software Advice]
• It costs you five to 25 times more to acquire a new customer than it does to retain an existing one [Harvard Business Review]

Chart: Percent of sales volume for typical firms 2016 [National Association of Realtors]

Understanding and analyzing this data will help you assess what the most successful marketing activities are and provide you and your team with best practices that you can incorporate into marketing budget efforts for the peak home buying season.

Learn more about thank you gifts that will create an emotional connection with your brand to drive more referrals, customer inquiries and sales volume.

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