Find allies in your neighborhood to help farm an area
So you have made a resolution to carve out a geographic chunk of your local marketplace.
You have made a commitment to dominate a neighborhood to sell and list homes.
You are going to do what it takes to geographically farm this area come heck or high water.
The great thing is, you don’t have to do it all by yourself.
One of the first things you can do is to add an effective geographic tool to your website – the hyper local real estate map-based search tool SpatialMatch.
SpatialMatch will add an enormous data widget of local school, business, recreation, transportation and other relevant information to your website.
And it will display all this local information on a map, integrated with an MLS feed of local properties for sale.
There, now you’ve got an ally in the form of technology on your side.
How about local businesses?
If you are going to want to be the local go-to person in your neigborhood, you are going to have to circulate in your local neighborhood.
That means becoming a frequent visitor to the local bagel shop, the local hair salons, the local bookstores, the local dry cleaners, the local Italian restaurant, etc.
You could hand out your business cards or pin them to the bulletin board near the bathroom.
But why not offer some quid pro quo?
For example, you could write an online newsletter about your local neighborhood. And you could offer to put those local businesses in your newsletter. Entice them to offer some sort of discount, something small like 10% but not huge like a Groupon 50% off deal.
People are continually asking businesses to give away the store. They don’t want that and don’t ask them to.
Next thing you can do is bring your computer in, show them how you are going to highlight their business on your SpatialMatch neighborhood map.
When showing prospective buyers the map of the neighborhood, you can pledge to be sure and point out that this is the place for a great cappuccino, great discounts on getting your shirts pressed, great coal-fired pizza, etc.
Keep these businesses part of your social network. Mention them in your Facebook posts and Twitter tweets.
Support your local sports teams. Support your local festivals. Support your local charities.
Just like a farmer needs help when its harvest time, you are going to need help in harvesting buyers from your real estate farm, and that’s a year-round job.
