Back in the 1980s, it was customary for agents to stick coloured photographs on the front of typed particulars and writing all about Artex ceilings and how many power points were in each room. Writing information about whether the property had hot AND cold water was commonplace, as was advising that the home benefitted from having double glazing!
Times have changed, and with the advent of technology it’s difficult to find someone still sticking photographs to a printed page nowadays. However, although we have the most amazing technology that allows us to communicate with anyone, anywhere in the work with a click of a mouse and your weekly grocery shopping can be delivered directly to your door via even the modest of smart phones or tablets, it’s amazing how many agents are failing to embrace these possibilities and still opting to print a low quality sheet of paper, from their office printer and calling it a brochure!
In such a competitive market, your agent should be doing everything they can to make your home stand out and creating beautiful marketing includes hard copy publications. If they are doing it well, then they should be providing you with a bespoke and unique brochure of between 12 – 16 pages, on quality card, packed full of hi resolution, beautiful images and with a description expertly written to emotionally convey the lifestyle available to your buyers.
Anyone can draw up a set of ‘particulars’. Send some photographs to the average teenager and ask them to arrange them on a page and list how many electrical sockets and tv points are in a room and they’ll have it back to you within an hour! That’s not a brochure that your buyers want to see though. You will never find Rolex sending you a doubled sided printed sheet of office paper? Or ‘The Ritz’ Hotel showcasing their wedding venues on a budget photocopier? The printed publication that accompanies your property ought to reflect the quality and uniqueness of the home.
The best brochure is not just a description of the bricks and mortar or a list of how many electrical appliances you can use in one room; it should showcase the lifestyle that will be enjoyed.
We want our clients to feel proud when they show one of our property brochures to their friends and family, and for buyers to feel sufficiently motivated to see it as their potential new home. All too often, we see clients who have had their beautiful, characterful home on the market for many months with very little interest, for no other reason than poor marketing by the very people who are supposed to be experts! One of the biggest problems, is that you simply can’t tell how stunning the home is from the brochure. Instead, the ‘brochure’ is often a flimsy, folded A4 sheet with dull, dark photographs (having been printed on the office printer) with a description lacking in any uniqueness, warmth or atmosphere and as a result, it appears cheap, amateurish and no different to any of the other “brochures” your agent produces.
Instead of taking the time to create a beautiful showpiece for the property, they have simply demonstrated a complete lack of interest and care., because for some agents, your home is “just another house on their list”. If a property isn’t treated as something special, then how can we expect a buyer to view it as that? It is so important to engage a prospective buyer’s attention long enough for them to book a viewing to see the property for themselves.
We sometimes hear people say that a brochure which is ‘too good’ can ‘oversell’ a property; and whilst it’s a fair argument to say that if you set a buyer’s expectations low, then they will be bowled over when they actually see the property, it seems rather too risky to us. It’s far more likely that if you undersell your home, nobody will bother looking at it. As is often repeated when we visit clients that have been on the market with other agents for some time. With people often viewing 10 to 15 properties before they settle on the one they want to buy, you need to make sure that your property brochure will make your home stand out from the competition when the buyer is reviewing the numerous documents for their shortlist.
If you are lucky enough to own a unique home, something which cannot necessarily be appreciated without visiting it in person, you will understand the need to fascinate and intrigue a prospective buyer in order that they book that all-important viewing. A key way of doing this is via an inviting brochure commensurate with the value and calibre of the home it portrays.
At some point, people’s search will involve looking online, but simply viewing a property on screen can leave the viewer feeling uninvolved, with many houses appearing cold, unattainable, even unloved – in short, not ‘homely’. Having a beautifully-crafted brochure physically in their hands, with its warm and inspiring description and professional photography, can really engage the reader and bring a home to life. We firmly believe this results in more – and better quality viewings.
We often hear stories of people phoning agents to ask for a brochure to be posted to them, only for them to be told they don’t send ‘hard copies’ as all the details are online, but on this occasion they will – as if they are going out of their way to do you a favour? Is it really beyond the normal remit to send out a brochure to a prospective buyer? We wonder whether The White Company, Lakeland, or Marks & Spencer would agree that physical paper marketing doesn’t work? Or Waitrose only produce a catalogue to keep someone in the office busy?
If it works for the major retailers… then why can’t it work for your property too? Maybe it’s because we feel that buying and selling a home is a special journey and that our clients are more than just a house that we do more to help and market homes differently. Why not find out how we can help you and call or email for a sample brochure to see the difference!
01423 563077 or talk@alexandergibson.co.uk