Why You Should Host a First-time Buyers' Seminar

First-time buyers bring a lot of specific questions and anxieties to their home search.

That's why hosting a first-time buyers seminar is a great real estate marketing move: It will help establish your expertise and expand your network, while offering them some valuable advice.

Not only will your personality be on full display, but you'll establish your authority on the local market and local laws and procedures. You'll show that you can disentangle real estate jargon for intimidated home-seekers.

The idea is for prospects to leave the seminar thinking, "Buying a home won't be so scary if I have this agent on my team!"

When prospects look you up later, they might also come across the homes you're listing—which could help your sellers. It's a real estate marketing win-win!

Here are some tips on how to set up your first-time buyers seminar:

1. Find a sponsor or partner.

Consider finding people who can speak to other parts of the home-buying process—such as a rep from a title company, a loan officer or an attorney.

Invite counsel associated with nonprofits to emphasize the idea that this is a service, not a sales pitch.

You'll add value by upping the expertise in the room—but make sure you don't give the impression that you're teaming up just to make sales. The idea is that you're all there to answer questions and set the potential buyers' minds at ease.

2. Create talking points for every speaker.

Just because someone is an expert doesn't mean they know how to speak to first-time buyers. But you do!

The quality of the event will reflect on you, so it's worth spending the time to share talking points with each speaker. It'll make things easier on the speakers and more valuable for the first-time buyers.

3. Use your office for the seminar.

This will establish that you're running the show, and enable prospects to picture where you work.

If your office is too small, see if you can team up with someone who has a bigger space.

4. Choose your date carefully.

Keep seasonal home-buying and other community events in mind. Don't plan your seminar for the same time as a major sporting event, a big local parade, or a day when awful traffic will hit your part of town.

Consider offering more than one session to showcase your flexibility and overlap with the availability of more prospects, too.

5. Get the word out!

In addition to using social media and all your other real estate marketing tools to promote the event, try to get yourself onto local community calendars or stick flyers in the grocery store.

Make sure your partners or sponsors are doing what they can to promote the event, too. One easy way is to create a Facebook event that people can easily share. Consider giveaways you can offer attendees, too, as a thank-you for stopping by—like a $5 gift card to a local business.

6. Make yourself available after for questions – and ask for contact info.

You'll want to have a sign-in sheet so you can follow up with everyone who attended.

You can also encourage them to connect with you right then and there via the Homesnap app, so you instantly create that 1:1 client relationship and communication channel.

Even if they end up waiting to start their own search, you'll make your name handy for them to refer to friends.

To view the original article, visit the Homesnap blog.