Home Staging TNT

Any business will never be able to survive without any form of marketing. But staging a marketing campaign isn’t easy. If you aren’t careful, it can bring your business down and drain all your finances.

To come up with a foolproof marketing campaign for your business, take note of these tips:

1. Create a marketing plan. What’s the main use of a marketing plan? With it you can answer the following questions:

Who are your target market?
What kinds of marketing strategies will work?
Where are the best places to promote the product?
How do you present the product to the target market?

You also need the marketing plan when you have to assess your marketing objectives. This is how you’ll know if you’re still in line with your business goals. You can also evaluate if your business goals are still sound or if you need to change them.

2. Combine online marketing and local marketing. Because the Internet is the rave, it’s common for businesspeople to solely depend on it for the marketing of their products and services. Don’t. There are still thousands of people who are not in the World Wide Web.

You also have to create and perform local marketing strategies, including giving away of business cards, putting up tarpaulins and signs, sending samples, joining fairs, or convincing friends and family to spread good words about your business.

For your online marketing, you can consider doing the following:

newsletters
e-books
website
blog
microblogging platforms like Twitter and Plurk
Facebook
article directories
directories and search engines
social bookmarks
e-mail blasts

3. Come up with a USP. What’s a USP? It stands for unique selling proposition. You have to determine what sets your product or service different from your competitor’s. Price doesn’t count as a USP, since it’s proven that customers are always willing to pay more just to get quality products or services.

Coming up with your product’s USP is very important and should be accomplished with thorough product knowledge and research. Take time. Ask for help.

4. Use subliminal messages. Do you know that you can use subliminal messages to promote your business? Many experts say that subliminal messages don’t really work in the world of advertising. I say it’s completely not true. We have already seen how it works. You hear the words “Just do it,” and you don’t think about an inspirational phrase. You think about Nike.

It’s fundamental for businesses to have their own tagline, logo, and other marketing gimmicks that customers can associate to their products and services. Don’t forget to add them to your marketing materials too. For subliminal messages to work, the customers have to be exposed to them a lot of times.

5. Keep track of your marketing campaigns. A lot of marketing campaigns require money, and all of them demand time. It’s not a good idea to spend both on those that don’t really work. You can identify which strategies are not by monitoring your marketing campaigns.

Winter brings its own set of problems to home sellers. Home buyers don’t feel as motivated to go home shopping in cold, wet weather. Plus, the early nightfall makes buyers want to wait until the weekend to view houses. When the weekend rolls around, home shoppers get sidetracked with holiday activities.

Besides the typical winter slow down in sales, today’s market also makes selling your home more difficult. Market concerns include:

1.Rising interest rates

2.More houses on the market

3.Longer time frame–days on the market

If you’re selling your home or investment property during this shifting real estate market, you can tempt buyers to get out of their warm cars and take a look at your home with home staging methods. Here are a few home staging strategies to help you sell your home during the holidays:

Home Staging the Exterior

Door wreaths welcome all to your home and set the stage for celebrating. Make a simple wreath to hang on your front door with holiday colors that blend in with and dress up your homes exterior colors. Use tree branches from your garden; attach a few gourds or pomegranates, nuts, and ribbons.

Group vines and mums or poinsettias for display impact near the front entrance. Adjust the vines to add height and movement. Add colored ribbons and fall leaves or evergreen branches.

Holiday Dcor and Your Target Buyers

Do your neighbors decorate their home exteriors with Christmas decorations? If your neighborhood supports Christmas themes, then your prospective buyers will appreciate your Christmas dcor.

However, if your neighborhood doesn’t decorate for Christmas, then your buyers may feel more comfortable without Christmas decorations. Play down Christmas if you live in an area that promotes “politically correct” holiday and seasons greetings instead of “Christmas Cheer.”

If you feel that you want to celebrate Christmas your way, go for it. Just understand that your home sale may take a little longer.

Home Staging with Christmas Decorations

Use less of your ornament collection this year. Don’t over-crowd your rooms. You want your buyers to see your homes features. Rooms filled to the brim with decorations stop the buyers eyes from visualizing their own furnishings in your home. Plus, crowded spaces feel smaller.

Examine your room colors and compare to your Christmas decorations. Do the reds clash? You may want to store ornaments with colors that don’t add to the setting.

Design Psychology Home Staging for the Senses During the Holidays

Appeal to your buyer’s senses to make them feel at home.

1. Sight: Use amber-colored lights that give a rich warm golden glow to your rooms. Switch out your regular white light bulbs in a few table lamps with amber bulbs to make your home feel toasty-warm and inviting.

2. Sound: Play gentle well-known music without words. This makes buyers feel like singing along and picks up their step. Music helps buyers feel joyful in your home.

3. Smell: Use natural essential oils in a diffuser. Many people suffer from allergic reactions to artificial sprays. Simmer cider with orange slices, cinnamon and cloves.

4. Touch: Add silky and velvet fabrics to table tops that tempt the buyer to feel the softness. The brain interprets the sense of touch just by seeing softness. Also, use thick, fluffy hand towels in the bathroom and kitchen to soften the cold, hard surfaces of room typically filled with tile, granite, and porcelain.

5. Taste: Yes! The sense of smell contributes to the sense of taste. Make sure you’re cooking something heavenly. Treat your prospective buyers like a guest. Invite them to share a warm drink and a sweet snack.

The more time your buyers spend in your home, the more they have invested in it. Houses do sell all year long. If you’re selling your home during the frantic holiday season, taking a few extra home staging steps can make a big difference in your sale.

Happy Holidays!

Copyright Jeanette Fisher

Upon the arrival of spring, everyone is ready for a rebirth of sortsI know I always am, what about you? For some of you it is a job or career change ( I hope it is a change to a career in home staging!), for others it is an improvement in the existing way you do business, some of you will clean out the clutter, others will readjust your mindset and some will stay status quo.

For me, I always find that when I am ready to change, I start to get a bit fidgety. Pete really sees it before I do and after 21 years, he has learned to approach the topic with kid gloves! I realize, now with greater maturity (yes, I can just call it what it really is-age!), that my need for a re-birth is often because my motivation has changed.

As long as I can remember, I wanted to be an actor. I acted my way through middle school, high school and college. Then I was off to L. A. to become a professional actor. I was fortunate enough to have acted in commercials, movies, in the voice-over industry as a corporate actor. I acted with Bruce Willis, Sarah Jessica Parker, was featured on HGTVand so many other great experiences. But,as an actor, no matter the media or part, you always want to know your motivation so you know what drives your character. This is an actors homework. I once read an article where Meryl Streep said that with each character, she always had a secret. The secret motivated her character to act the way she acted.

At some point in my life I decided to move on from acting and go into business which I think I love even morepossibly because I have more control in order to satisfy my control freak nature! My motivation was simply that I needed to grow and knew that I was at the top of my game with acting. There were also sub-motivators like needing to pay my mortgage!

So if you have recently decided upon a rebirth and part of your motivation is to pay your bills with your home staging business or home staging services, then you need to take your motivation one step further and discover the motivation of your client.

In home staging, and you already know this if you have experienced APSD Certified Home Staging courses , you have to find out what motivates the client or seller so you can speak to that desire and help them to achieve their goals. Once you determine a clients motivation, selling the proper home staging service becomes simple.

The problem is most people start by skipping their clients motivation and going directly for the sale. The problem with this is twofold: 1) You may be missing the mark with your clients desires and 2) Now you are just competing against everyone else trying to sell the same thing. And even, worse, with this approach you will be competing on price vs. value to the client.

Find out what motivates your client and you will have a client for life. One of my mentors favorite examples of this is Dominos pizza. Their slogan used to be Delivered in 30 minutes or less or its free, guaranteed. They never say it is good or hotjust there in 30 minutes or less. That slogan is speaking to the motivation of the clientthe tired parent who knows the kids need to eat, the hungry yet broke college kid, etc.- not to the person who is dying to have the best pizza of a lifetime!

When you discover your clients home staging motivation, you need to apply your home staging training program . suddenly the staging doors open for you and you might be surprised by the flexibility in pricing as well. Once you speak directly to someones motivation, they are far more likely to pay a higher price.

This is the same thing we teach in the first step of the APSD home staging 6 step pyramidknow your customer! Isnt that motivating?

If you are interested in additional home staging marketing ideas and ways to get your clients to love you so much that you have TOO many home staging jobs, then join me in our monthly Home Staging Coaching Program, LIFT. Details are at www.APSDmembers.com/Coaching Isnt it time to LIFT UP your home staging business?

For a long time now, Spain has been the destination for thousands of emigrants who leave their home in search of the Good Life. From fresh-faced students to retired statesmen, people have flocked here in their droves, in order to set up a home and learn Spanish.

But why is Spain such a popular place to live?

Weather

The sunny Spanish weather is a famed draw for tourists and emigrants alike. While there are places here that experience quite rainy conditions for much of the year (the northern areas, for example), most of Spain basks in wonderful sunshine, especially during summer when it comes a beach-lovers delight.

Variety

Spain is primarily known for its major cities and its magnificent beaches. Madrid, Barcelona, Seville, Valencia and Bilbao are all great urban destinations (especially for those who like to indulge in the cultural bustle of big cities), while much of the east and south coast is taken up by mile upon mile of simply idyllic coastline.

In a few select places (Barcelona and Cadiz, say), the urban fun and seaside relaxation meet with aplomb. As a result, these are extremely popular places to set up home in, especially if you can secure living quarters in enigmatic parts of the city. Barcelona apartments in the Barri Gotic, for example, may come at a premium, but theyre well worth the cost, given their surroundings and the proximity of the Barceloneta beach.

Cost of Living

For a European country, Spain is famously easy on the wallet. Day to day life here comes at a pittance when compared to other similar sized countries in the continent: food is cheap, alcohol is cheaper, and even housing is happily affordable (in terms of apartments Valencia, Seville, Madrid and Barcelona all offer a slew of well-priced and available places).

Attitude to Life

Probably the major reason behind Spains appeal to foreigners looking to move overseas is its fun-loving attitude to life. Theres a shared reluctance to do anything too exertive here; life should be spent in cafes on plazas, sipping coffee or drinking beer (preferably with the beach in sight).

Spain is also a country thats known for its love of the fiesta (party). Fiestas tend to start close to midnight, and carry on well into the sunlit hours of the next day. All in all, their friendly indulgence comes to symbolize all that is so good about this exciting and beautiful South European country.

When it comes to marketing high end homes, you are dealing with an entirely different market then when you are flipping the average home. In order to attract the type of potential buyer that is in the market for a high end home, you need to get creative and start creating unique venues and events to peak their interest.

Instead of hosting a regular open house, host an event where people can come and mingle in the house while they are viewing the property. Not only will they be able to see the home and base an opinion on it, they will also be able to see the house in action. This is the ultimate in home staging because you are actually staging and running an entire event, instead of simply setting the stage.

The type of event you host in the home will depend largely on the home and the market. In high end homes that feature gourmet kitchens, invite a guest chef to come and showcase their talents. The chef can show off their cooking abilities in the gourmet and functional kitchen, while guests experience a free tasting of the culinary delights while they view the home.

High end homes with extensive gardens, or outstanding landscaping could play host to a benefit fashion show, a private concert of a popular musician or even a garden tour. If the home boasts a wine cellar and large sitting rooms, a wine tasting event would be the perfect way to attract potential buyers.

The high end home buyer market is much smaller than the average market and potential buyers want to see a home for everything that it is and can be. Its also a time for crucial networking. Perhaps people in attendance are not interested in the home, but no someone who might be. Create an interesting and unique venue to attract potential buyers to a high end home and you will appeal to the right customers.