I haven't had time to make the mailouts to new buyers work yet but I am still interested in the idea and am looking to get on with it soon. I will still keep you posted as I figure it out.
One thing I tried last year that feels like an almost total waste of time was getting in touch with the realtors themselves and trying to encourage them to use our services on the homes they were listing. I wasn't expecting the realtor to pay for the service but to get them to encourage their customers to have us improve the curb appeal so they could sell the home quicker and hopefully for more money. I made appointments with 10 different offices so that I could talk for 5 minutes at their weekly sales meetings (this is the time when every agent within the office is supposed to be there so they can hear about the new listings gained in the last week). They usually don't like to waste time in these meetings because they all want to get to the new properties so short and sweet was my goal. I quickly familiarized them with the different services we perform and offered 1 incentive. I told them that I wanted them to be comfortable recommending our company and be aware of the quality of work that we do so I handed out 1 coupon to each realtor telling them to use it on their own home, a friends home or one of their clients, just so long as it was a home they would be familiar with for the before and after. The coupon was for 50% off. I thought this was a great deal and expected to hear from some of the realtors. There were usually about 20 per office, so I expected that even if we only did 1 or 2 jobs per office, it would start the word of mouth and the work might start pouring in. In all, I received 1 call. The coupon had been passed to a homeowner looking to sell and we cleaned the house and deck. The realtor came by while we were working and she gushed over the quality and how suprised she was at the transformation (of the deck especially). She ensured she would be using us again and again. I made sure to give her a few extra business cards and told her we would take great care of her clients. That was the last time I've heard from her.
Is anyone else getting much work from realtor's????
thanks
john