KGCI: Real Estate on Air - Maximizing Exposure 6 Strategies to Boost Attendance at Your Real Estate Showdays!

Episode Date: May 15, 2025

really, it's all about getting that awareness and getting that attendance into your show days. You see, for many agents, I've been speaking to agents and they say to me, Stuart Showdays, they just don't work. I actually set up my showday and I have maybe one person that walks through my showday. And it got me thinking, why is it that we have certain agents that have absolutely phenomenal show days? They can have eight, nine families through, sometimes as high as 20, 30 families coming through their particular show day. But then the majority have maybe zero or one, maybe if they're lucky they'll get two. And ultimately, that becomes quite despondent for an agent.

And the reason for that is it's three hours of your day, especially over a weekend, where nobody's coming through. And I've had that personally where you're sitting on a show day and going, oh, there's nobody coming through. What is going on? Why aren't those people seeing my pointerboards on the road? They should be able to see those pointerboards and they should be able to find me. And that's where the first mistake has actually happened. You see, when you regard a show day just to be a place where people need to follow a pointerboard to get to that destination, well, you've got to ask yourself, are they made aware of that particular event?

And that's the key part to this. Have they been made aware that today we're actually hosting an event? And that was when a light bulb moment went off for me. I recall back in 2018 when I actually had that experience, I was running show days every single weekend. And some weekends I had up to two show days running on that particular weekend. And those show days were really draining my energy because I wasn't getting attendance in. And I remember speaking to a top performing agent and they said to me, but Stuart, these show days and open days and open hours and so forth, did you invite people to your event? Did you make everybody aware of your event?

And I sat back and I thought, well, I put up all the pointer boards and they said, no. You know, pointer boards is just like an arrow pointing to where we don't know. We don't know what we're actually going to. But have you advertised it? Have you told everybody about it? And I said, well, no, I didn't. So I took their advice of making sure that I marketed and advertised this particular property. And I actually overdid it. I actually did all the research. Every method that Google told me that could be done, I did it. I wanted to know what works, what doesn't work. And I went really hell fast on that.

I went out and I did every single possible thing that you could do. And ultimately, I ended up with 34 families coming through a show day. It was so overwhelming that I actually had to message my family, my wife and my daughters to say, please, I need your help. Because I have got too many people. When you've got close to 20 people walking through a house, well, the big thing that was going through my mind was how do I communicate with each of these individuals? How do I actually have some form of real estate

conversation to find it if they're interested in this property or how do I prevent them from stealing anything because there's just so many people going through that property. And when I reflect back on that, it wasn't about that particular price or property was priced well. In fact, it was overpriced. But I had 34 families coming through that particular property. And when I reflect back, It was all the work that I actually did. You see, I took that show day and I didn't regard it as a show day. I regarded it as an event. And one of the key elements that I looked at in setting up an event,

and this is the first point that was really noted to me, and I'm going to share six key points with you today. And it's these six key points that I think will give you these guidelines. The very first was the timing of the event. I actually had a look to find out, Was there anything else happening on that particular weekend? Was there any festival? Was there any markets?

Was there anything that could detract potential clients from coming to my particular event? And I changed the mindset. It's not a show date. It's not an open hours. It was an event. Was there anything happening at that particular time? So I actually looked at the calendar. I started to research.

I went onto Facebook and all the social. media platforms to find out what is happening over these particular weekends and which one would be best suited so that there is no events happening which means I would get maximum exposure. So the first thing was what I referred to as strategic timing. It's making sure that that particular event, that day that we're going to have it, there was nothing else that was happening at that time or on that particular weekend. Getting that greatest, greatest exposure. That was one of the key elements.

So I actually did the research. Now, what you'll actually find is, could I do this for two, three days ahead? Absolutely not. I was actually looking. When I sat down with a particular seller, I would say to them, thank you very much.

I've taken the particular mandate. I'm going to be planning a showhouse in four to six weeks time. And I would be. give them that right at the stage of signing a mandate. Now, I said four to six weeks because that gave me three different weekends in the future that I could then look at. And I immediately looked at the calendar to find out if anything was happening, nothing happened. And I would set that particular date to confirm it with my seller. And I'd say, right, in five weeks' time, we're going to be doing that particular show day.

And now, why would I set it so far in advance? Well, I said it so far in advance because it's also in the back of the marketing, the timing of my marketing. Now, I want you to think of this. How many times have you seen a music concerts or a comedy show that just happens to happen today? Well, you never see that. You see, all of these music festivals and these particular comedies type of shows, they actually plan week. if not months in advance. And part of that is, one, they look for the strategic timing to make sure that it doesn't conflict

with anything else. Two, they're giving enough time to do all of the marketing and building up the awareness. So this was one of the key factors here. So, one, it's strategic timing. And you do that in the future. You make sure there's nothing around it. But you're also giving yourself enough time to build up on your marketing. So this leads me on to the second point, which is that the compelling marketing material that you can actually be using.

And it's not just little pointerboards. In fact, when I reflect back on that property that I had in 2018, I actually created business cards. And people look at me and say, what business? You've got business. No, no. These were business cards. They were the size of a business card that actually had the property as the contact detail. It had a picture of the property instead of a picture of myself.

It had the name of the property, the address of the property, the price of the property. It even had, if you remember, if you go to a dentist on the back, you've actually got that little scheduling of when your appointment is. On the back of it, it even had the dates of when the actual showhouse was going to happen. And I created about 30 of those particular business cards. And with those business cards, I gave them to my seller and I said to her, whenever you're meeting with any of your friends, any of your neighbors, anybody that you come in contact with, just give them one of these little business cards. It's a small little thing. And I can tell you now, when I gave her 30, she handed out 30 and asked me for more.

I leveraged my seller to actually give the exposure. She would hand them out to everybody that she came across with. And what was great was she was actually into art. So she had a little art class. There was about 15, 20 people. and she gave one to every single one of them. Half of them arrived at the actual show day. So first thing is compelling marketing and what I did was I created little business cards.

The second thing that I created was a postcard. Now postcards, the things that were back of the 80s and 90s of how we used to communicate with people and we got such a great response from them because it was such a warm feeling when you got this postcard. It was personally addressed to you. So I created these postcards and on the front I'd have a picture of the property, I'd have on show with a time, it'd really look really smart and on the back of it, guess what? A personal invite to the homeowners in the area. And there I would made about 50 of those postcards and I'd got hold of every single one of the neighbors popped it in their post boxes.

Even if I could, if I saw them coming at their front door, knocking the door, give it to them. I gave them all personal invitations through to this particular open house. And in fact, it was on the back of one of those postcards that I actually managed to get my buyer who actually put in a full cash offer on the property. So that was my second level, is actually having these postcards that we shared and sent out. Then on top of that, I created the flyers. Now, the flyers weren't just your typical on-show flyer. details of the property that you had hand out on show.

No, what I actually did with it is I created it like a newsletter. And in fact, what I looked at was on the front, it had details about the property with my description. At the bottom, I actually looked for what was happening in the area over the next two weeks thereafter. So there was a school fate happening. And I actually included that in. So this little piece of paper, this little newsletter had more value for them to keep.

And on the back of it, I actually had descriptions of the actual amenities in that particular suburb, the schools that are in the area, the police station, where the hospitals are, different shopping centres. I would have something on the back and it really looked like something that you would actually get a bit of interest on. So it's taking that typical flyer and moving it to the next level. And that's what I handed out to every single person. And I ran out because I didn't expect to have that many people come through. but everybody kept it. Now, on the back of doing that marketing material, I actually had two new listings come out of that

because people saying this is absolutely amazing. I'd love you to do a showday at my particular property. Could you come and list my property? So I had some additional areas on all of that. Now, that was all of my print media that I actually went ahead and did. The second is the digital marketing, which is now going out. And when I did digital marketing, it was every single day I would post something on social media about this particular property. Every single day, there would be something on a Monday.

It was about the kitchen. On the Tuesday, I'd have about the pool area. On the Thursday, I would have something about the neighborhood. I'd be posting it every single day as an event, giving time, make some contact. And I ran that for two weeks prior to that particular event. every single day I scheduled and I started putting all that together. So I had to create the digital print media if you want to call it, basically having the graphics and all of that together.

And I had to make sure that it was compelling. So that was all of the marketing that actually then started to go out. So first one, strategic timing. Second one is that compelling marketing that really gets people to go, hey, wow, I didn't know this. And all of this was on the back of knowing that, hey, wait a minute, this is an event. I've got to take this event. I've got to make people excited about this event.

I really need to get that maximum exposure on this particular event. So everybody knows, hey, this is what we're doing. This is going to be something that's going to be great. Now, I mentioned that I created all that digital media every single day. and ultimately what I would then do is I would actually take this to the next level. I would two weeks before I would do organic posts. Now organic post is just basically something that you post onto social media. And as I mentioned, I did that two weeks prior to the actual event.

At the end of the first week, whichever post gave me the highest level of engagement. And this is one of those big little tips that you can go. out. Any post that gave you the highest level of engagement, and just to clarify what engagement is, those are likes, those are comments, those are shares. And in every one of the social media platforms, they would actually give you the analytics for your different pieces of content. So I'd look for the one that had the highest. And what I would do with that one is I would then put money behind it. I would then boost that specific point. Now, why do we do that?

Well, one of the big things with social media, it's all about engagement. The more people that engage with that particular post, the more people, the social media platforms will share it out. So when you've actually got a post that's got a high level of engagement, it's going to be shared more and more and more. So over the last week, I would look to find which one had the highest level, and then I would go and put a bit of money behind that and I would boost it. So the social media platform saw something and said, hey, wait a minute, this has already

got a high level of engagement. So it must be something of great content. And ultimately what happens is they want to get it out to as many people as possible, which basically my actual rate, the cost rate per click, it drops down dramatically because it's already got a high level of engagement inside of it. So it's just a little bit of a tip and a trick. when it comes through. So looking at the digital promotion, that is where we start to kick it up. So you can see how they start to connect together. So two weeks before, every single day,

you're posting something. Now you can see why you need to post it because we're looking for what we typically call the unicorn. We're looking for that one post that really just stands out and then you take that particular post and you then go and spend some money behind it. because that will take that engagement level through the roof and you'll actually find that you're going to get some ridiculous, ridiculous numbers of people that actually get to see that particular property through that social media and then start to come through to your particular event. So those are the first three that I'm going to share with you. Now, getting on to number four. And number four is where I'm going to say the proactive hard work has to kick in together. You see, when you're doing a showhouse, you can't just expect people to arrive.

You've got to be proactive. Now, I've shared with you the proactive marketing side of it. Now what we've got is we've actually got what we call the pre-show day outreach program. That's what I actually put together. So two weeks before, I did all the social media. I would hand out all those little business cards. I had all those postcards that went out. And what I did one week before is I actually got on the phone and I started to phone the neighbors.

That was the first place that I started with every single neighbor. Hey, hi, it's Stuart. I just wanted to find out. I just popped a little postcard into your mailbox or slipped it under your door. I just want to make sure that you actually received it. I've actually got a showhouse that's happening this particular weekend on this particular address. And if you see there's a lot of cars parked outside, please I just wanted to make you aware of it. However, you know what, you're more than welcome to come through.

I'd love to meet you. And that was a basic script that I repeated over and over and over again. And that pre-outreach on the show days, that pre-show day outreach that I would do with phone calls. Phone calls to the neighbors. That was number one. Then it's phone calls to all of my buyers that I'd ever, ever have in my database. Even if they'd bought, I'd still give them a call. Why?

Because they may have a friend that's looking at buying in the area. They may have family looking at buying in the area. Maybe they didn't like the house and they want to buy another house. So I would make sure that I would reach out to every single one of them, giving a phone call, hey, how's it going? Just want to let you know, I'm having a show day this weekend and I'd love for you to pop by. It's going to be a great, great event. And I change that word to event.

So making sure that I have that outreach and just look. leveraging to contact as many people as possible. And really, for that particular event that I did back in 2018, I spoke and I had a goal, 100 people I wanted to speak to. Not just 100 names to phone. I wanted to speak to 100 people. And I just did that on an ongoing basis. Actually, when I think back, it was like a full-time job, just going through to invite people

through to that particular property. And throughout it, what I was absolutely amazed about, nobody asked me about the price. Every single person was more interested in attending the particular event than actually about the price. So that was absolutely key. So that pre-show day outreach, absolutely important. It's a proactive way. It's going to feel like a job. It is exhausting of what you've got to do.

But it has the highest level of reward for you. yourself. Then I started taking this to the next. And this is the fifth one that I actually want to share with you. And this took it to a whole new level. What I wanted to do was I want to enhance this particular property. Now, what I mean by enhance this property? Standard properties, we would actually go out there and we would take professional videos. We would take professional photography. We would try and get the maximum which is going to go out to all the portals. And that's fantastic and that's great. I wanted to take it one step further.

And what I actually did with this particular property was I created short videos. So if you recall back, I said that I had those organic posts that would go out two weeks before and I would talk about the kitchen and the pool area and the neighborhood. Or guess what? Those were actually short 30 to 45 second videos. I would actually go into the property. I would have my camera in front of me I'd push on that record button

and I'd say hey I'm standing inside of this kitchen it's absolutely fantastic the granite surfaces are so clean and smooth and it just flows into this absolute fantastic gas hob the cooking experience is fantastic and I would really talk about it so ultimately

what I would do is that I would end every single one and say hey I look forward to seeing you at the show day and give the actual date So I created between 5 to 7 of these particular videos to enhance that particular property and that's what I'd share on social media every single day. So now you can see that it does take a little bit of work to go through to set all of this up. That's not something where you can just go click click, let's have it on show.

You can see a lot of preparation work and why I would set it four to six weeks in advance. And my sellers could see me there. I would come in for two, three hours and they said, what are you doing? And I said, no, well, I just need to do all of my recordings and get my preparation work for the show day. Do you mind? And I'd be cleaning loungers.

I'd be cleaning kitchens because I wanted to make sure that it looked fantastic and going through this particular process. So enhancing that particular property was taking it to a presentation level, really taking out these key areas and actually then supporting and just sharing that onto all of those social media platforms. Absolutely easy.

And I promise you now, you get such a huge amount of engagement out of it. Plus you get more listings. That's ultimately what's so great about this, is you're going to get a hell of a lot more listings coming out of it. And then the final. And the sixth one was something that really, I actually got this from a number of top performing agents

that have actually said to me, Stuart, in my show days, my events, I need to make sure that when people, people are coming through. They're coming through with a great experience. And this was my final little part that I actually had in the back of my mind. If you think of going to a music festival, you talk about it when you leave. Man, that artist was fantastic. When you go to a comedy show, you remember the first joke, you remember the last joke. You walk out and the muscles in your stomach are still hurting because you've been laughing so much. That's an experience.

And I looked at it and I said, how do I elevate the experience of a show day? Because think about it. You're just walking through a property. And you're going, oh, it's nice. That's a kitchen. That's a bedroom. That's a lounge. That's all great.

But how do we elevate it so that when people leave, they go, my gosh, that was absolutely amazing. That was brilliant. How do we do that now? There's two reasons for it. One, it creates this memorable of the property. People will start to remember that property and it'll be highlight. You know, that are great features.

It starts to highlight. But two, that people are going to start to remember you and are going to start saying, hey, wait a minute. When are you having your next show day and you're going to start to get more and more people than coming around? So how do we elevate it to an experience? Now, simple things that you can actually do. One, in the kitchen, make sure there's some form of vanilla scent that's going around. It just gives that feeling that something is just being baked. So you can also have real baked biscuits, cake, etc.

Get that experience that comes into the kitchen where people go, wow, that's actually, it smells like grandmas baking those cookies again. Have that form of experience at there. You can also elevate it to having something whereby maybe you've actually got a celebrity. That's a friend of yours. maybe they're a sports celebrity. And in part of it you say, hey, come through and get a signature. Now, yes, we're leveraging both the property and that individual,

but you're going to get the numbers through the property. And getting those people through the property, people suddenly go, hey, wait a minute, there's a lot of people here. And the serious buyers, they don't know that it could be just the pseudo-fake type of guests. They're just looking, the nosy neighbors as we refer to them. they just see masses of people which creates someone who's got that hard desire for this property, it elevates them to say, I think we should actually put in an offer because there are a lot of people here. There's a lot of interest on this particular property.

So this experience, I want you to look at that particular show day, that particular event. How do I elevate it to be an experience where people walk away and they are still. talking about the actual property. Have a balloon artist if it's a property that's close to schools and a lot of young kids could be coming through. Have someone that does face painting for the kids if there's that as well. Take this to the next level. Think of what you can do. Think of the people that you circle.

See how you can leverage and get their support into it. Get it to that point where people are coming to an event. they're not coming to a show day. Remember, it's the event that's going to be remembered going into the future. And it's the event that's going to help you to sell that particular property. So going through all of this as a quick little summary, remember, number one, strategic timing. Make sure that you know the timing. There's nothing else that's going to be on the same particular weekend.

And you set in advance so that you can do all of your preparations. Make sure that you've got all that compelling mind. marketing material. From me, little business cards, postcards, newsletters to actually hand out, creating the social media two weeks before. In fact, you could do it three weeks before if you wanted to. But every single day, once you find that engagement of a certain post that is at high, throw some money behind it because it's going to push it through the actual roof. Then create that pre-show day outreach. I had that target. 100 people that I wanted to speak to. You can actually set it up, find out, phone them, invite them, everybody, buyers, friends,

neighbors, you make the contact with everybody. Enhance the actual property itself. Create these little short videos where you're inviting people and use that as part of your social media content. It really does elevate it to a whole new level. And if you do get to like the professional level where you can have a videographer, lighting, sound and all of that, That's just going to take it to a whole new level. And finally, make sure the day becomes an experience, an experience that people can remember. Because when you post for your next show day, I can tell you now,

you're going to have a vast number of people coming through. And when you have 10, 12 families coming through, 20, 30 families coming through that particular property, one, you actually get this high level of engagement for yourself. You don't feel exhausted and tired. You actually feel exhilarated. You have this energy to carry on doing more of these particular show days. But more importantly, you're going to end up with two things. You're going to end up with more stock because neighbors are going to see, hey, this agent knows what they're doing.

And two, you're going to end up with potential buyers. and you're going to end up with properties that actually sell. So go ahead, use what I've shared with you today and elevate not just your showhouses, elevate your property events to the next level. This is Stuart's signing off until next time. Keep it simple. Keep it real. And let's maximize that exposure together.

Remember, when it comes to show days, it's not about inviting people. It's about creating an experience they'll never forget.