I recently did a google search to learn what others think are the top ways to make a listing stand out among all of the thousands of listings. There is no surprise to what I found. Trulia has 9 proven ways. A property management company’s blog lists 5 proven ways to make your listings stand out. Another company’s blog lists 16 different ideas. At least they didn’t indicate these were all proven methods for standing out. All of these methods and ideas were certainly very helpful. And some lists certainly overlapped. And most should be employed in practice especially in todays more challenging markets.

To save you time and effort, I have combined an extensive list of ‘proven ways’ from my research. Here is the list in alphabetical order (somewhat). Only a few items actually overlapped on the several lists that I reviewed. Two standouts were to hire a professional photographer and create great photos.

1. Amazing real estate photos

2. Brand your listings for consistency and create a unified message

3. Claim listings on major portals

4. Create a photographic shot list

5. Create blog posts to expand on preferred properties descriptions beyond the MLS limits

6. Create impressive videos

7. Declutter

8. Floor plan

9. High priority listings should be on the real estate website

10. Highlight listing’s best features

11. Hire a pro – that is a professional photographer

12. Host great open houses

13. Include great real estate copy and MLS descriptions

14. Leverage social media

15. Optimize real estate keywords to improve search engine results

16. Real estate advertising using PPC (pay-per-click) methods

17. Send mailers to the local community

18. Share listing information with other agents

19. Single listing landing pages with great visual marketing solutions increase lead generation

20. Stage your listing

21. Utilize email campaigns

What is the objective of trying all of these ideas, methods and proven ways? Realtors want buyers to view their listing, of course. They want buyers to dig deep into the listing. View the photos, read the description, check out the videos and then hopefully a buyer will contact the related agent. The more time a buyer spends on your listing information, the greater the connection and the more likely the buyer will reach out to you.

So what is really being conveyed in all of this information to the potential buyer. Or better stated, what does the buyer need to learn from all of this effort? Well buyers certainly want to know if a property provides them with the number of bedrooms they need, and maybe the size of the backyard, or is the garage large enough for both cars. They learn these facts pretty quickly. Usually this occurs because, during the property search, they filtered into the attributes that are important. But a buyer really wants to know if the property is a place that fits their lifestyle. They will ask themselves - Can they be comfortable in this house? Can this house actually be a home? And would they be happy to live here for many years?

So maybe the goal of all of these methods should be to help identify the facts of a property but also help the buyer understand if a property fits their lifestyle. And this is where visual marketing helps. Having great photos is important. Great photos can be bright and bold, and appropriately composed. But great photos should also be created to tell the lifestyle story. The photos need to help convey the ideas of how it will be to live in this home. This is important to help connect the buyer to the property.

And great photos are only the beginning. There are also slideshow videos, interactive virtual tours, and videos of the home. There can also be virtual tours and videos where the agent is describing the wonderful features of the home as the buyer moves through the house. These are all great methods to present the facts, but more imporantly, to get across the lifestyle theme to connect that buyer.

Virtual tours (interactive, not slideshow video tours) were not mentioned much in the listings I found. Although, considering the current challenges with not doing open houses, or reduced or limited visits to properties, other more enhanced methods (including virtual tours, enhanced slideshow video tours, and enhanced videos) are becoming more popular and likely will be the norm in 2020. These methods have extensive ability to provide factual information (on screen text & image information) and a great potential for helping share the lifestyle aspect of a home.