In order to sell your house, you’re going to have to get people through the door. This sounds like such a simple concept, yet causes so much grief for so many homeowners – and with good reason; with active and competitive real estate markets throughout North America, it’s not enough anymore to simply list your open house in the paper and hope for the best. You need to employ creative marketing strategies that offer something different – something worth a Sunday afternoon of a busy prospective home buyer’s time. Yes, and here comes that cliché – you need to ‘think outside the box’.

In this way, home sellers can learn a lot from marketing professionals. Big marketing and advertising firms create extensive reports on the demographics of their buying audience. This is a good business practice because it can help focus a marketing effort to where sales are actually likely to be made. As a home owner preparing for an open house, you’d be wise to use a similar strategy; think about the type of person that is most likely to buy your house. Is he/she married with kids or single and a first-time buyer? Is he/she likely to be a gardener or appreciate how close you are to public transport? Once you’ve given this some thought, categorize each type of person and commit your profiles to paper. If you’re having trouble with this exercise, contact your real estate agent or speak to new neighbors in your area to get their perspectives.

Now that you have a clearer idea of what type of buyer you’re aiming to attract, you can start the creative process. Think of activities that will show off aspects of your house that will be attractive to the types of people that you identified and categorized. Are you appealing to parents with young children? Organize a neighborhood tour. Call in those favors and mobilize friends and family who are familiar with your neighborhood to offer to walk around the block with prospective buyers, pointing out parks, schools and community centers. Just make sure that your tour is short and to the point, and always leads back to your house! Give the kids a snack at the end and have coloring books on hand and a designated area where children will be supervised for the fifteen minutes or so it will take for your prospective buyer to tour your house before leaving. Is your buyer likely to be chic, urban and modern? Print up minimalist and professional-looking invitations on card stock and give these to friends, co-workers and local shopkeepers to distribute to “select” individuals only – increase the exclusivity by requiring your potential buyers to present their invitation at the door in order to be admitted. The latter is a great trick to make people feel special, and make your open house an event, as opposed to just a product showing. No matter who your prospective buyer is, there is always a way of capturing his/her attention. There are countless possibilities – just make sure you directly match up your potential buyer’s interests with what you’re going to offer at your open house. Think everything through carefully, and plan well in advance.

On that note, a word of warning; if you are going to do something different for your open house – tailored to a specific type of buyer or not – you need to make sure you deliver what your promise. Don’t hold a cocktail party if you’re not going to hire someone to act as a bartender, for example. Don’t skimp on the details, and at the same time don’t take on more than you can handle. Remember that the end goal is to sell your house, and your open house is a tool to help you get the best offer you can. Plan well, think creatively, and try to enjoy the process.