THE GARY MERCER GROUP:
NEW HOME SALES & MARKETING DIVISION Since 1987, Gary Mercer, Sr. has continued to build and expand his real estate business. The Gary Mercer Group’s success is based on the key strengths of Integrity, Superior Customer Service and Cutting Edge Technologies. Our team has represented numerous local, regional and national builders with exceptional results. We also represent many buyers in their purchase of new construction. In representing both sides of new construction, we identified an unfilled need in new construction marketing to more effectively communicate and market to today’s sophisticated buyers. To address this unmet need, we launched the Gary Mercer Group: New Home Marketing Division. This division is spearheaded by Gary Mercer, Sr., Erica Walker and Sharra Mercer. This powerful team is disrupting the traditional techniques used in builders’ marketing, achieving remarkable results using the expertise of this informed and skilled division! Gary Mercer, Sr. is an owner-investor in the Keller Williams Real Estate offices of Devon/Wayne and Exton/West Chester. Nearing one billion dollars in sales, Gary is an icon in the Tri-State area real estate community. Now partnering with Keller Williams and as a member of the elite Gary Keller Agent Mastermind and numerous other trainings, Gary has his finger on the pulse of all national trends and the inside scoop on the latest technology and developments in the real estate industry. Prior to joining the Gary Mercer Group, Erica has successfully marketed and sold Real Estate for Ryan and NV Homes as a Senior Sales & Marketing Representative. Selling over 400 homes since 2005, Erica personally accounted for over $140 million in sales, ranking #6 nationally in the company during her 11 years of selling. Growing up and happily residing in Chester County with her family, Erica has a wealth of knowledge and expertise of the surrounding area. Along with Chester County, Erica has sold real estate in Montgomery, Delaware, Berks, and Bucks Counties. Licensed in 2004, Sharra Mercer has sold real estate in Center City Philadelphia and the surrounding suburbs. While Sharra enjoyed a successful career selling real estate, her true passion is real estate marketing. The marketing and lead generation is customized for each client using thematic marketing, strategic incentives and multi-channeling marketing.
SALES & MARKETING SOLUTIONS FULL SERVICE SALES & MARKETING Sales Manager Provides Weekly Traffic and Sales Reports Provides Quarterly Marketing Plans Visits sites weekly and holds weekly sales meetings with sales team Trains site agents in conjunction with the Gary Mercer Group and Keller Williams Site Agents Experience in new construction sales Accountable to the Sales Manager Communicates and documents all notes and activity through Commissions Inc., a Client Relationship Management system Inside Sales Agents Answers phone/text/internet inquiries from 8am-8pm. Plus 24 hour human text responses. Schedules appointments for site agents Nurtures long term prospects Marketing Team Works with Sales Team to provide all supporting marketing materials and activities as detailed in customizing marketing plans Listing and Closing Team Provides administrative support on all aspects of the sales process
SPEC HOME SALES & MARKETING List and sell spec homes Co-market with builder sales teams to sell specific spec homes
PRE-SALES Start VIP List Plan and host Groundbreaking Events Market direct to realtor community
SELL OUTS Reposition a community for sell out Staff open houses when a builder sales team moves off of the job site
VIRTUAL STAGING Virtual Staging is an innovative marketing solution that uses technology to place stylish furnishings and décor into a vacant property. This technique has increased traffic on our vacant listings by creating a more attractive and inviting space while helping buyers visualize size and furniture placement.
HOME STAGING Home staging is a proven and effective strategy to help sell homes more quickly and for a higher price. It helps emphasize the space. It highlights the functionality and features of a house so that prospective buyers can envision themselves in it. Staging makes a home feel larger, brighter and cleaner.
SOCIAL MEDIA • • • •
DATABASE MARKETING We have a database of past clients, sphere of influence and buyer and seller leads of over 10,000 contacts. We are consistently marketing to our database using email newsletters and call arounds.
Reach the Influential Find “Hidden Buyers” Create Excitement Invitations to Open Houses
At the Gary Mercer Group, we have a very advanced social media marketing program. Using a lead capture platform, we are able to gain the information of potential buyers looking at our listings to follow up and answer any questions they may have. We post our listings to Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and Twitter and are active on Pinterest as well.
COMMUNITY MARKETING To encourage referrals from current homebuyers in a given community we could host a “Meet Your Neighbor” Event. Referral prizes for anyone who refers a buyer to the community is another approach that we could use. Staying in touch with email or mail to stay in top of mind for referrals is another method we could use
MARKETING STRATEGY The Gary Mercer Group’s Strategic Marketing Action Plan is designed to provide the maximum amount of exposure in the shortest period of time. Each step involves proven techniques that leverage opportunities to showcase the property to key people that can either buy the home or help us find the right buyer. The result is our clients realizing higher net prices in shorter time frames.
MLS & INTERNET MARKETING Listings are disseminated from the MLS through ListHub to all the consumer websites including Zillow and Realtor.com. We have paid premium accounts on many of the most popular sites so that we have prominent positioning for our listings and to make sure that we receive our leads directly and that they are not “sold” to an outside agent. In the MLS, it is essential to have the most up to date information and photos of each spec and to-be-built listed. Keeping up to date Realtor Remarks in the MLS is also extremely important to agents so that they can provide additional knowledge and value to their clients.
COMMUNITY SPECIFIC WEBSITE It is essential to have a community specific website. Buyers want all information at their fingertips. We can feature a community on the new homes page on the Gary Mercer Group website. We can also build out a stand alone webpage just for a community and purchase a site specific domain name.
PROFESSIONAL PHOTOGRAPHY We work with the most talented real estate photographers in the area. Every GMG listing features a professional photo gallery and video optimized for both internet and print. High quality images are taken from the most attractive angles in order to capture every highlight of the property. We select 25 photos of the property to showcase the features. All 25 photos, would be of the actual property, featuring craftsmanship, finishes, every room and the exterior.
AERIAL PHOTOGRAPHY Using aerial photography allows us to give buyers a “feel” for a property particularly when a community is under construction. It also allows us to capture the true shape, size and layout of a home, while showcasing prospective views and highlighting a property’s location. We could do an aerial photograph of the specific property as well as video photography of the community. The still photos would be used in MLS marketing. The video would be used as part of our social media marketing.
REALTOR MARKETING We have a strong and long-lasting relationship with the local real estate community. From emailing flyers to 9300 agents in Delaware, Chester, Montgomery, Philadelphia and Bucks Counties, local office visits and presentations at office meetings to realtor specific targeted Facebook marketing, our goal is to stay top of mind. We are constantly updating our listings in Trend as that causes the listing to appear on the “Hot Sheet” in Trend that most agents monitor daily. Also, we use a feature in our Multiple Listing Service called Reverse Prospecting. Agents set up home searches for their clients and if your home matches any of their client’s criteria, we ensure that the agent is aware of our listing immediately. To increase agent awareness of the community, we also would host a Broker Event.
OPEN HOUSES We have great success hosting Open Houses. For our first Open House, we typically will host a Mega Open House Event. Our Mega Open Houses include 30+ Gary Mercer Group directional signs placed, Just Listed/Open House postcards, lender presence, 7’ Open House flags, database emails and social media advertising.
INSIDE SALES TEAM The primary function of the Gary Mercer Group’s Inside Sales Team is to immediately contact inquirers and nurture these leads in a systematic process. Buyers inquiring about our listings through the various internet sites are contacted by us within 5 minutes. If we are unable to reach that lead, we try using email, phone and text daily over the course of the next 10 days. We keep in touch with these leads in a systematic way, knowing that many internet inquires can require a longer nurture period.
MARKET EVALUATIONS Today’s buyers are savvier than ever. We need to know exactly what is going on with our competition both in new construction and comparative resale. To achieve this we do an updated monthly competitive market analysis and provide a summary to our clients. We also set ourselves up for daily notifications for new active, pending, price changes and settled status changes. This knowledge puts us in better place to show our product’s advantage against the competition.
This Marketing Plan gives us a strong basis to start. With every listing, as we get feedback from buyers and agents, we add to and tweak this program. As a team, we frequently brainstorm ideas to increase traffic and sales for each listing. We will continuously evaluate and innovate because our commitment to you, is to produce results.
THE GARY MERCER GROUP