Cohousing-L Mailing List: RE: Help Selling Units

[stuart (stuart]

Kelly,

We are in the same situation, luckily, I have been doing marketing for
my businesses for years and the principles are the same, whether
getting bookings for my magic act (http://www.greatscotmagic.com) or
selling my Celtic stuff (http://www.celtic-cultures.com).

I would suggest for starters that you add your website URL and email
address to everything you send out, including your email signature, and
get listed in the search engines. Caer Coburn is located in Vermont, so
I was curious to see what you were doing, so I tried to find you. Since
there was no link to your website in your email, I did a Google Search
for Common Pastures Co-Housing  (I copied and pasted the name from your
email) and nothing showed up.

You really want to make it easy for people to find you and the easier
you make it, the more potential members will look into it.

Get yourself listed in the Co-housing directories and any other free
places that would be appropriate. Get an ad on the Cohousing web pages
and other online sites like Vermont Life (also a print ad. Thinking
about it, perhaps all of us in Vermont can get together and buy ads
co-cooperatively?).

Posting notices to cohousing newsgroups is another way to get some free
advertising, however, make sure that they will allow you to post there,
you don't want to be accused of spamming them.

Google Adsense (paying for keywords) would be another possibility for
ads and Yahoo also has a similar program, how about  listing the units
on ebay?
.
There are a number of marketing books out there and a lot of stuff
online. I have some marketing e-books that I will try and post for you
to download.

Flyers, posters, business cards, and brochures are also critical. You
can distribute them at a lot of places like Co-ops, churches, and
welcome centers (another co-operation opportunity, we could put yours
at our welcome center and you could do the same for us at your welcome
center).

You can do them yourself using a desktop publishing program like
Microsoft Publisher, which costs money or a free one like Pageplus SE
(I have used and can recommend their free photoediting, drawing, and
webpage editor: http://www.freeserifsoftware.com) or hire a
professional (I would recommend my wife, Veda Crewe Joseph,
http://www.renaissance-artist.com, for obvious reasons, but she is
great at what she does).

The most important thing is to ask for the order! If someone is
interested in joining, ask hem to do so. Most people are afraid to ask
someone to buy what they are selling, but it is important.

Set up mailing lists, both hard copy and email. It is an axiom in direct
sales that it is important to keep in contact with potential customers
(clients, members, etc.) as most won't buy at the first shot but will
at a later date, and if they have your name and contact info in front
of them, it will remind them- as well as making it easy for them to do
so.

There is a lot that can be done for marketing and it would take forever
to do it via email, perhaps we could get together and do it in person.

Actually, this has started me thinking about developing a marketing
seminar for cohousing.

Good Luck!

Stuart Joseph, 802-463-1954
Project Director
Caer Coburn, a traditional village based upon intentional communities
and co-housing
Rockingham, Vermont, USA
http://www.caercoburn.org


> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: [C-L]_ Help Selling Units
> From: Hyghroad [at] aol.com
> Date: Thu, March 16, 2006 6:36 am
> To: cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org
>
> Here at Common Pastures, we are excited to say that we have begun selling
> ready-to-build, fully serviced (elec, water, sewer) lots on our beautiful 125
> acres in Charlotte, VT.
>
> We are also excited to annouce that our firs residents will be moving into
> our townhomes in Mid-April. It was an amazing, challeging, enriching process 
> to
>  come this far.
>
> Now, we have homes and lots to sell and need help selling them. I know many
> of you are in other regions, but I would appreciate any suggestions or ideas
> for  selling. We have a large bank loan and need to pay-off asap to preserve
> the  funds for our common house.
>
> Here's some of the things we've tried:
>     We have open houses on site each  Sunday
> Our web-site is current and an effective  tool
>     We advertise in the local paper for those selling  homes themselves
>     We have had countless tables at local events
>     We have had several articles written about our  project in local papers
>
> I hope I get a response - we need ideas.
>
> Kelly Devine
> Common Pastures Co-Housing
> Charlotte, VT
> 802-862-1542
> hyghroad [at] aol.com
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