Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Online or Social media marketing - what has worked for you? finder's fees?

[Sharon Villines (sharon]

On 23 May 2012, at 8:50 AM, Catya Belfer wrote:

> To answer your question, though, we have a bunch of people who first found
> us via the web site, but how the specific people who bought got to the
> website is not something we know.

If you are using Wordpress, Slimstat tells you that. I would think AdWords 
would as well.

We aren't actively marketing but in rounded numbers 20% come from google.com, 
which I assume is web searches, 3% from Cohousing.org, 2% from the ICF 
directory. Initially, the people were from flyers in coops and/or knew someone. 
A couple from articles in the newspaper, but content articles, not ads.

Our most recent move-ins were people who knew about cohousing and were moving 
to DC or just moving and looking for cohousing. Two of 4 because they had 
relatives in cohousing. These are rough numbers because I didn't stop to define 
"new" but it is definitely new for us to have people who had heard of cohousing 
from someone other than someone who lives here. We are also in DC to which many 
people move because they are doing a fellowship, contract employment of 1-2 
years, or want to move back because they once had a fellowship here.

They are also people who know they want cohousing. Only one household, renters 
moving here from England expressed hesitation and wanting to try it out first. 
Others have said we'll try it but were more committed and knew what they were 
trying out. The most knowledgeable households and ones that most easily fit 
themselves in most easily were people who had relatives living in cohousing in 
other states. 

(I'm waiting on getting the FHA information. The Admin Team agreed to share the 
list of documents and data the FHA requested, but not copies of the forms. The 
forms contain our financial and legal information and that wouldn't be 
particularly helpful anyway.)

Sharon
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Sharon Villines
Takoma Village Cohousing, Washington DC
http://www.takomavillage.org