Tactics to get more guests to sign-in and to overcome concerns with providing contact information

Not every person in your open house is going to be thrilled about sharing their info, but there are some tricks we’ve learned to solve this.

The Approach

The way you approach an Open House visitor when trying to get them to sign-in depends on your style when it comes to meeting people for the first time. Here are two very different approaches:

The Wine and Dine

Oh yes, we’re comparing sales to dating. Way back before online dating, people used to exchange their first awkward words at bars, nightclubs, and um grocery stores. In those days, it would be considered highly irregular to start a conversation by asking for someone’s contact info. Similarly, some agents follow these norms and wait until some rapport is built before asking for the digits. But when the time is right, have a digital sign-in app ready because pulling out a crumpled sheet of paper from your back pocket is NOT gonna look slick.

The Go with the Flow

This is the exact opposite of the wine and dine approach and it’s a definitely more of an advanced move. Here’s how it works: hand the tablet displaying the Open House sign-in to a visitor as soon as they walk in – and do it while you are greeting them. If done naturally you can make it feel like it’s just part of the process and they’ll be more likely to go with the flow and sign in. If done unnaturally, you’ll know because there will be a lot of cold stares from people as they walk through the Open House.

TIP: Use our Touchless Sign-in option so people who have hygienic reasons not to use your device to sign-in can use their own phone to sign in. Plus it’s got a serious cool factor that shows prospects how tech/marketing savvy you are.

The Rebuttal

If visitors seem uneasy about providing their info, here are some scripts that help overcome their concerns. These are split into two approaches: a carrot and a stick…but they actually work best when combined. Yes, we’re talkin’ carrot sticks:

How to incentivize people to fill out the open house sign in sheet:

• “I have similar properties I can show you before they hit the market.” (off market properties are like catnip to serious buyers)
• “Sign in and you’ll immediately get a text with photos and details about the property – it’ll help save a tree 😉 “
  *keep in mind you will need to set up the text follow up and make sure your device is connected to the internet. Btw we created beautiful listing microsites that you can easily add once you’ve created your listing. Here’s a tutorial.
• “We’re running a gift card prize drawing for people that sign-in with us today” – and don’t forget to actually run the drawing at some point

Blame the seller:

• “This just helps us show the seller we had a good turnout at the open house” or you can be more forceful by saying
• “This is something that our seller is insisting on…that everyone who enters signs in”.

Get creative and try these tactics too:

• If you want to maximize the benefit of a digital sign-in don’t give visitors a pen & paper sign-in option. Visitors see that pen and will reflexively scribble “Mickey Mouse” on the paper…old habits die hard right? IF you really want to give a pen & paper option to visitors then hide so someone needs to ask for it. Trust us, few will…and most will love the slick, digital option.
• Similarly, skip the printouts like brochures at the open house. You can include digital information (like our listing microsites) in your follow up instead. That way, guests are more likely to share their contact info to receive these details – this is also why we built an immediate text message follow up feature. The scripts for incentivizing people to fill out the open house sign in sheet will help conveying this.

TIP: There’s one exception to the “no printout” rule. We suggest printing out the QR code that’s used for touchless sign-in. You can place it next to the digital sign-in OR even at the front door. Here’s an article that shows exactly how to do it!

The Follow Through

Once you have your guests’ information, make the most out of them. Our text follow up feature is a great way to automate engagement and provide useful info about the property they signed-in at.

Using our Zapier integration you can push these guests to your CRM, dialer, or onto an email/VM/text drip campaign.

And Remember…

Every person there has taken time out of their life to spend time with you at this open house. The hardest part is done as soon as they walk in the door.