Holly Komorowski knows the value of a great yarn. Her business home.byholly, has become renowned for creating captivating property marketing campaigns anchored around a story.
It may be the story of the seller, the house’s history, or an attribute of the area – whatever captures the spirit of the property.
On a recent episode of the Elevate podcast, Holly explained the secret to selling: “It’s all about the story.”
It’s not just putting the property on the various portals with a good description and some nice photos, either. You have to partner with other storytellers to spread the word.
Holly partners with Region Media, an independent media group in Canberra, and in particular uses their publication Riot ACT to tell the stories of their properties.
“We’ll often write stories and get some editorials for properties through that portal. The best part about it is that they’re willing for us to contribute content as well.”
Casting a wide net and creating engaging content “brings exposure and hopefully business to people that are in our community,” says Holly.
Holly continues to use influencers and likes to cross-promote with local businesses as well.
In the end, it’s all about the story – does it align with the property? She recommends always accompanying a story with a video.
To illustrate this, Holly speaks about a recent campaign for a house with lots of sustainability and efficiencies in place.
The marketing campaign around this property involved writing a story about sustainable living.
The team then partnered with the local IGA who also had some environmental practices in place.
“We wrote a story about the property, the benefits of the house, and then told the story of the local IGA and that are implementing [sustainability] practices”.
Another tip: Pay attention. It might sound obvious, but Holly explains that this is the best way of finding which story to tell about the home.
“I think it’s being attentive to what the home has to offer and thinking about what pitch would attract the right buyer to the property. What’s special about the home that’s going to resonate with a buyer?
“Be willing to take it that direction, as opposed to maybe the more stock-standard cookie-cutter approach”.
Sometimes the story is about the people, and Holly suggests that if they’re willing to be part of the campaign, then consider this as a possible marketing angle. One of the favourite campaigns of this year was the ‘Lego love story’.
“Everybody wanted to write a story about that,” says Holly.
“It was a great story of how the people met and their love affair that had grown around Lego.”
As a story teller, language is important to Holly. She describes her team as a ‘collective’, expounding that “the connotation of the ‘Collective’ has been a really nice way to describe what we have created”.
“For me, the Collective is not just the people that are within the day to day running of the business, it extends beyond that.”
Holly includes design group Swell Design, as well as photographers and other creatives as part of the Collective.
“We source the best of the industry outside of our own small team,” she says.
“That enables us to be extremely agile and have a really powerful brand even though we’re considered a smaller group, a boutique agency”.
Holly believes that the challenges that have faced everybody in 2020 make for a number of wonderful stories.
However, no matter what else is going on, Holly suggests it’s vital to think about the home you’re selling, what’s essential to the community and potential buyers and then thoughtfully tap into that. Create beautiful imagery and beautiful content and just keep “turning up”.
And, as the architect of her own story, Holly made sure to give her own 2020 a happy ending.
“As much as the lockdown has been difficult for lots of people, I must admit just having that little bit of extra time at home was a blessing,” she explains.
“Something to be thankful for in a pretty difficult year.”
Listen to the full Elevate podcast episode with Holly.
