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In this episode of How to Sell Your Atlanta Home with Sage & Grace, host Judy Jernigan speaks with marketing expert Casey McClintic, owner of Urban Marketing Edge, about why professional marketing is critical when selling a home. They explore how high‑quality photography, videography, social media, and targeted advertising form a cohesive “symphony” that can dramatically speed up the sale of your Atlanta property and maximize your final sales price.
Judy’s own blog emphasizes that even the best price won’t fix poor presentation—successful sales depend on layering strategy with staging, photography, video, and targeted marketing.
Why Marketing Matters – A comprehensive marketing plan elevates your home above competing listings. Judy explains that professional staging, quality photos and videos, and strategic advertising are essential to reaching the right buyers and commanding top dollar. In a case study she shares, a previously unsold property was transformed with professional staging, updates and a tailored marketing plan; the home sold in one day at full price.
Professional Photography & Videography – Casey stresses that crisp, well‑lit images and dynamic video tours showcase the best features of a property and encourage online buyers to schedule showings. Poor or amateur photos can leave money on the table; Judy’s blog notes that strong visuals paired with smart marketing tactics help listings stand out.
Social Media and Targeted Ads – Organic posts and paid campaigns on platforms like Facebook and Instagram amplify your listing’s reach. Casey discusses using audience targeting to ensure ads appear in front of qualified buyers. Storytelling in captions and videos creates emotional connections that motivate buyers to act.
Email Newsletters – Building and maintaining an email list of potential buyers and local agents allows you to share listing updates, open‑house announcements, and market insights directly to inboxes. This direct line of communication keeps your home top‑of‑mind for serious prospects.
Common Mistakes to Avoid – Judy and Casey warn against relying solely on yard signs or generic marketing. Skipping professional photography, neglecting to stage before taking photos, or failing to invest in digital advertising can result in a longer time on market and lower offers. Their advice echoes Judy’s blog, which emphasizes that a comprehensive marketing strategy is vital for achieving record prices.
Choosing the Right Agent – Your agent’s online presence, marketing resources, and willingness to invest in your listing determine how many eyes see your property. Judy highlights that the best agents are experienced negotiators and educators who leverage modern marketing tools to get homes sold.
Casey McClintic is the owner of Urban Marketing Edge, a firm specializing in high‑impact real‑estate marketing. Casey works with agents and homeowners to create customized marketing plans using professional photography, video, social media campaigns, and targeted advertising. To learn more about her services, visit Urban Marketing Edge or call 614‑725‑9441.
In Atlanta’s competitive market, simply listing your home isn’t enough. High‑quality photos and videos, polished staging, targeted social‑media advertising and a strong agent presence ensure your home stands out and sells quickly. Without this “marketing symphony,” sellers risk longer time on market and lower offers. Judy’s proven strategies—supported by client successes—show that investing in marketing yields higher returns and a smoother sale.
Case Study: 1 Year Without a Buyer… Judy Got It Sold in 1 Day – Learn how Judy turned around a stagnant listing using a new marketing plan, professional staging and targeted advertising to achieve a full‑price offer within 24 hours.
Luxury Home Features & Marketing – In her blog about must‑have features for Buckhead homes, Judy explains how smart marketing, professional staging and negotiation skills helped set record prices.
Previous Episodes:
Boost Buyer Interest with Seller Concessions – Hear how offering closing‑cost credits or rate buydowns can attract more buyers and preserve your sale price.
Home Staging While Living In Your Home – Discover practical strategies for decluttering, styling and presenting an occupied house to capture buyers’ hearts.
Buy Before You Sell – Explore bridge loans and niche financing programs that allow you to purchase your next home before your current one sells.
Book a consultation: Judy makes it easy to schedule a listing consultation or a quick chat via her online calendar.
Website: Explore resources, market updates and seller guides on Sage & Grace Realty Group.
Get a home valuation: Request a free report on your home’s value at sageandgracere.com/home‑valuation.
LinkedIn: Follow Judy’s professional updates and articles at JudyStoneJernigan.
“Judy is amazing and truly cares about her clients. She kept us updated on offers and closings, worked tirelessly to get us the best deal, and helped us close quickly”.
Ready to make your home irresistible? Connect with Judy today and turn professional marketing into your competitive edge.
Transcript
[Speaker 2] Join us for how to sell your Atlanta home with Sage and Grace. Smart homeowner strategies, successful real estate sales. I'll be interviewing Casey McClintock, owner of Urban Marketing Edge, a real estate marketing powerhouse. We'll be diving into the importance of real estate marketing for home sellers, highlighting what sellers should ensure their agents are prepared to do in marketing and advertising their homes. If you're thinking about selling your home, this series is packed with key insights to help you maximize exposure and attract the right home buyers. Selling a home isn't just about putting up a for sale sign. It's about strategy, marketing, and negotiation. But how do you know if you're making the right moves? I'm Judy Jernigan, recognized among the top 5% by the Atlanta Realtors and your host of how to sell your Atlanta home with Sage and Grace. Smart homeowner strategies, successful real estate sales. With a background in broadcasting, negotiation, and education, I bring a unique perspective to home sales, helping homeowners sell faster for top dollar and with less hassle, while understanding not just the financial side, but also the logistical and emotional considerations of a move. This show helps you plan ahead, navigate the market, and work more effectively with a realtor like me. You'll get expert insights from my guests, plus real actionable strategies to sell with confidence. Now here's the show moving you forward with Sage advice and grace. [Speaker 1] Thank you for inviting me out. It was so much fun shooting all these videos and stuff with you today. [Speaker 2] We've had a busy day already. So tell me about a well-rounded marketing strategy. Why is that so essential for home sellers and today's real estate market? [Speaker 1] For home sellers, I like to equate everything in marketing when it comes to a real estate agent and getting your home sold to a symphony. You don't want to talk about just the trumpet or the band or the orchestrator, or it's all pieces working together and making sure that your home gets to as many eyes as possible. You're dealing with a home that can be multi-generational. It could be a starter home. There's a lot of different people that are looking for your home and you're going to be looking for that home in a lot of different channels and a lot of different ways. So making sure that you're getting to as many eyes and as many prospective buyers as you can, because someone that might not be what you think is going to fit in this home is going to be a perfect fit for this home. So you want to put it in front of as many people as you can. [Speaker 2] We try to go up with buyer avatars, but we may not always get it perfect. So I read a National Association of Realtors study recently that said a hundred percent of home buyers now, people thinking about buying a home are shopping online. And a few years ago, that number was much lower. It was like 83% just a few years ago, but now we know everyone does. Absolutely. They're going to be looking at homes online. So I also heard recently, people say that it's no longer the term digital marketing is a little bit outdated, especially when it comes to real estate. Like it's just marketing and it needs to include digital. So what role do you think social media and online platforms play in selling a home? [Speaker 1] I think it's crucial. And a lot of people think when they put their home out onto the MLS and put it out online, and this is what comes to partnering with the best real estate agent for your marketing is so important. Because marketing your home is one thing, but also you want to partner with a real estate agent that has that following of people that are already in the market for looking for homes and they're marketing themselves. They're marketing their real estate services. So when you are picking a real estate agent to market your home, you're also unlocking all of these other opportunities because that real estate agent is marketing themselves as well. They already have a following of people that are interested in buying a home that generally fits in that, that buy box that they're looking for. So when you think of digital, you want to find social media, someone that's interactive. You don't want to find someone that's all about real estate either. You want to find someone that is personable and gets a lot of engagement in their marketing. Because social media is a two-way street. It is, you can put things out there, but you also have to be super interactive. And I see some real estate agents kind of make that mistake where they just put things out there and they're like, Oh, okay, this is, this is out there. I did my, my duty. It's not like that at all. You have to be two ways about it. You have to be engaging. You have to follow up. And that's where that salesmanship and that marketing goes hand in hand and making sure that your home is getting the best opportunity and getting in front of as many people as possible. [Speaker 2] So if a real estate agent has a good online social presence, then their organic posts are going to reach more people. Is there a role for paid advertising? [Speaker 1] Absolutely. So paid advertising, I also want to touch on newsletters too. We'll get to that in a second. But paid advertising, geoforming, so print isn't dead, believe it or not. You can send out a lot of postcards and you get a lot of people interested. A lot of people have friends and family that might be interested in buying in that community. Again, you're advertising and marketing the area that you're living in and getting it out in front of as many people. [Speaker 2] What should home sellers expect by way of their agent's videography and photography? [Speaker 1] For videography and photography, I always highly recommend professional everything. So here's the thing. When you're marketing your home, you need to stand out amongst the crowd of so many others that are also marketing their homes. It's a supply and demand. There is a demand and then there is a supply. But you can be the golden goose by doing video 3D tours and being personable in your marketing to make sure that that home is getting the full story being told. [Speaker 2] So we've talked about a little bit about social media, paid and organic. We've talked about, of course, we need to start with professional video and professional photos. What other platforms do you recommend? [Speaker 1] I love newsletters. If you have a real estate agent that has a 10,000, 6,000 email list, and they're sending those things out on a regular basis, and your home is getting into that list and going out, then that is amazing because you're getting in front of so many more people. You're getting in front of the real estate agents following. There's a few other ways like radio and TV ads. Generally, a real estate agent isn't going to advertise a home for that, but they're going to advertise themselves. That's going to bring in that demand for your home because you're listing it with that real estate agent. It is very much a partnership. [Speaker 2] So when you say newsletter, email newsletter. So for instance, Sage and Grace Realty Group, I have an email newsletter that we fill full of content, information that we think is going to be helpful to homeowners, home sellers, home buyers. We do local business spotlights, good people to know in the community, vendors they might like, and oh, by the way, here are some new listings or some deals of the week, some really nice properties. So I think that you're right, that we're able to reach a broader audience that way because we do include a little bit of information, a little bit for everybody, something for everybody. [Speaker 1] It's very much about getting the audience that's in market for a home. You think about the general transition for a person is about seven years. I think that it's getting less and less now, especially after COVID, everyone's like, ah, I'm sick of my house. But you want to be in front of the people that are in market and those people that are in market are going to also be looking for information about the home buying process because it's gotten different. It's very different now than it used to be just a few years ago. So they were wanting to learn and they're in market. And when you partner with a real estate agent that's putting out valuable information about how the market is different now than it was earlier, you're getting in front of the people that are in market for buying a home, which could be your home. [Speaker 2] What do you think are some common mistakes that agents are making when it comes to marketing? And how can we avoid these pitfalls? [Speaker 1] Oh, gosh. So for a new real estate agent, I think they see marketing as just a billboard. They want to put a billboard up saying, oh, I have a listing and then they leave it there. They don't get emotional with their listing. You don't tell the story of the listing. They just talk about it has granite countertops and it has some high ceilings and then they're done. Then they move on and they're off to something else. But there's so much more you can talk about the home. Keep in mind, buying a house is a very emotional connection. If you're not dealing with investors every day, you're generally dealing with someone that's starting their first first starter home. Maybe it's their second home. There are different avenues and different ways to communicate to those people and tell the story that best suits them. If you meet someone more than halfway, they're more apt to do business with you than someone that's just putting it out there. If that makes sense, I'll bring it back to dating. If you go on a date, you just sit there and you're like, you just sit there and be pretty. That's not a good date. You have to be engaging. You have to get halfway there and make the effort and make sure that you are telling the full story about yourself, about what your goals and aspirations are, and making sure that this home is perfect for the family that's going to buy it. [Speaker 2] So when we're trying to make an emotional connection with a potential home buyer, making sure that we tell the stories of the property. So what suggestions do you have to help us connect with our potential home buyers? [Speaker 1] I recommend that you create a buy box. So you called it an avatar. But I also think if you create a secondary, maybe a triciary. And the reason being is you could have a very special home that is in a very different neighborhood. Let's say that the lifestyles are kind of mixed. For example, the home that we're or the condo we just looked at today, that has a very specific buy box because of the size and the layout. But the lifestyle that the condo offers is in a completely different buy box. So you want to make sure you hit on both. And the second suggestion is also staging and telling the story of the home and making sure the features are communicating to both. You always want clean and easy. You want to make it easy for someone to walk in and say, okay, I can I can live here. And also comes back to photography, videography, making sure that your landing page is clean and easy to understand. You don't want to make things so difficult that people can't figure out what's going on. For example, we're in a condo, there's a lot of information about this condo that they would also need to know. What's the amenities? What's the HOA fees? All those things feed into and a really good, easy thing for an agent to do is make that information as easily accessible as possible so that the person that's interested in it can get it, ones that aren't rolled out immediately. [Speaker 2] Yeah. So you talked about like landing page. So like we always create standalone websites for all of our property and that sort of thing. I think that it's important. What do you think that when you are say creating a video about a property that's for sale? Sure, people want to see the property. They want to know about the air, the amenities in that building or in that home. But we also need to talk about the lifestyle that that area offers that be at that community or that neighborhood. [Speaker 1] Oh, yeah, absolutely. Especially for my generation and generally, like from the millennials to Gen Z. How much time do you actually spend in your home? It's it's becoming less and less, especially if you're in more of a metropolitan area. And you're outside, you're doing things in Georgia. We have amazing weather. You can take advantage of hiking opportunities, being by the pool, going to the gym. You have so many different places to go and do things. You want to be able to have access to all these things and you want to make sure that you're putting an emphasis on the lifestyle that you want, not the emphasis on a lifestyle you don't want. For example, there are golf communities. I'm not a golfer. I used to be, but that's not something I want to buy right now. So I don't want to invest in the wrong amenities and the wrong lifestyle when that's not what I want to be, because I spend 50 percent of my time outside of the home. [Speaker 2] So what what innovative marketing strategies are are you seeing work really well right now? [Speaker 1] Right now, marketing is getting, for example, I would say seven years ago when I first started getting into marketing, marketing for real estate agents was extremely easy. Why? Because there wasn't a whole lot of people doing it. There were a few people that got with it and they made a Facebook page and said, OK, I'm done. That's that's it. That's a wrap. But now that so many people are in market as real estate agents and the I would say the minimum has gone up so much that you need to find and create a community around your business. And what I mean is, is that that email list that you email your listings to and the information to the the group of people, past clients that are going to be your advocate, because let's face it these days, if you say you're a great agent, no one believes you. If I say you're a great agent, someone might believe you just because there are so many people screaming at the rooftops of in being noisy and loud. You want to find someone that has a good community behind them. And that's why I think picking a real estate agent with a good brokerage, a good marketing plan, someone that's consistent. And I think that answers most of the question is just consistency. If you stay within a certain buy box, and you know, your lane and you niche down and figure out exactly how you want your business to run in the demographic and the people that you like to work with, for example, condos, completely different animal than single family. If you specialize in condos, then you already know everything, you know, the HOA rules, you know how to market the HOA, you know how to market the lifestyle because you've done it before, and you can continue to do it. Every listing is just a puzzle piece and the great canvas of your overall image. [Speaker 2] Any final thoughts for people who are thinking about selling their homes or getting their homes ready what they should be doing or who they should be speaking with or what they should be looking for in an agent? [Speaker 1] I recommend looking at the real estate agent's listing presentation. And then when you're done with that listing presentation, go on to their website and just parse it as much as you can. Another thing I think a lot of people run into is debt. So if you can spend more than three to five minutes on their website and continue to learn things, that is a good real estate agent because they put in the time to educate the public. That means they can put in the time to educate their clients. And that means they can put in the time to sell your home. But if you go to a website and you spend, you know, four, maybe five seconds going, okay, that's a nice homepage. And then you're not learning anything, you're not gaining any value, then that person is just not in it. They're not in real estate, they're just doing going through the motion. Going through the motion. [Speaker 2] That's brilliant. I really like that. [Speaker 1] So where can people find you? You can find me through searching Casey McClinick or Urban Edge Marketing. And then my phone number is 614-725-9441. You can text me or call me. I'm always here. I'm in the Atlanta area. So if you need media help, I'm your guy. If you need marketing help, I service plenty of clients throughout the nation. I know a lot of different markets. So give me a call. [Speaker 2] UrbanMarketingEdge.com. [Speaker 1] Yes. [Speaker 2] Navigating North Atlanta real estate market can be overwhelming, but it doesn't have to be. Our series, How to Sell Your Atlanta Home with Sage and Grace, Smart Homeowner Strategies, Successful Real Estate Sales, is your essential guide to successful home sales. Thanks for joining us on How to Sell Your Atlanta Home with Sage and Grace. I'm Judy Jernigan, and I love helping homeowners sell smarter with less stress and better results. Who do you know with real estate questions? Please connect us so we can make confident, well-informed decisions and get the best possible outcomes together. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to like, subscribe, and leave a five-star review. It helps more homeowners get the smart strategies they need for a successful sale. Head to sageandgracere.com to learn more about working with me and the Sage and Grace real estate team. Explore all our show episodes. And when you're ready, book a chat directly with me, Judy Jernigan, moving you forward with Sage Advice and Grace.