12
Aug
The end for newspaper advertising? Many Estate Agents ask this
question.
In 1836 a French newspaper called 'La
Presse' was the first newspaper to include paid advertising in its
pages. This allowed it to lower its price, and with the lower
price, more people were able to buy the paper. Soon this formula
was copied all around the world. Ever since then, estate agents
have been using this medium as an excellent way to advertise their
services and the properties they have available.
Now local newspapers are in decline. Apart from the older
generation that have decided to reject the internet, readership
rates are down and the amount of time spent reading papers is also
declined. Estate agents are still clinging to advertising in local
newspapers in hopes that this traditional way of advertising will
help them through the recession.
The internet age is upon us.
The web savvy, from x and y gen (and generation z!) to the silver surfers have an
ever increasing number of methods of for communication, email,
online banners, viral marketing, pay per clicks, mobile advertising
and social networks, which last year became the number one means of
internet communication, amazingly ahead of email see our recent article. With all these marketing tools
at their disposal, why do estate agents continue to stick to the
more traditional ways of marketing at the expense of their pocket?
Whereas online advertising has the ability to reach people locally
and globally without costing estate agents the world.
Going one step further, a few estate agents in the U.S. have
decided to stop printed advertising altogether and even cut back on
online advertising. Intero Real Estate Services is one such estate
agent. They were among the first to syndicate their listings to
other websites and they supported this by online advertising. Now
they're cutting back on online advertising and focusing on its own
marketing channels such as their own website, blogs, social
networking and email campaigns and have reduced their advertising
spend from $3.2million to $0.5 million a year.
Do you want to embrace this shift in
marketing?
Firstly you need to realise that online marketing is not purely
about traffic (the amount of visitors to your website). If your
estate agent website has a huge amount of traffic but no one
enquires about any properties, what's the point? You have to be
able to convert these visitors into customers! Asking yourself
where you get your traffic from and the percentage of conversions
is a good start.
Next estate agents need to consider what is the best way to
reach buyers looking for property? Social networking is a great
place but what will your strategy be? Will you use social
networking to communicate to people on a personal level, use it
just as another way to advertise properties or will you use a mix
of both?
Lastly consider web syndication. Web syndication is where you
make your listings or content available to many other websites. One
way is to set up feeds to property portal sites. Another is to use
blogging. Try setting up separate blogs for buyers and sellers as
these two groups will have different interests. Buyers will be
interested in the different properties you have and sellers will be
interested in the amount of people accessing your website, your
property portal feeds etc.
The message here is two-fold. Not only should estate agents have
already started to look at the different types of media available
to them but also plan their online marketing strategy. Planning is
essential to the process. Without an online marketing strategy it
is very likely that you will fail.
Expert advice for estate agents looking to increase their web
profile, improve their website, understanding Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) for Estate
Agents, Marketing property or your estate agency business using
Social Networking or for a FREE assessment of your website and how well it
performs with search engines contact Troy Stanley CTO Resource Techniques 0208 457 4777.
For the latest marketing techniques, follow us on Twitter or
contact us on 0208 457 4777
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