The new vendor outcry should be “Show me the figures” before they commit to marketing costs.
We now all belong to the digital world where everything is monitored and if it can’t then it is wasting someone’s money, but also much time and effort for little guaranteed return. Last weekend, the Brisbane’s Courier Mail Real Estate Magazine had a bumper edition. There must have been a special deal on offer. But more importantly, there seems to be a corresponding amount of paper advertisement and support with articles like “Print still the best way to sell” and ads with “We got it in ink”. Real Estate Marketing needs to move on and start using what other industries have alrady proven to be great tools.
This reminds me so much of the end of the era of the Yellow Pages and its fight for survival in maintaining their customers. Remember those ads on yellow pages, “Not Happy Jan” (I personally think this ad is fantastic) which put the fear of God into everyone, if they missed the Yellow Pages and would have to wait 12 months for the next edition. But it was interesting that in my business in the latter part of the 1990’s, I had the biggest advertisement possible (very expensive), and because I had it for so long, I was in No 1 spot in our industry section. You didn’t have to earn your position you got it out of seniority. Over the years, I knew I would receive 10 -15 calls per week from that advertisement. But by the turn of the century, it wasn’t working like it did. Why? Because people had started to go and search on the internet. I was one of the first in my business group, who pulled the very expensive ad from yellow pages because it just wasn’t working effectively any longer. However, many of my business colleagues maintained it, because they could not imagine life without the Yellow pages.
Now I think we are at a similar stage with press advertising. The issue is not whether Press Advertising is totally obsolete because I know with some older clients this could be the avenue of choice to connect with them. Also the local press has many benefits for local advertising into specific local communities. However, I think we are not using the press advert or for that matter the QR Reader in the correct way. If we send them to just contact details or to somewhere which is the same advertisement. What have we achieved? What we need is to direct them to a Landing Page or an Individual Property Website (check out 4/9 Ridley St Auchenflower) that has the complete information. Once they go there, we have them registered and we can actually record how many interested parties we had in that advert and not have to rely on staff to ask incoming callers "Where did they see the ad?" Then record it. This can all be done in the Digital World and at any time anywhere. Better still the press ad may only last for that one edition, but the webpage lasts for as long as you want it to last and it is on their phone or PC to forward to other family members and friends.
The new vendor outcry should be “Show me the figures” before they commit to marketing costs. This would make even Jerry Maguire happy.
It all comes down to monitoring and the software measuring engagements. If you read articles like this “Major study proves the power of print”. Now I cannot state categorically the criteria as to how this data was selected, but I would imagine that RP Data simply looked at those properties that were on the portals and the press and compared them to just those advertised on the portals. My immediate thought is for you to just look at the properties in the press. It is obvious that most are, the more expensive properties. So on average, they of course would sell at a higher figure. But to extrapolated those figures to mean that press achieved a higher price is pushing the boundaries. But this will always occur when you don’t have ways of collecting data that relates to the specific promotion. Now in the modern digital frame of mind, it is possible to track accurately how many inquiries came from:
The front fence sign
The flyer/marketing card
The press Advertisement
The realestate.com.au advert
The domain.com.au advert
The property.com.au advert
The Social Pages where the blog went
The other websites such as Housenet where the blog also went
The YouTube video
Or any other medium by which you promote.
But now actual figures will determine the effectiveness of real estate marketing, so you spend marketing dollars in those areas that really bring the inquiries. Surely this is what the vendors want from their agents. Evidence as to what is working and what is not and not just a feeling or hype of sales talk as to what should be done. How is this done? Watch this video.
This should be our new world of Real Estate Marketing where we are using the tools that are available to us and vendors should be demanding the factual data to support any marketing spend. Also, if agents are not offering this information then it is about time, a new style agent is selected and given a chance to demonstrate their marketing ability.