Why advertising real estate online is so much more effective than print

Posted on 21. Jul, 2009 by Brian in Marketing Tips, News

I recently read an article written by Simon Baker about print advertising becoming obsolete. During 2001 until 2008 Simon was the Managing Director of realestate.com.au, Australia’s largest property portal site. Under his management the company also operated 22 property sites around the world. Needless to say he has a lot of experience. I decided to summarize and quote some of the most important points in this blog post. I find it extremely relevant to our markets in Latin America, especially since we are still at an early stage in online property promotion. Whilst this is growing fast, it is still several years behind the US, Europe and Australia.

In his article he writes about the early days of online marketing and how it was more of a side-show next to the behemoth print machine. During his 7 years working at the company, online Australian ad spend in real estate grew from around $7 million a year to over $180 million a year. In developed markets around the world, print advertising has pretty much dropped off completely. The internet has stormed print advertising in recent years taking almost all the market share when it comes to rental properties and lower-end properties for sale. Only is it popular to market extremely high-end properties in print. He asks the rhetorical question as to why this has happened, responding, “The internet is where the eyeballs are. Buyers prefer to use the internet for their research; they can filter results in any way they want and make electronic shortlists, they can see multiple photos and floor plans, they can check the location of the property on Google maps, and perhaps most importantly, they can do it wherever they want, whenever they want.”

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He goes on to state, “The real estate portals have been great news for agents and vendors too, because when you compare the two modes of advertising, the internet is ridiculously cheap and easy to use. Uploading a property onto on-line portals is a lot less time consuming than organising a print ad – buyers can see the property as soon as the listing is uploaded and the agent can update details whenever they want. It will even be emailed direct to interested buyer’s in-box overnight via email alerts – how much more targeted could marketing be?

The pro-print corner will try to convince you that internet advertising loses steam after that initial upload and if you don’t get a sale straightaway you might as well have the property hidden under a rock. This, of course, is fear mongering in a rear guard action to protect the ancient rivers of gold. If you look at the viewing patterns of any property, you will not only see an initial spike, you will also see a long tail of continual viewing of an online listing. Ask any pro-print person how many people actually looked at each print ad and the best they can do is quote some out of date circulation figure for the paper.”

Additionally, he gives some specific suggestions about how to maximise the value of online advertising. The lists below are taken directly from his website, Property Ad Guru.

To maximise the number of leads generated by an on-line ad, there are two key things to consider. The first is the quality of the advertisement, focusing on the same features that draw consumers to the web – lots of information:

- High quality photos and lots of them – 8 to 10 is the most effective number.
- Floor plans – a clear layout will help the buyer visualise the property.
- Informative text – the copy should include as much factual information as possible and be straight to the point. Savvy internet consumers are turned off by flowery descriptions.
- The location of the property so it can be mapped.
- Even videos of the property can help create more high quality leads.

The second key thing which will determine the effectiveness of the ad is positioning on the site:

- Adopt premium products – use options like the guaranteed top spot or the e-brochure feature which sends the property in a separate email to interested buyers.
- Advertise on multiple sites – cast the net as broadly as possible.
- Promote the real estate brand separately to listings – unlike print, on-line can disaggregate the brand from the listing, so use options like banner ads in the suburb search.
- If a property is languishing in an on-line campaign, it is most likely due to the advertisement not ticking these boxes rather than the medium of on-line itself.

In closing he states:

“Going forward, I believe print advertising will become even less relevant. Print advocates say that there is a whole segment of society that doesn’t use the internet, particularly those buyers in the older age group who are looking for premium properties. I don’t necessarily agree with that argument; 70%+ of the total population is now on-line and that includes many older people. But even if it were true now, in time the younger generations who are only using the internet will become the older generation who only use the internet.

My advice to any agent considering the marketing campaign for a property today would be; think carefully of the buyers you are targeting. Anyone under the age of 40-50 is almost certainly using the internet, and in many areas, people in older age brackets are too. I personally wouldn’t waste my time advertising anything in print – the time and effort required is just not worth it.

Don’t hang onto the past, on-line is here to stay and is the most effective forum for real estate marketing. Embrace the future and run like mad – your audience is already there.”