With over 50% of Australians now online and 1 in 5 of these users searching for properties, every residential real estate agent needs a complete online strategy. This strategy should include all major real estate portals, and this is why!
Agents are now marketing their online strength (spread) to potential vendors and at the same time showing their competitors weaknesses in this area.
As the importance of the Internet marketing of properties grow so will the spread of agents online marketing strategies.
If your residential agency only lists with one of the main portals then you will definitely lose business to your rivals.
Vendors are becoming less interested (yes they are still interested) in advertising in newspaper guides because of the costs involved. Paper guides are great for immediacy and branding but do little to actually sell a property, this is because they contain so little information. This trend will only get stronger in future years as vendors understanding of the reach and communication benefits of marketing properties online increases.
Agents not only need to market their properties to as many potential buyers online as possible, but they also need to structure a pricing plan for this marketing.
I think all agents should offer an Internet only strategy and an vendor advertising fee structure around this strategy.
Agents should be charging a minimum of $200.00 per listing, but they also need to lift their game when it comes to quality of content and images/VR tours. Vr Tours are usually outsourced to a third party but this is just plain silly as software and cameras can do a great job, all it needs is some training for your staff. (they will also enjoy it). It is such a simple procedure and it does irk me that some agents still get this outsourced for hundreds of dollars a pop. After the shots are taken it takes less than ten minutes to make a VR tour.
When you consider the costs involved it makes perfect sense to formulate a marketing strategy around the Internet and give vendors a great spread of advertising.
Your future is online and despite the coming competition in print media, the Internet is the print media’s biggest competitor.
Domain.com.au + Realestate.com.au
There are only two truly national real estate portals and that is Domain.com.au and Realestate.com.au and if you are not listed on both of these then you are going to lose listings to your competitors.
If I was your competitor and was listed on both then I would let vendors know that you were not!
Both of these sites are owned by major national newspapers and they market their sites very effectively. Real Estate (News Ltd majority owned) is pretty strong all over Australia and Domain (Fairfax) is particularly strong in Melbourne and Sydney.
Both have their strengths in markets where their newspapers have a dominant share of the classifieds revenue. Even local newspapers can have a very effective online presence and your advertising mix should be about marketing your vendors properties to as many potential buyers as possible.
Just go basic
In allot of cases both of these portals are now offering featured listings and extra services such as email marketing, however I would not bother with these features instead I would be spending those costs on marketing your own website, this is your future!
A good example is featuring a property at the top of search results. If a person is looking for a property in Hobart (Tasmania) then they will look at ALL properties, not just the first few. The only thing a featured property gives you is a strong chance that a person will see this listing before others.
Your Own Website
If you do not have your own website ( and I do not mean one that re-directs to realestate.com.au …… a REAL ONE) then you are sadly going to be left behind.
Most agents now receive over 60% of their enquiries from their online advertising, yet less than 10% of their marketing budget is spent online, does something seem out of whack to you?
When thinking about your website, think of your brand and presentation of your vendors properties, 95% of your visitors will go to your site to look at properties, so make it as simple as possible to get that information. If you have less than 100 listings you should not bother with a search facility, just give your users a big long list of properties that link to more information. Give the user of your site the ability to sort listings by price, suburb, property type etc.
Your Brand & Presentation
If you care little about your brand and presentation of properties your website will demonstrate this in spades.
If you know little about technology and user behaviour your website will demonstrate this in spades.
In fact your website tells a user so much about your company, yet they will rarely ever tell you about it.
So it is time for all agents to start being totally honest with themselves, are you on both Domain.com.au and Realestate.com.au ?
Does your website accurately reflect the brand you are looking to project into the marketplace. Do you spend less than 20% of your marketing budget online? Be honest with yourself and train you and your staff to understand the benefits of the online world and your future will be better for it.