Remember the good old days when in slower times we had to spend more money advertising in local newspaper real estate guides? Remember when we simply had no choice but to pay lineage ad increases each year? Remember when we thought it was the best way to market your vendors listings to as many buyers as possible? Remember when the distribution of these guides reached many outlying suburbs? Remember when it cost about $2000 AUD per week to advertise in those papers?
If the Internet had not come around we would all still be doing it! You would all be still having to spend thousands of dollars a week attracting buyers and vendors by advertising in newspapers.
You would also be taking out large half/full page advertisements in Yellow Pages, just to let evetyone know you were serious!
Remember that large yellow book that was delivered to each doorstep once a year with all the phone numbers of local businesses? Remember those funny ads that reminded us not to miss out on the Yellow Pages deadline? Remember when you thought it was so important to be sure your advertisement was so much better than your competitors? Well this is all a thing of the past, yeah, yeah we all know it still feels good to have a big bold colourful ad, but lets face it, we are just throwing money away.
These days we use the Internet to market our vendors listings, we use our website to differentiate us from our competitors…………..and although many of you still advertise in newspapers, the trend is set away from newspapers.
The Internet’s reach is global and newspapers simply cannot match it for cost effectiveness, content and reach. The Internet has been a saviour and sites like realestate.com.au and domain.com.au are pretty much must have’s on any serious agents list.
So in tougher times, you should be thankful you have the Internet to still reach your prospective buyers and vendors, without the expense and lack of flexibility that only a newspaper can bring to our business.