Online Real Estate Technology

The Hearst Corporation in the US has finally put Seattle’s oldest newspaper the Seattle Post Intelligencer up for sale, saying that if it can’t find a buyer in the next 60 days, they will close it down or continue to publish it as an internet based information source. The owners have also stated that in no way will they continue to publish it in it’s current form.

The media release from the Hearst Corporation states:

After 146 years of delivering news, the Seattle P-I faces becoming what it has chronicled: history.

“We’ve been on the knife edge all this time,” P-I managing editor David McCumber said Friday. “We finally slipped.”

Economic reasons have forced the state’s oldest morning newspaper into a sale, Steven Swartz, president of The Hearst Corp.’s newspaper division, told employees Friday.

“One thing is clear: At the end of the sale process, we do not see ourselves publishing in print,” Swartz told employees gathered in the newsroom overlooking Elliott Bay. “Since 2000, the P-I has lost money each year, and the losses have escalated and continue to escalate in 2009. We have had to make a very tough decision.”

Hearst said the P-I lost about $14 million in 2008.

One observer noted “The speed with which the 200-year old newspaper industry is disintegrating is remarkable. The model no longer works, at least not for most papers. And most of the industry seems incapable of–or unwilling to–adapt to the new reality”

There are signs that the same situation is starting to impact in Australia as well and that is why I can’t for the life of me understand why some real estate franchise groups and individual offices are continuing to invest in a medium which is very quickly starting to die. These groups that have so much invested in press will pay the price in the future if they don’t start to create and invest in digital communication channels and open up new mediums to communicate and advertise to the changing consumer.

Yesterday, the Gold Coast Bulletin real estate section had over 208 pages of advertising from real estate agents, and not one agent advertising listings in the paper integrated into their press adds their on line presence, this is so important today. I wrote about this back in November Integrating your On Line and Press Advertising- How Important Is this To Your Brand?  The other interesting situation with all of this, is that some of those agents spending on full page adds in the lift out have just recently cancelled or halved their on line spend.   

It’s been my experience in working with real estate businesses, that they mostly work for today and not to the future. You really need to now look at opening or creating new communication channels for your business, because most of the real estate industry uses a very small fraction of the power of the web and most leave it to the major portals in Australia to drive leads and branding.

Look forward to 2015, how will you communicate to the consumer then if you have no strategy in place today to gear your business to the future and to open up new marketing opportunities on the web.

The writing is on the wall for newspapers, don’t let your agency be so press oriented that you fail to see the bullet coming. Create that strategy today and start to implement a digital communication strategy for the future.

If you don’t know where to start with this, let me know because that’s what I do.

It’s funny sometimes how you get motivation to write a blog post, and this morning sitting outside reading my morning paper with my first cup of coffee, I looked at the local newspapers real estate section, I personally don’t do this very often, but today it got me to thinking. How well do real estate marketers combine both their on line and press adds, well after researching this morning, my impression is not very well. There appears to be little or no cross promotion, no push to get readers to go to your internet site to get additional information or view more photos, virtual tours,video etc. At least not from what I read today.

Your listings are very one dimensional in press, with limitations on how much space you have to work with, so why haven’t most agents yet to understand how to integrate the two? Yes I know some agents do this very well, but others, not so good. A recently Google commissioned study indicated a brand or product showing up both online and in the newspaper increased buyer credibility and trial by up to 50%. An integrated, multi-channel approach amplifies your credibility factor significantly in your marketplace.

It’s critical to your marketing’s success that it needs to play to the strengths of the medium, using on line to show additional information that meets the needs of the buyer plus supplying a wealth of information that supports the property, whilst using your press advertising to promote and keep your brand prominent and featuring a strong call to action to encourage readers to visit your own branded web site.   

I noticed this morning, 90% of the property advertising in the local real estate section, did not have a call to action nor did the agents refer prospective buyers to their web site to obtain additional information.

We all know that the dominance of press and online advertising for real estate has changed, but the need to integrate all your advertising and link them all has not. Employing a marketing strategy that plays to the strength of all mediums, will enable you and your office to maximise your presence as well as your marketing dollar.  

Press advertising is expensive, so why waste the opportunity to integrate all your marketing, because that’s where the real power is to you and your brand.

This post now available as a podcast, download this here: http://www.mikeandrew.podomatic.com/

Thought you may be interested in the latest research I’ve received from PRD for the month of July. Not surprising to me although some real estate agents who continue to cancel their on line subscriptions should really think again. Also a recent Yahoo survey found in the US that the more experience a real estate agent has the more they will spend in the on line environment. The full result is below for you.

When looking to purchase a property, what search method would you use?

If you would like to see the full report, visit www.prdnationwide.com.au/research.  Membership is free and you will receive a wealth of information from them.

As always good hunting.