Where to Advertise a Listing On The Internet
More studies point to a continued hemorrhaging of advertising dollars from local print publications. This time from Clickz reports Global Internet Ad Spend to Climb 28 Percent in ‘07.
Great news for online publishers, not so good for the newspapers and magazines that rely on Realtor advertising to support their publications.
“The traditional medium that suffered the most was print,” he said, noting many newspaper dollars “have gone directly to online classified and auction sites.”
Publishers are desperately trying to stake out a new online platform (see The death of the Sunday Home section) but I see these events as the perfect storm for newspaper publishers.
So, despite fancy redesigns, they are still bleeding readers.
(I’ve had a newspaper delivered to my doorstep pretty much every day for the last 10 years and even I canceled my subscription to the Oregonian earlier this year - I just found it wasn’t relevant to me anymore. As much as I love pouring over a printed page, by the time any of the ‘news’ had hit their press - I’d already seen it online.)
Marlow Harris at 360Digest brings up another interesting point, that even in the face of disappearing ad dollars - newspapers continue to bite the very hands that feed them.
But I do question increased and continual hammering on the industry, its commission structure and the people who are employed in the business. If real estate editors hasten the demise of real estate agents, who will be left to advertise in their newspaper?
This is a common complaint that I’m hearing more and more these days. Real estate professionals questioning the point of advertising in a medium seemingly bent on their disintermediation.
I don’t think that print advertising for real estate will disappear entirely. I think there’s still a need for it in certain niche markets. Take high end/luxury homes. There, you typically have a much longer sales cycles and an older demographic who doesn’t use the Internet as much (case in point, see Larry King shuns the Net).
But where there’s a definite impact is in the middle. Homes that are priced at or around the median in a local market. Homes whose buyers generally fall into the new buying demographic (see Meet the new real estate customer).
So the challenge is, where would you advertise one of these homes?
The answer on the Internet is, of course, everywhere possible. And that makes sense for any of the free listings (craigslist et. al). But where would you take the extra step and actually pay to have a listing placed?
Though it’s clear to me that newspaper advertising is dying, what hasn’t emerged yet is an obvious online alternative.
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9 Comment(s)
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John harper | Dec 6, 2006 | Reply
Not only what you said, but newspapers bias their rates against agents - similar to the way dry cleaners take women to the cleaners.
When the obvious alternative incarnates, the home for sale section will become a ghost town overnight.
Athol Kay | Dec 6, 2006 | Reply
Newspapers are just becoming increasingly worthless compared to searching online. It takes me longer to find the real estate section in the sunday paper than it takes to locate a home on the internet. Then all it has are 2-3 lines of text. You just have to log on to find out anything about the home anyway.
rudolph d. bachraty III | Dec 6, 2006 | Reply
joel - that’s a good question
rudy.sellsius°
p.s. looking forward to meeting you at the inman real estate connect nyc
Danilo Bogdanovic | Dec 7, 2006 | Reply
With the percentage of buyers starting and conducting their search for properties on-line being up to 90% in some areas of the country and increasing by the day, why would you not increase your on-line marketing when it comes to listings?
You may have to analyze your specific market and demographic in more detail to get the exact answer. But ingoring and/or not reacting to this overall change in the marketplace could be a grave mistake.
Tim | Dec 7, 2006 | Reply
“Real estate professionals questioning the point of advertising in a medium seemingly bent on their disintermediation.”
I am less concerned with the print media’s bias against the real estate profession than I am with classified ad rates as it relates to ROI. There is no media that I presently advertise in that results in a lower ROI than the Print media. If you want concrete numbers, my research has shown that it cost me nearly $1,000 per lead (i.e. just to get the phone to ring) from our city newspaper, and it costs nearly $1,700 per conversion (i.e. convert lead to a successful sale). I’m sharing this because it underscores my next point. Amazingly, and seemingly counter-intuitively, I’ve recently been informed that this city publication wants to raise their classfied ad rates once again–even now. What this is telling me is that the print media incredulously has drawn a line in the sand–mcuh like our governments Iraq initiative–and despite all evidence to the contrary have decided to ’stay the course.’ In the final analysis, it is the print media that is being disinterdiated–and in no small part this is due to their own ignorance and/or arrogance.
Marlow | Dec 10, 2006 | Reply
I’m not sure how it is in other cities, but here in Seattle, there is no alternative to the Seattle Times newspaper’s Sunday Real Estate section for Open Houses. Sure, they’re on the major real estate brokerages websites, but what a drag to have to go to each and every separate site to find out that information. The truth is, our Sunday newspaper is still THE place to find Open House info. Yes, it’s a pain in the xss and I get ink all over my fingers and its expensive. But it’s still better than any other alternative right now.
rudolph d. bachraty III | Dec 10, 2006 | Reply
marlow - the same holds true in manhattan. see more here:
http://blog.sellsiusrealestate.com/2006/12/01/old-school-real-estate-search-real-estate-newspaper-classifieds-ads/
Tim | Dec 10, 2006 | Reply
Restricting costs for classified advertising by ONLY advertising properties that are having open houses is a good start. Not long ago we here in the Boston market used to advertise not only open houses but new listings (for 2-3 weeks) and price changes in the classifieds. No more. All we advertsie now is open houses–and we keep those ads very tight–and as a result our print ad budget has been reduced by more than 40% in the past year.
I would also argue that there are plenty of other good alternatives for advertising open houses–or at least ther are in Boston–other than the Sunday Globe. For example, the Globe online arm, Boston.com, pulls all of our listing data (including open houses) from our MLS automatically everyday. As a result, consumers looking for listing an open house information in Boston.com (which has much more information than its print brethran) can easily get it there. In fact, we are finding that many consumers are doing just this. Also, we make sure our open houses are published weekly on our website and in our local community paper. This strategy has worked well for us and has significantly reduced our overall ad budget. Try it you’ll like it.
Rick Rochon | Nov 27, 2007 | Reply
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