There is not a one-size-fits-all marketing approach, which is why one Professionals agent believes the shop window is still needed to market property.
Last year, UrbanX boss Dan Argent claimed technology had revolutionised real estate that people are no longer looking at shop windows for their next home, they’re looking at their mobile screens.
“You have to be where the eyeballs are,” Mr Argent told Real Estate Business. “As a real estate business, you are a marketing business first and an agent second.”
While Professionals Mermaid Beach agent Luke Henderson agrees you have to get real estate in front of as many people as possible, there are still legs in the shop window.
“In real estate, you have a diverse range of potential customers, ranging from young, first-time renters who are largely digital media oriented through to pensioners and retirees, who tend to still use traditional media heavily,” Mr Henderson said.
“Our agency advertises in newspapers, on social media, on online platforms, with signboards at the property, on the radio, on our website, in brochures and in mail-outs; we use electronic database marketing, telephone calls and displays in our shopfront.”
Fortunately, for the team at Professionals Mermaid Beach, their office is located on a busy main road, near a convenience store and a bus stop, so they get a lot of foot traffic.
“Every week, we have hundreds of people examine properties that we have displayed in our shop window, and there is no doubt that the shop window leads to sales,” he said.
Mr Henderson remembers when Facebook first arrived in Australia: agents were told they had to be on the social media platform if they wanted to survive.
“A lot of agents tend to rush off in the belief that a new technology will take over everything,” he said.
“Taking Facebook, for example, it is now another important marketing channel for agents, but it is not the ‘be-all and end-all’ of real estate it was once predicted.
“Traditional real practices of door knocking, letterbox drops, newspaper advertising and phone calls are still very important components of any agent’s marketing efforts.”
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