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Estate agents nationwide understand effective marketing must move with the times and see the death of print as the next big thing in the evolution of managing marketing expenses.
Gone are the days of pouring over the weekend papers and chasing listings. What the industry is ushering in now is the intelligent consumer that prefers the backing of one listings powerhouse or another, all through brand recognition, according to one estate agent.
Peter Kikianis, director of Ray White Semaphore in South Australia, said within five years there will be a huge reduction in the number of printed listings due to the costs.
“Lately agents are pushing other portals than the big names as we are seeing digital media now, rather than print, as a very cost effective marketing campaign,” Mr Kikianis said.
“If there is more advertising from one listings site on television and print we will see and increase to that portal but over the last few months in particular we have seen an increase in prices from realestate.com.au drive interest in other sites.
“The other factor is people can buy and pay for their own search engine optimisation and move things along quickly… within the next five years there will be a huge reduction in print advertising because of the costs and you can run an online campaign much cheaper.”
Director of NG Farah Real Estate, Marinos Euripidou, believes printed all listings will die within the next five years. Mr Euripidou said the cost of advertising in them is prohibitive and even printed mailouts are not effective marketing.
Mr Euripidou said online listings also help people with a limited marketing budget scale the level of advertising accordingly.
“Ultimately people just want a property sold and marketing is always very important, even though sales are very strong at the moment but in the future the cost of advertising will become prohibitive,” Mr Euripidou said.
“It doesn’t matter if people prefer to read the papers, web-based advertising is a lot cheaper as $5,000 or $3,000 can create listings that hang around until the property is sold and another plus is people can search for what they need and filter out what they don’t.
“We’ve got our own data, we’ve been around for 50 years and don’t need anybody else’s information or data... sure a lot might help, but it’s not that important.”
Century 21 Chief Executive Officer Charles Tarbey said various portals are attempting to consolidate data and use it for either industry or competitive advantage. Speaking to Real Estate Business, Mr Tarbey said the most important thing for the industry at the moment regarding listings is that they have a choice.
“We as an industry give out our data and then pay to have it back and that’s not something the industry is largely aware of but are becoming more and more aware of it given there is a shift from print to electronic and agents are now approaching that data in a far more professional manner,” Mr Tarbey said.
“The only difference is the delivery – marketing 30 years ago you were modern if you had a franking machine, then more advanced when it stuffed the material into an envelope but successful agents are still getting out and talking to people.”
