Vashon Homes & Events from Go! Real Estate

Vashon Island Real Estate: Are You Paying for Ineffective Marketing?

December 25, 2008 at 6:55 am 1 comment

Many of our clients ask us why Go! Real Estate features internet marketing techniques rather than simply listing properties in newspapers as so many agents seem to do.  After all, they say, real estate agents have purchased newspaper and magazine advertisements for years.

The answer is simple.  The internet has changed the face of real estate marketing and home buyers no longer turn to newspaper and magazine advertising to search for a home.  They turn to the internet.  Go! Real Estate’sexpertise in real estate internet marketing is based on well-researched studies within the industry and by independent analysts which establishes that print marketing is a dying technique and that declining circulation (an industry average 5% per year)  may spell the end for many newspapers. 

In fact, in our home town of Vashon, one of the town’s two newspapers has reached a point of soliciting contributions from its readership in order to keep afloat.  Apparently contributions have been light.  Both newspapers on Vashon depend on real estate advertising to stay solvent, and the collapse of the housing market is not helping the bottom line.

In an extended column in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer on Friday, December 19, 2008, author Stephen Foley discussed the state of the newspaper industry in the context of the bankruptcy of the Tribune Group, owner of the Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times among their publications.  Foley concludes that more newspapers are soon to follow.  Foley discusses the particular difficulties facing the New York Times and its crippling debt payments.  Advertising revenues there are down 16%.

As Foley writes, the slow steady ebb of newspaper circulation has been compounded by the restriction in advertising dollars available to sustain print media. The demise of local papers and savage cost cutting at those that remain cannot help but decrease the quality and appeal of those survivors.  15,000 jobs have been lost from among the 1400 papers published during the past year.  As evidenced by the Los Angeles Times, the response has been to turn newspapers into a more entertainment-oriented publication at the sacrifice of hard journalism.  One wonders whether newspaper readers will tolerate the loss of true news reporting.

Foley cites the advent of web-only journalism.  Clearly, the decline of print media will create many opportunities for new media outlets, as foreseen by ProPublica and the Voice of San Diego.  As Morton Research, Inc., has correctly predicted, half the advertising lost during this recession will never return to print.  The future of marketing in the housing industry lies with the internet.  Morton predicts that newspapers will transform into websites.

If there is a bright side to the economic crisis we face, it is that tightening budgets will force a re-evaluation of every aspect of our economic system, and for purposes of this article, a discussion of how marketing dollars are best spent to sell a house and effectively reach a broad base of buyers. A critical analysis of real estate marketing reveals that a vast majority of buyers find their homes on line.  Further, the expensive advertisements some agents place in newspapers appears to be a waste of money.  However, the cost of that print advertising is passed on to their clients as part of the non-itemized commission that an agent charges.

The National Association of Realtors confirms the trends cited by Foley as they pertain to real estate marketing strategies.  First, the NAR determined that the classified section of the newspaper is the LEAST READ section of the newspaper.  Second, 85% of home buyers reported that they found the home they eventually purchased on the internet.  Another 10% said they discovered their new home through realtor signs posted at the property.  Only 5-6% of buyers said they found their home through newspapers and 1% said they found their purchase through real estate-related magazines.  Clearly, your advertising dollar is most effectively spent on an internet marketing campaign.

Go! Real Estate employs an extensive array of internet marketing tools which reaches a huge audience through Go!’s search engine optimization expertise.  That audience of potential home buyers exceeds local newspaper circulation by a huge factor and reaches national and international readers.  Better yet, Go! has established its marketing system tools with an eye toward the economy of scale that the internet offers to marketing.  Simply put, there are significant marketing cost savings realized by Go! which in turn are passed on to our clients in the form of a reduced commission for representation.  So you, the home seller, get the best of both worlds . . . an immensely more effective marketing campaign for your property and a cost savings.

Entry filed under: • Real Estate, Housing Market News. Tags: internet real estate marketing, Real estate marketing, Seattle real estate, vashon island real estate.