I’ve been working in and around the internet almost since the beginning of the dotcom boom. Between 2001 and 2008, I was the CEO and Managing Director of realestate.com.au and my most recent business venture is focussed on investing, innovating and consulting in the on-line realm.

When I originally took on the realestate.com.au role, it was the very early days of online real estate marketing. At that time, internet advertising was just a sideshow to the main action, which was print advertising. By the time I left realestate.com.au, on-line had become the main show, and in fact in some segments of the market place, the only show.

Over my nearly eight years there, visitors to realestate.com.au increased from 230,000 a month to 4.5 million a month and total on-line spend for agents grew from around $7 million a year to over $180 million a year. That’s explosive growth in anyone’s books. I expect the internet will continue to grow, although obviously not at the same rate.

In the real estate market today, the internet has taken almost 100% market share away from print in advertising of rental properties, share accommodation and low-end properties for sale. The only real estate segments that continue to be advertised in print in any great volume are developments and the upper end of the market, driven by vendor-paid advertising.

As to why it’s happened, the answer is pretty obvious - the internet is where the eyeballs are. Buyers prefer to use the internet for their research; they can filter results in any way they want and make electronic shortlists, they can see multiple photos and floor plans, they can check the location of the property on Google maps, and perhaps most importantly, they can do it wherever they want, whenever they want.

The real estate portals have been great news for agents and vendors too, because when you compare the two modes of advertising, the internet is ridiculously cheap and easy to use. Uploading a property onto on-line portals is a lot less time consuming than organising a print ad - buyers can see the property as soon as the listing is uploaded and the agent can update details whenever they want. It will even be emailed direct to interested buyer’s in-box overnight via email alerts - how much more targeted could marketing be?

The pro-print corner will try to convince you that internet advertising loses steam after that initial upload and if you don’t get a sale straightaway you might as well have the property hidden under a rock. This, of course, is fear mongering in a rear guard action to protect the ancient rivers of gold. If you look at the viewing patterns of any property, you will not only see an initial spike, you will also see a long tail of continual viewing of an online listing. Ask any pro-print person how many people actually looked at each print add and the best they can do is quote some out of date circulation figure for the paper.

To maximise the value from any online advertising, the agent needs to do more than just upload the listing. They need to actively manage that listing on the portal sites and on their own sites.

To maximise the number of leads generated by an on-line ad, there are two key things to consider. The first is the quality of the advertisement, focusing on the same features that draw consumers to the web - lots of information:

- High quality photos and lots of them - 8 to 10 is the most effective number.
- Floor plans - a clear layout will help the buyer visualise the property.
- Informative text - the copy should include as much factual information as possible and be straight to the point. Savvy internet consumers are turned off by flowery descriptions.
- The location of the property so it can be mapped.
- Even videos of the property can help create more high quality leads.

The second key thing which will determine the effectiveness of the ad is positioning on the site:

- Adopt premium products - use options like the guaranteed top spot or the e-brochure feature which sends the property in a separate email to interested buyers.
- Advertise on multiple sites - cast the net as broadly as possible.
- Promote the real estate brand separately to listings - unlike print, on-line can disaggregate the brand from the listing, so use options like banner ads in the suburb search.
- If a property is languishing in an on-line campaign, it is most likely due to the advertisement not ticking these boxes rather than the medium of on-line itself.

The other argument for print is that print advertisements are a branding tool for the agent and therefore great for sourcing sellers. This may well be true, but if it is, why isn’t the agent paying for the ad out of their commission as they would in other countries? Getting a vendor to spend thousands on print ads that are unlikely to make any difference to the sale of their property just doesn’t seem right to me. The question to ask is, if it were your money you were spending, would the branding benefit be worth it?

I believe your brand will be promoted far more effectively if you do the right thing by your vendors and save them money on their marketing campaign by using the most effective tool in the market place - on-line advertising. The best driver of leads you can ever create is through word of mouth recommendations.

Going forward, I believe print advertising will become even less relevant. Print advocates say that there is a whole segment of society that doesn’t use the internet, particularly those buyers in the older age group who are looking for premium properties. I don’t necessarily agree with that argument; 70%+ of the total population is now on-line and that includes many older people. But even if it were true now, in time the younger generations who are only using the internet will become the older generation who only use the internet.

My advice to any agent considering the marketing campaign for a property today would be; think carefully of the buyers you are targeting. Anyone under the age of 40-50 is almost certainly using the internet, and in many areas, people in older age brackets are too. I personally wouldn’t waste my time advertising anything in print - the time and effort required is just not worth it.

Don’t hang onto the past, on-line is here to stay and is the most effective forum for real estate marketing. Embrace the future and run like mad - your audience is already there.

[image: flickr/inju]