Whatever anyone may have told you a few years ago about which media is most effective for marketing a home, it's all about the Internet today. There simply is no more effective way to advertise a home for sale, both from a cost and a results perspective. The advantages of Internet advertising are numerous:
80+% of home buyers use the Web -- According to a survey by the National Association of Realtors®, more than 80% of home buyers now begin their search for a home on the Internet. Reasons include the anonymity of the Web, extensive information on each home, and multiple photos and virtual tours. Whatever their reasons, it's very likely that the future buyer of the home you want to sell will be seeing it first on the Internet.
It's economical media marketing -- With many of the real estate specific websites also syndicating to many others, it's possible to place a home for sale on one site and have it appear on many others within hours to a few days. Your real estate agent or broker has resources for syndication, as well as a group of sites on which they list your home soon after the listing becomes active.
The Internet is immediate -- While placement in most print media is delayed due to production requirements, getting information onto the Web is relatively immediate. It can take a month to get a listing into one of the Homes Magazines, and generally a week to get one into the newspaper. It's easy to get a home listing into one or more web sites in just hours.
Space isn't an issue, so more information is possible -- Unlike an ad in a newspaper that is set up based on a pre-determined space requirement, an internet home listing can just expand to accommodate the amount of information you want to show to prospective buyers. In a Homes Magazine ad, you might have to limit your information to a paragraph, while the Web allows almost unlimited selling ability.
Visual marketing of your home is best on the Web -- Many newspaper ads use black and white photographs, while magazines and other print media will usually only have one or two property photos. The Internet allows almost unlimited photos, and virtual tours are commonplace. With advances in video technology, and less expensive storage space, video tours with audio and music are also common. The Internet buyer can virtually walk through your home.
Changes are also easy and immediate -- With print, changes to an ad can be impossible past a certain deadline. With long lead times, changing your price could still leave the old price out there for a month or more in print. With the Web, changes can usually be made the same day, or within hours. The most up-to-date information is always presented to potential buyers.
The Web is 24/7/365 -- Unlike pre-determined times for radio or TV spots, and issue release dates for newspapers and print, the Internet is out there and open for business every hour of every day of the year. There has never been a more direct and continuous media in history.
As a home seller, it's important to you that your home be marketed in multiple media. So print is still something that real estate agents and brokers will use. However, the Internet has radically changed the real estate marketing world. Your home will be visible worldwide to potential buyers via multiple web sites, web logs or blogs, and national property aggregator web sites like Realtor.com®, Google Base, and others.
Allison Van Wig©.
No comments:
Post a Comment