How to Build an Online Real Estate Brand: Market It Offline
Posted by admin under: Main Feb 05
According to Jupiter Research, the best way to get a person to visit your website is to market to them in offline media.
Mock Billboard Ad for Redfin (Glenn Kelman, send check to Sellsius)
Real estate listings will soon be so widely distributed across the internet to various portals, search engines and franchise websites, that consumers will be virtually tripping over them. And once the Department of Justice opens the floodgates, even banks will join the party (no kidding). Furthermore, there will be more duplicate listings on the net to confuse even the most tech savvy home searcher. Yikes!
So what’s an online website to do to stand out from the madding crowd? Easy– stand out WITH the crowd. Hit the streets–go offline to build awareness of your brand. How? There are many ways. Get creative.
Zestimate at the Zillow Store!
You’ve heard of Apple stores right? Get a storefront and invite consumers in. Show them how your site works– sign them up on the spot — and don’t forget to throw in a t-shirt– ” Trulian” , “Zestimate Me”, “Redfin Gave Me This T-shirt and $10,000″ . Host seminars and classes for consumers or your target market– if it’s brokers, hold classes on how they can better market using tools on your sites– it beats having them navigate your site blindly, hitting a bump and leaving. Make the storefront office a reflection of your website. Heck , you can even get your advertisers to advertise on the windows and walls.
Publish the blog offline– Zillow Real Estate News? Run broker and real estate industry ads along with real estate news. Include some featured listings (at a premium). Give them out free at places where people will read them– on the way to or from work. Maybe even in those plastic boxes on the street. In New York, AM Metro reaches hundreds of thousands of eyeballs daily, not by attracting them online, but my grabbing them offline. Create a cool billboard ad. Organize a Meet-up. Do a blog tour, if you really want to step out of the box. How about a TV or cable ad? Or an informercial? The point is– people are on the streets, watching TV, reading newspapers and magazines and interacting away from the glare of their computer. Why not engage them with your brand there?
Why online real estate search engines, portals and websites, for the most part, ignore the power of offline advertising and marketing escapes me. Granted, it’s not free like the net, but haven’t some of you big boys raised some dough? Buy a remnant ad if you have to. Glenn Kelman, put an ad on that wall, for goodness sakes. If you want to create a relationship with a consumer– do it where it has the most power– face-to-face. Then they will flock to your website already understanding what the heck you do.
OK, now for the research. I can start with the blog tour and interviews with consumers who didn’t have a clue who the online players were. But the folks who make a living doing marketing research, Jupiter Research, say the best way to get a person to your website is to market to them in offline media. Their findings show that 2/3 of online searchers are drawn to the websites by offline sources. Also, 68% of people who do a search use a company name– an indicator of brand awareness built offline using traditional marketing tools.
Or get an icon.
[Online website, GoDaddy’s market share before their 2005 Super Bowl commercial was 16%. A week after the ads, it shot to 25% and stayed there. After the 2006 ads it jumped to 32% and stayed there. (source)]
Source for Jupiter Research findings: RIS Media Real Estate, January 2008
Related Posts:
Advertising Your Online Brand Offline: Why Marketing Shouldn’t Suck
Real Estate Myths, or What I Did on My Summer Vacation.
Source: How to Build an Online Real Estate Brand: Market It Offline
Tuesday, February 5th, 2008 at 1:17 pm and is filed under Main. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.