A post at JRA refers to a BBC Today interview with Alan Rusbridger, editor of The Guardian and Andreas Whittam Smith, the first editor of The Independent, discussing the prospects for 2009.
This is worth a listen as it comes on the back of Google announcing it was pulling out of its attempt to sell print advertising.
When asked if print is dead, the reply was "people still want to read newspapers they just don't want to pay for them". The digital generation expects this type of information for free and the newspaper groups are desperately struggling to provide such a service for free.
Where does this leave the agent? Both interviewees agreed that this will leave regional papers in the cold and almost certainly out of business. I am not sure about you, but the property section of my local rag is used to dry out my football boots and I ought to be one of the few who actually looks at it.
If google are telling me they can't make it work and two editors of some of the leading papers in the UK are saying the next 2 years will see mass casualties and change in the landscape forever, one shouldn't need any further encouragement to embrace the Internet.
Look upon this as opportunity, ask yourself how property will be advertised online, will it be advertised online? Simply displaying your property on a portal is not advertising per se, so where and how will the customers of the next two years view property advertisement online. Can we have property classifieds online?
The papers are investing heavily in new media and asking how best to push news through various platforms. The short answer is they don't know what the consumer wants?! But they know they have to change! Amazon Kindle was mentioned a few times, which if you haven't seen yet is a large PDA looking device that displays papers, books and magazines. Don't dismiss this off hand as I can see a day where everyone is walking around with something similar, being fed blogs, newspapers, their favourite books.
Paper is dying, Long live the Tree!
Tuesday, 27 January 2009
Sunday, 25 January 2009
Flaming Sambucas
My chemistry was always a little poor at school, but I am sure I learnt a few things, namely: alcohol burns, this reduces the alcohol strength, it is hot. So why then set fire to it and try and drink it?!
My colleague, who shall remain nameless, skipped chemistry lessons at school and the following is what happens if you don’t take your hand off the flaming sambuca drink. You will know who it is next time you shake hands with him.
My colleague, who shall remain nameless, skipped chemistry lessons at school and the following is what happens if you don’t take your hand off the flaming sambuca drink. You will know who it is next time you shake hands with him.
Thursday, 22 January 2009
Stats, measuring, analytics, conversions, cost per lead, metrics
There is a healthy ongoing discussion at JRA regarding portals. One of the issues raised during these discussions is that of agents measuring their online marketing.
This is a huge area and I have been banging this drum since this blog started. Perhaps at last the message is starting to filter through. The SPF blog posts about an estate agent who has just started to look at his Google Analytics. His experience is documented in the post, but it is plain that his introduction is the joyous beginning of his understanding as to what 'actually' goes on out there in the online space.
We need more education. I know we have an interest in JRA, but there are some good videos appearing about how to set about the early stages of dealing with the online space with advice and ongoing debate in these areas. We just need to steer more agents to this space (another challenge!!).
Agents still need to grasp the basic fundamentals of what happens to their properties when they leave the computer terminal. The agent in the SPF post clearly thought that Rightmove was the Internet and had no idea about leads, conversion and who actually looked at his properties. We say that the tools are there, but as this post proves agents are only just starting to look at google analytics. They need to be educated in the basics first.
Primelocation and FindaProperty have now launched a marketing analytical tool (Insight) for their customers and Mark Milner states "we are trying to put in the hands of estate agents the same media tools that we have, so they can measure their return on investment with our sites." I am not sure what education tools they are also offering, but without such basic advice these tools will go the same way as Rightmove's back end system; very good, but underused as not understood by agents.
After a year of moaning about this and a global recession I have an optimistic feeling that agents are finally waking up. Indeed, I am sure I speak for all commentators and the like when I say I can't begin to stress enough the importance of understanding online marketing and how this ought to be every agents number one priority.
The best advice I have read so far is 'hire an online marketing manager', courtesy of Zoomf.
This is a huge area and I have been banging this drum since this blog started. Perhaps at last the message is starting to filter through. The SPF blog posts about an estate agent who has just started to look at his Google Analytics. His experience is documented in the post, but it is plain that his introduction is the joyous beginning of his understanding as to what 'actually' goes on out there in the online space.
We need more education. I know we have an interest in JRA, but there are some good videos appearing about how to set about the early stages of dealing with the online space with advice and ongoing debate in these areas. We just need to steer more agents to this space (another challenge!!).
Agents still need to grasp the basic fundamentals of what happens to their properties when they leave the computer terminal. The agent in the SPF post clearly thought that Rightmove was the Internet and had no idea about leads, conversion and who actually looked at his properties. We say that the tools are there, but as this post proves agents are only just starting to look at google analytics. They need to be educated in the basics first.
Primelocation and FindaProperty have now launched a marketing analytical tool (Insight) for their customers and Mark Milner states "we are trying to put in the hands of estate agents the same media tools that we have, so they can measure their return on investment with our sites." I am not sure what education tools they are also offering, but without such basic advice these tools will go the same way as Rightmove's back end system; very good, but underused as not understood by agents.
After a year of moaning about this and a global recession I have an optimistic feeling that agents are finally waking up. Indeed, I am sure I speak for all commentators and the like when I say I can't begin to stress enough the importance of understanding online marketing and how this ought to be every agents number one priority.
The best advice I have read so far is 'hire an online marketing manager', courtesy of Zoomf.
Tuesday, 20 January 2009
Rightmove online advertising spend?
I read with interest a post from FOREM which stated that one of the big real estate players in the US, Century 21, is moving all their media spend to online. Surely this begs the question of how much of the purported £10 million Rightmove marketing spend was channelled for online media? Indeed, how much do all the larger players actually channel towards online advertising. (PPC is not included for the purpose of this post).
I haven't seen any online ads for Rightmove yet. This doesn't mean they are not coming of course and may already be out there (I just haven't seen any), but I get the impression the marketing is aimed more at TV and print. If this is the case then one would have to question this spend and ask why more has not been channeled online. 90% odd start their search online and whilst I wholly agree with the policy of cementing the brand with users (I even commend it), I am at a loss to understand why Rightmove would ignore the space where their brand needs it the most.
The Century 21 move from TV spend to online spend is big news in the States and shows quite clearly where their priorities lie. Indeed, seasoned online advertisers are now chasing the video adverstising market and still Rightmove (and others) do very, very little in terms of online advertising.
Perhaps one of our rightmove readers can comemnt and let us know (broadly speaking) what the marketing mix was, i.e. 30% tv, 60% online, 10% print ?? As a user, it feels like 50% TV, 50% print.
I haven't seen any online ads for Rightmove yet. This doesn't mean they are not coming of course and may already be out there (I just haven't seen any), but I get the impression the marketing is aimed more at TV and print. If this is the case then one would have to question this spend and ask why more has not been channeled online. 90% odd start their search online and whilst I wholly agree with the policy of cementing the brand with users (I even commend it), I am at a loss to understand why Rightmove would ignore the space where their brand needs it the most.
The Century 21 move from TV spend to online spend is big news in the States and shows quite clearly where their priorities lie. Indeed, seasoned online advertisers are now chasing the video adverstising market and still Rightmove (and others) do very, very little in terms of online advertising.
Perhaps one of our rightmove readers can comemnt and let us know (broadly speaking) what the marketing mix was, i.e. 30% tv, 60% online, 10% print ?? As a user, it feels like 50% TV, 50% print.
Thursday, 15 January 2009
Estate Agent babe of the month
Soldout magazine is running a 'babe of the month' competition for female estate agents.
Demeaning cheap shot that doesn't show the industry in a good light or just harmless fun? Is this just Loaded for estate agents or much needed entertainment? Should there be a hunk of the month as well? The prize is £500 so we shall see.
Debate aside, sex and titillation obviously still sells. One of my most hit blog posts is Louisa Fletcher naked (she is not and it was posted to explain this very point), it is also now second in a google search for Louisa Fletcher. To this end, I am sure Soldout will do very well out of the competition. Indeed, here I am writing about it!
Anyway, it was called bird of the month, but they changed it after we sent in some saucy pictures of the Owl :)
Demeaning cheap shot that doesn't show the industry in a good light or just harmless fun? Is this just Loaded for estate agents or much needed entertainment? Should there be a hunk of the month as well? The prize is £500 so we shall see.
Debate aside, sex and titillation obviously still sells. One of my most hit blog posts is Louisa Fletcher naked (she is not and it was posted to explain this very point), it is also now second in a google search for Louisa Fletcher. To this end, I am sure Soldout will do very well out of the competition. Indeed, here I am writing about it!
Anyway, it was called bird of the month, but they changed it after we sent in some saucy pictures of the Owl :)
Tuesday, 13 January 2009
Too many portals - poll results say no more than five please
The results of the Property Owl poll clearly show that 50+ portals are too many. Our poll shows that 41% would be happy with between 1 - 5 portals and 37% would prefer just 1. So a total of 78% voted for either 1 or between 1-5 portals.
The minority plumped for 10+ which says to me that we do indeed have too many. Whilst we didn't have thousands of votes, I do feel it is common ground that the magic number is somewhere between 1 and 5.
I will still mix it up and ask, do we really need more than one portal for the purpose of searching for property and there is a healthy debate ongoing at JRA on this very issue. Whilst one individual portal will of course never happen, I do believe there is strong argument to have less.
Anyway, our readers say 1-5 portals please.
The minority plumped for 10+ which says to me that we do indeed have too many. Whilst we didn't have thousands of votes, I do feel it is common ground that the magic number is somewhere between 1 and 5.
I will still mix it up and ask, do we really need more than one portal for the purpose of searching for property and there is a healthy debate ongoing at JRA on this very issue. Whilst one individual portal will of course never happen, I do believe there is strong argument to have less.
Anyway, our readers say 1-5 portals please.
Yelp for the UK
Property Portal Watch posts on the launch of Yelp in the UK.
Yes, it is another site to enter details, update a profile, analyse and consider in your marketing mix, but this is where your customers live so embrace. There is real opportunity here to write about your local neighbourhood. We have said in the past, be an expert on your local area and here is an opportunity to shine.
There are a few possible routes in here. One, commenting upon your local area, two, allowing customers to review your business/service and three recommending other associated parties, but be honest.
The basic premise about Yelp is that people are honest. So if your service is great people will say so or if your agent kept pestering a female customer to go out with him, his penis and your firm will be mentioned accordingly! Well done Davis and Gibbs.
Continuing the theme, have a look at Nob Hill (honest) in California to see how the Americans interact with this site at agent level.
Anyway, keep it in your trousers chaps and put the effort into your online marketing.
Yes, it is another site to enter details, update a profile, analyse and consider in your marketing mix, but this is where your customers live so embrace. There is real opportunity here to write about your local neighbourhood. We have said in the past, be an expert on your local area and here is an opportunity to shine.
There are a few possible routes in here. One, commenting upon your local area, two, allowing customers to review your business/service and three recommending other associated parties, but be honest.
The basic premise about Yelp is that people are honest. So if your service is great people will say so or if your agent kept pestering a female customer to go out with him, his penis and your firm will be mentioned accordingly! Well done Davis and Gibbs.
Continuing the theme, have a look at Nob Hill (honest) in California to see how the Americans interact with this site at agent level.
Anyway, keep it in your trousers chaps and put the effort into your online marketing.
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