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Are Real Estate Firms REALLY Behind in Digital Marketing

By
Real Estate Agent

I read this morning the Inman News report, Lag in Digital Marketing, and then logged in to Active Rain and read Wayne Golliday's, summary of the same data, Digital Marketing falls behind for most Real Estate Firms!

At first glance, these numbers seem alarming for most of the real estate world (those of us that are "in" the digital world loved them!).  But then I began to really look at the numbers AND the details of the data.  With that, and a few thoughtful comments from Wayne's post, I began to wonder if this is just another "fear article" whose sole purpose is to get a knee-jerk response from the reader.

Only 300 companies were interviewed, and of those, they were split between investment, commercial and residential real estate firms, though they do not give out exactly how many of each were interviewed.  Now, the numbers: 58% of those interviewed did not do search engine marketing and of those that did, only 33% invested in search engine optimization.

Here's the problem with that
 

Although it's not given exactly "who" they interviewed, it's a safe bet that the companies were fairly large to huge real estate firms and not 1 to 10 person offices.  Why?  Most people doing surveys don't mess with the "same fries."  Forget that they account for the majority of firms, they only interview the big boys.  Also, they include investment and commercial firms in the mix.

Why is that important?
 
Large residential real estate firms usually do not seek out customers directly, but rather, they seek out real estate agents.  It's the agents that primarily do the online marketing to attract clients, not the company.  Even if a firm invested marketing online, it would be at a smaller targeted market (agents) and wouldn't require the same outlay of resources.

How about those commercial and investment real estate firms?  Since I'm not part of one, I'm only guessing here, but I'd say that it's quite possible that the Internet is still not they're primary source of leads.  Sure, 90% of home buyers start their search on the Internet, but what is the comparable on investors looking for commercial or investment deals?  I'd doubt that it's anywhere near as high.  Investors generally are a much closer knit group, and work a lot more on referrals and word of mouth.  It may be possible that "traditional" marketing simply works better for them.

Dollar for dollar comparison doesn't work

Making the assumption that if a company is putting 50% of their advertising budget into "traditional" forms of advertising and only allotting 20% to online marketing, that they're not embracing the Internet isn't an accurate assessment.  Why?  As most of that do get the online thing, you can do a whole lot more with a whole lot less money.

For example, here it costs about $500 a month to run a full page ad in a traditional real estate magazine.  With it, you get between 15 and 25 photos of homes, each with a little blurb of space for details, and a header to advertise yourself.  For $200 a month online, I can get one or two good websites, good SEO support, and run one or two search engine marketing campaigns.  Which do you think is more effective?  Traditional media simply costs more.  If you're doing it at all, it's likely to eat up the majority of your advertising budget.

Finally, I think that the interviews assumes search engine optimization is an outside expense.  If these are large companies, then it may be that they've directly hired someone to manage their online presence, including SEO.  If so, they are more likely to view that as employee expense and not as an advertising expense.

Are the numbers surprising?  In a way, yes.  Not having a strong online presence seems crazy in this day and age, and especially to those who have (or trying to have) a good online presence.  But in this case, I simply don't think that they supplied enough data to accurately gauge what the real truth may be.

Posted by

__________________________________________

Hickory Home SearchForeclosure Hunter

 

Roger Johnson is a Realtor with CENTURY 21 American Homes in Hickory, NC.

 

I service the Catawba and surrounding counties, and the Hickory, Newton, Conover, Taylorsville, Claremont, Statesville and Charlotte, NC real estate markets.

Visit us on the web at: www.HickoryNCHomes.com

You can contact me via Email or give me a call at 828-381-9245 or 828-568-2121 ext 310

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Comments (3)

Tim Lorenz
TIM LORENZ - Elite Home Sales Team - Mission Viejo, CA
949 874-2247

Tlhat is an interesting post.  I had no idea that the companies are so far behind on this.

Feb 01, 2010 01:15 AM
Brian Anderson
Peachtree SEO - Peachtree City, GA
SEO and Social Media Marketin

Roger - great stuff.  I think you are dead on, as many of the "same fries" are leveraging the web and all aspects of social media to reach prospective buyers.  Like anything else, it's pretty easy to skew this type of research.

Feb 02, 2010 12:58 PM
Roger Johnson
Hickory, NC

Tim - I'm not sure that companies really are behind.

Brian - it's real easy to skew the info when you don't supply enough information about the data to even give the reader an idea of where it's coming from in the first place.  I tell people all the time, know where they're getting their data and know who is presenting it in the first place.

Feb 02, 2010 11:11 PM