Newspaper marketing vs. On-line and Word of Mouth Marketing
The numbers are astonishing. I have been advertising in my local newspaper since I began selling real estate, which has been the past 8 years.
This year we had ZERO leads from our local newspaper, every sale I have had, has been from referrals (word of mouth), The Real Estate Book, sign calls and internet leads. I had 45 closings in 2008 and not a single one, came from my local newspaper. The same goes for our office Youngblood Real Estate. Our office had 239 closings this year, and NOT ONE lead or sale came from our local newspaper.
The only effectiveness I have found with the local newspaper would be to advertise open houses, however, if they come to the open house I am the one selling the home.
We have decided to put the over $20,000 we used in newspaper advertising into other efforts, which only makes sense to me! So what I'm getting at is this: I would encourage everyone out there to, if you haven't already, reassess your marketing expenses. Especially in "old" marketing techniques such as the newspaper.
When I go to listing appointments I tell my clients I will not be advertising in the local newspaper. Guess what they tell me? "Yeah so" like they care... So it's not affecting my listing's either.
I have read that 80% of first time buyers use the internet to find homes. The others aren't using the newspaper... Does anybody else have this trend in your local areas????????? I would really like some feed back on this.
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