Real estate clients’ expectations of online marketing are continuing to grow, so it’s vital that we give them access to a wide range of advertising options, particularly on property portals.

Having a basic listing on a property portal can only provide limited exposure. It’s vital that portals have product provisions that give agents the ability to not only maximise the exposure of their listings on behalf of their customers, but also to expose their own brand.

At the same time, part of any agents marketing presentation should be focused on how their sellers can obtain the best possible result online. Agents spend a great deal of time doing this around offline marketing, but too few really put the emphasis on new media. Yet a rapidly growing percentage of their potential customers are extremely Internet savvy.

So what are the main areas of product that property portals are (or should be) providing to assist an agent’s business?

• Listing Placement: products that provide prominence to individual listings.
• Push marketing products: electronic brochures, email alerts distributed to targeted portal databases.
• Display advertising: banners, skyscrapers, advertorial, pop-ups and other items designed to promote estate agency brands and drive traffic to agent sites.
• Web design: Agency websites, individual property mini-sites.
• Back-office tools: Online products designed to increase agency effectiveness.

It’s my view that the “depth-of-product” available to agents from a property portal should be one of the considerations for agents selecting which portal to advertise on and how much of their marketing budget to allocate to each.

Depth-of-product has the ability to increase the average leads received from a portal quite substantially by providing relevant and effective advertising products. But an agent needs to think strategically about how they can utilise and leverage these products.

If an agent approaches this seriously it could also be a key factor in a prospective customer choosing that agent over their competitor (see our related article: Selling Online Advertising to Vendors).

Along with these products, support should also be available to enable agents to on-sell them to their customers, and to provide agents with the conviction to develop an effective online marketing plan.

To sum up, some of the points agents should consider when choosing a portal include:

Promoting their brand and business:
1. What products are available and what are the benefits?
2. What is my approach and budget?
3. What do I want to achieve?

How can I better promote my customers’ properties?
1. What products are available?
2. Do my sales people understand the benefits?
3. How do I sell and leverage these products?
4. Do I charge the customer? If so, how much?

John Hart spent over six years with REA Group, operator of leading Australian property portal realestate.com.au. Prior to REA, John was with one of Australia’s largest real estate networks, First National, for 12 years, with more than seven as their national marketing manager.

[Image: flickr/aussiegall]

There’s plenty agents can do to make their listings stand out, but of course not everyone has the time to create a dazzling showcase for every single property. If you’re resources are stretched, aim to hit these five basic targets to ensure your listing isn’t overlooked:

1. Accurate details. You might not know everything there is to know about a particular property, but even still you can make sure the information you do include is correct.

2. Photos. Both trulia.com and zillow.com have shown that one photo, at least, goes a very long way in terms of attracting viewers.

3. A catchy headline. What’s special about this property? A great view? A quiet street? A drop in price? Rather than simply writing “new listing”, grab home hunters’ attention with your headline.

4. Contact details. It’s surprising how often important agent contact details are left out of listings. If you’re keen for leads, make it easy for people to get in touch.

5. Proofread. Spelling errors and typos are all too easy to spot on property portals. If possible, get someone who hasn’t seen your listing before to look over it and pick out any problems before it goes online.

Looking for more advice on how to make your listings the best they can be? Check out our series on maximising leads from portal sites, along with our advice on what makes a good property ad.

Floor plans are often the missing piece of the puzzle for listings. Great photos and an informative description are covered by a lot of agents, but not all are in the habit of adding a floor plan to the mix.

This is a shame because a floor plan is an important part of maximising the number of leads agents receive from property portals. In fact, research from Dutch company Heliview found 53 percent of house hunters were more likely to spend time looking at a listing if a floor plan was included. (For an in-depth look at how to maximise your portal leads, check out Simon Baker’s articles here.)

One floor plan provider, floorplanner.com, has just been upgraded to offer a new layout for its “plus” and “pro” users, who pay upwards of US$29 per month.

The new layout allows users to add more relevant information to their floor plans like photos, videos, and 360 virtual tours. They can also show the exact location of a property on Google Maps, and see its surroundings on Google Street View.

floorplanner.com is also aiming to give premium users more branding opportunities, allowing them to choose a custom background that visitors will see when they load the plan. On top of that image, they can also place a custom preloader image that can link to their website.

To get a better idea of floorplanner.com’s capabilities, check out the video below:

Leading Dutch property portal funda.nl recently commissioned market research to find out what consumers thought of it. The results are as revealing for agents as they were for the portal itself.

The research, conducted by Heliview, showed just how important video and interactive floor plans are when it comes to listings. 53 percent of respondents said they were more likely to spend time looking at a listing if a floor plan was included, while 61 percent said they were likely to prefer listings if a video was available.

Heliview’s results were also enlightening when it came to public perception of the market-leading portal. A huge 81 percent named funda.nl as their preferred listing location when it came to promoting their house.

So, for Dutch agents at least, it seems skipping the market leader when placing property listings simply isn’t an option. In terms of listing content, the survey confirms what many already know: the more content, the better.

Looking for more ideas on listing content? Click here to see our tips on making your listings stand out.

So why include floor plans in a listing? Are they really worth the extra effort? As we discussed recently, a floor plan can contribute to creating “web appeal” in a listing. Floor plans give details that photos can’t always convey, and this information could be the deciding factor that prompts a prospective customer to contact an agent.

There are a wide range of floor plan creation products available, many of them free to trial: SmartDraw, Gliffy, 2dplan.com, and floorplanner.com to name just a few. propertyadguru.com is keen to hear your thoughts on what you use to create floor plans, so feel free to share your ideas and experiences in our comments section.

Floor plan from Richard Luton Properties listing.

Jill Simmons, PR Manager at zillow.com, writes:

“In the past, it was all about curb appeal – a manicured lawn, a brick walkway, a fresh coat of paint. But today, with 90 percent of home buyers looking online, it’s all about Web appeal. You want to attract visitors to your listing, and impress them once they’re there.”

We tend to agree with Jill – most buyers will search online at some point and many make judgements and big decisions based on what they see in an online listing (on a property portal or on an agent or broker’s website).

Spencer Rascoff, CEO of zillow.com said in an interview with ABC News: “A seller needs to worry about Web appeal: When a buyer is browsing on the Web, what is their first impression?”

So how can you give your listings web appeal?

In its blog post, zillow.com offers two key ways to give a home web appeal – the first is to actually list it online in the first place and harness the power of the internet (eg: email your friends and contacts, use social media), and the second is to make the listing as enticing as it can possibly be.

We think web appeal can be created by:

• ensuring that the basics are right, and the listing is accurate in tems of spelling and vital contact information and is updated with open house and relevant info asap.
• making sure the property is listed on the best portals to expose it to the most relevant market – if it is a niche property, think niche portals, but if you’re not on the market leading portal as well, then why not? Read our Top Ten Tips for Choosing a Property Portal here.
• using lots of photos – good quality ones – in a listing. Read our Top Ten Tips for Property Photos here.
• including a floor plan, map and local area information where possible. Read our article on Walk Scores here or more about capturing neighbourhood info here.
• writing a fantastic marketing description about the property, but not going over the top. Read our article Embellishment and Discrimination: The Great Unravellers.
• making sure the description doesn’t leave out any vital selling points or attributes the home might have (eg: period features, pool, etc). Read our article on Writer’s Block here.
• if you plan on including video or slideshows, make sure it’s professional quality. Read our article on using video here.

Outside of these tips, there’s one other thing sellers and agents can do to generate web appeal, according to Spencer Rascoff: “A home that is priced aggressively is going to generate a lot more buyer interest”.

Finally, you can read Simon Baker’s article, What Makes a Good Property Ad.

[image: flickr/okarol]

In part one of this article about how agents can maximise leads from portal sites we looked at the importance of the quality of the advertisement. In part two, we’re going to look at how you can maximise the placement of your listing and the benefit of tracking your listings.

Placement of the Listing Advertisement

The placement of the listing advertisement is also very important in maximising the number of leads from a particular listing. Anyone who has searched on Google knows that if you do not appear on the first or second page, then you are very unlikely to be clicked upon.

Property portals are a little different in that people will search through a number of pages to find what they are interested in. However, the closer to the top a listing is, the more click throughs that listings will receive to the property details page.

To get towards the top of the search, and therefore stand out from the crowd, it is important to look at the options offered by the portal site being advertised on. Here are some examples that should be adopted if available:

• Many portal sites offer the ability to go to the top of the search (guaranteed top spot). This means that a listing is guaranteed to be displayed before anyone else.
• Featured or premium listings are also often offered by portal sites. These often have slightly bigger pictures and are displayed before the standard listings.
• Keeping a listing up to date can often push the listing up the search results list – sometimes to the top. It is important that an agent understands how the site handles the presentation of the listings and uses this to their advantage.
• Complete all the fielded information (e.g. beds, baths). This is important as not all people search by suburb only. Some people will search for 3 bedrooms in a particular area and if this information has not been entered, the listing may not be displayed in the search results page.

Tracking Performance

For those who take their online advertising very seriously, it is important to put in place performance tracking of the advertisements. It is important to understand just how well each advertisement is performing and if the changes you are making to quality or placement are having an impact on the number of leads generated.

The information that should be tracked is:

• Number of searches conducted in each suburb that an agent has listings.
• Number of times the listing is displayed on the search results page.
• Number of times the property details page is displayed.
• Number of leads generated for each listing.

While all this may not be available, having access to this will help an agent understand how well their advertisements are performing and if the changes they are making are improving the number of leads they are generating.

There are no silver bullets to online advertising. It is all about a series of small, incremental steps that agents around the world should be taking to maximise the number of leads they generate from their online advertising.

[flower image: flickr/Clearly Ambigous]

When an agent advertises on a portal site, they want to maximise the leads that they are generating from that site. Agents tend to upload all their listings onto a site and sometimes, when the responses from that site is lower than they expect, they blame the site claiming that it “doesn’t work”.

Few agents think about the process a consumer is going through and therefore they don’t tailor their listings to maximise the leads they generate. This article looks at how agents can maximise the number of leads they can generate for a particular listing from a portal site.

To maximise leads, agents need to think about two things – the quality of the advertisement and the positioning of that advertisement on the portal site. In part one of this article we’re going to look at the quality of the advertisement.

Quality of Listing Advertisements

Firstly, let’s look at the process a visitor to a web site goes through. Users conduct a search and are presented with the search results page – a list of properties that meet their request. They usually see one picture, a brief description, the price and some basic information – eg: number of bedrooms, bathrooms etc. Once they see a house that may be interesting to them, they click through to the full property details page.

Many agents upload multiple pictures, quality text, floor plans etc in the hope of providing enough information for a visitor to enquire about the property. What they tend to forget is how their property will be presented on the search results page. If the property is not presented at its best on this page, the visitor won’t click on the listing and is therefore unlikely to see all the other information the agent has uploaded.

To stand out on the search results page, agents can follow these tips:

• Make sure that there is a catchy title for the property as many sites display this at the top of the advertisement on the search results page.
• Make sure the first picture uploaded is the best picture of the property. It should be a quality picture and should show the house in the best light. This picture is displayed on the search results page.
• The first paragraph of the description needs to stand alone and be tailored to the length of the description on the search results page.
• Finally, the price and basic information about the listing (beds, baths, garages etc) need to be completed as they are usually presented on the search results page.

Assuming that the quality of the advertisement on the search results page has been optimised for click through to the property details page, the next step for an agent is to make sure that there is enough information on the details page to qualify the visitor and to generate a lead.

Now there are a number of schools of thought at this stage. Some people like the minimalist approach and do not give too much away as they want to generate leads. In theory, this could work well. However, visitors to sites now days are more sophisticated and less trusting of agents, and therefore more likely to skip a listing than to enquire about it if the level of information is scant.

The approach I would be taking is to do the following:

• Ensure that there are at least seven photos.
• Ensure that there is a floor plan attached to the listing.
• The longer version of the description on this page should talk factually about the features of the property – keep the marketing language to a minimum.
• Additional suburb information should also be included if it exists as it provides the out of area buyer with good information on what it is like to live there.
• Make sure the fielded information (e.g. beds, baths) – is all completed, as this will help ensure the listing is displayed in searches that are more refined.
• Virtual tours and videos are not necessary.

In part two of this article we’ll go on to look at how you can maximise the placement of your listing and the benefit of tracking your listings.

[flower image: flickr/matze_ott]

So what should you take into account when parting with your precious advertising and marketing budget?

Here are propertyadguru.com’s Top 10 Tips for Choosing a Property Portal:

1. Always consider advertising on the dominant player in your market, if only because you might not be able to afford NOT to be there. But give careful consideration to how you advertise, do you need to stand out or are you happy to be one of the crowd?

2. Look at where your competitors are advertising. Do you want to join them or try another tactic (and portal) to beat them?

3. Listen to your customers. If they are continuously asking to have their properties advertised on particular sites, don’t ignore them.

4. Don’t lose sight of value. Consider each portal in terms of cost of subscription versus the package you’re offered. Take into account: web traffic (number of unique visitors to the site and page views) any marketing the portal does; the reports and analytics the site gives its subscribers; and the extra advertising options available to you on each site that could help you trump your competitors. The most expensive might not always be the best.

5. Understand your market. Would a niche property portal suit the property you’re advertising best? There are niche portals for executive leasings, prestige properties, holiday rentals, and student accommodation, which can often offer you the chance to better target any potential customers.

6. Trial several portals. Take a trial run on a number of portals over the same period of time, advertising the same properties, and compare the results. Don’t succumb to marketing hype and wild sales promises. Ask for facts and figures to be supplied, and understand what they mean (read our article about understanding the stats). If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is, so test it out first.

7. Breadth versus depth. Whilst breadth of coverage is important, it’s also necessary to consider depth of advertising. With a limited budget available you’d be better off being a premium subscriber on 2-3 sites than a standard subscriber, getting lost amongst the rabble, on 4-5 sites.

8. How easy is it to get your properties onto the portal? You don’t want to spend your days doing data entry (unless it’s a rare one-off for a particular property). Does the portal offer a data feed?

9. What extra consumer-friendly features does the property portal offer? How many pictures can you load, what about floor plans and virtual tours, and are there maps, driving directions, walk scores, or extra widgets you can add to your own website? Consumers are often attracted by the portal’s add on neighbourhood features.

10. Would you enjoy searching for a property on the portal you’re considering? Never lose sight of the bigger picture: portals should be easy to use, consumer friendly, and attractive. If you don’t like using it yourself then a user probably won’t either.

Once you are up and running on a portal you should continuously monitor how you are tracking on that site, reviewing your statistics on a weekly basis.

[image: flick/the_toe_stubber]

The issue here is two-fold: 1) you need to do things online that set you apart from your competitors; 2) you need to promote the fact that you are doing something different that sets you apart.

So firstly, what can you do on portals to help your brand and your listings ‘pop’?

• Brand: take ‘ownership’ of your suburb or listing area by purchasing display advertising in the search results pages. Make your brand and company name the dominant feature on the page when a potential buyer or seller comes to look.
• Brand: take out a priority position in the Agent Directory pages if possible. This is particularly important if the listing is alphabetical and your company name doesn’t start with an A! You need to make sure you are top of the list when people are searching for an agent.
• Brand: investigate any other sponsorship opportunities available on your portal. There might be some relevant editorial pages or some Buyer or Seller tools that the portal offers that you could sponsor by putting your name and brand on them.

All of these options help to keep your name in front of potential customers, particularly sellers, at relevant touch-points throughout their property research process.

• Listings: ensure you are on the top advertising package available. Most portals offer a premium option that allows for better positioning for your properties so they attract buyer’s eyes more readily.
• Listings: there are often special positions available for purchase that allows your property to appear at the top of a search list or in some other prominent spot on the page. These are worth purchasing, particularly for your highly desirable or interesting properties, as they really encourage browsers to view your property above all others and in the meantime also view your brand. In many cases sellers will be happy to pay extra for the extra exposure.
• Listings: take advantage, where practical, of using all the tools available to you when listing your property on the portal. Things such as virtual tours, maps, video, editorial links and as many photos as possible. It goes without saying that you should fill in all the spaces for property features and a great description. All of these ‘additions’ to your listing are highly desirable for buyers and will keep them on your listing for longer.