The Basics of Online Marketing
I once represented a professional copy editor as his listing broker. Of course I handled it like any other house. But when I presented him with my listing materials, he asked if he could write his own copy. Right? I mean, of course he did. And me, hey I am a journeyman copywriter at best. And I thought, well now, I am about to learn how it’s done. Right? Of course I did.
Now luckily for this story, and I am not making this up, this was your typical $500,000 house in your typical $500,000 neighborhood.
So when I receive his revised copy, I was rather surprised to discover that he had basically moved some of my words and sentences around, and then sent it back to me. There was certainly nothing new, or in my opinion, even improved. Now this is a highly educated and highly paid professional. Why was this the case? I mean, how was this even possible?
Well if he had been given unlimited marketing and copywriting space, I have no doubt that he would have blown me away. We see this sort of thing with high-end homes, say over a million dollars. But these days, I am not even sure that number is high enough.
Let me give you an extreme example. If you are selling a multi-million-dollar villa on top of a mountain, in Tuscany, you may well need to produce an elaborate marketing campaign which would certainly include a twelve-page, full-color glossy brochure, with lots of room for bespoke photography and the most creative copy imaginable. And you would put together a high-end, colorful website with even more room for copy and unlimited photos and video. You would have video walk throughs and drone photography and dramatic night time photography. Here your marketing is designed to appeal to an elite, but very small and hard to reach, audience. And just think of the cost.
But if you are selling a typical $500,000 house in a typical $500,000 neighborhood, you want your marketing to reach a much broader audience. Now you could put together a similar brochure and website, and it would certainly not hurt. But let’s just ask the question: How are ninety-nine potential buyers out of a hundred going to find your house? Well they are not going to visit the special online real estate advertising supplement of The Wall Street Journal, to find an expensive ad for your house with a website, and request the expensively-produced brochure. They are just not.
No, they are going to Zillow and other similar sites. And they may rely on their buyer’s broker to search the local MLS for them (by the way, brokers automate these searches).
Today most MLS systems have the ability to syndicate listings to other sites like Zillow and Trulia and Realtor.com, etc. The MLS also sends the data to each MLS member broker to use on their own websites. So the broker and the buyer are basically seeing the same available properties. The broker can send them what is available in the MLS which is a bit more than the syndicated data. But the available properties are the same.
What is important to note here is that the MLS, as a computer system, has limits on how much data (text and photos) that it will accept. And certainly the syndication process has data limits as well. And these amounts are relatively small.
It should also be noted that in recent years, MLS systems have added the ability to add documents to listings. Brokers will upload surveys, floor plans, disclosure statements, HOA documents, feature sheets, etc. into the MLS system. If a broker or a graphic designer creates a property brochure, the broker can add it to the listing as well (at least as a low-resolution document). But these documents are not syndicated and are therefore only accessible by member brokers.
For syndication, you only get so much text space and a finite number of photos. So basic marketing must fit into this system with its data constraints. Believe it or not, even in 2020, these data spaces are limited to a given number of characters (not words, characters). So brokers must choose each word for maximum impact.
You can describe the master bathroom as a: Spacious self-indulgent oasis tucked away from the bustle of everyday life. Or you can simply describe it as a: Large master bath, because you want to save room to also mention the oversized three-car garage. So you can see how this leads to rather efficient but prosaic copy. This is why my copy editor client (and hopefully still friend) was not really able to improve my copy of admittedly limited skill.
Now sure, you can do more. Brokers can do as much or as little as they like. So yes, brokers can and do set up a websites that offer loads of additional marketing material on each of their properties. With an unlimited number of photos and video and the most creative copy imaginable. With video walk throughs and drone photography and dramatic night time photography. And of course, the downloadable twelve-page, full-color brochure (in high resolution). Sound familiar? But mostly what you find is some subset of this. Sometimes more, most often less. In any case, whatever is done and however much is done, is helpful. Right?
Well…let’s not forget to ask the elementary marketing questions: Who is my target market and how are they going to find me? And what is our goal?
As we discussed, the goal is to simply alert actively searching buyers that the house is available for sale, that it may fit their needs and desires, and to get them to come take a look at it. With that in mind, what we need to do with real estate marketing is balance cost and reach. For most properties, we need to reach a broad audience without spending a fortune. And the MLS/syndication system, even with all of its limitations, offers a very efficient way to do just that.
That individual broker website? Not so much. Because even if it shows up in a Google search, or even if the broker pays Google to have it show up at the very top of the search results, that is not how the overwhelming number of buyers are searching for houses. No, regardless of what website the buyer is using, he or she is searching the syndicated data. Because that is the most efficient way for any buyer to see all the available houses. Not to see the most houses available; rather to see all the houses.
The idea that a buyer will visit all, or even multiple, broker websites to search for houses is fallacious. It is just not a very efficient way for an actively searching buyer to go about it. No, they are going to find a website they like to use, or maybe two or three, and search there – Seeing the syndicated data. And/or they can have their broker send them the greater amount of data out of the MLS system directly.
In either case, buyers are most often not searching broker website to broker website. I am not saying it does not happen. But even if a buyer searches this way, the vast amount of what they are finding and viewing is syndicated data. So the questions are: How many buyers are doing that? Is it worth the expense? And will we not reach our goal of getting them in the door without the additional expense?
Real estate brokers produce a lot of online noise. And today, any Google real estate search has a lot of noise. Really too much noise to be useful. On the other hand, syndication offers results searchable by buyer-selected parameters in buyer-selected locales. These websites immediately present the buyer with exactly what he or she is looking for.
Let me go further and make what I believe you will find to be a rather surprising claim: For a broker to effectively market properties online, it is absolutely not necessary to have any separate online presence for the property itself or even for the broker himself.
Let me say that again: A broker does not need an internet presence, at all. The MLS/syndication system, alone, is more than adequate. His listings show up on all other broker websites with a search function. Here I mean the large brokerage firms that maintain fancy websites with search functions. And I mean, the individual broker websites that offer very little, but almost always include a search function as well. And, on the non-broker websites like Zillow. Our broker may not have a web presence, but his listings are plastered all over the internet. Isn’t that the online marketing goal?
Hawking a villa in Tuscany, maybe a website is required (although you are probably not going to rely on Google). Hawking a property under a million dollars in Austin, Texas? Not so much.
Here is the point: Brokers design these websites to impress sellers, not find buyers. So the broker’s website and individual property websites are often just another part of the broker’s dog-and-pony show to acquire the seller as a client. Oh, and to justify their fees.
One more point before we will leave this. Are there passive buyers viewing the MLS/syndicated listings? You bet. I have no idea how many, but a lot of people enjoy window shopping real estate. But as for actively searching buyers, and there can be no doubt about this: They are all here.
Finally, if a broker lists your property as Coming Soon, and puts it solely on his own website, the property is of course, not syndicated. The whole goal of coming soon is that the broker is attempting to acquire the buyer as a client in a dual agency situation. So they have no incentive to share the listing anywhere. They want potential buyers to come to their website and browse their coming soon listings. So instead of showing up across the internet, the house only shows up on the broker’s website. So not only is coming soon designed to lead to dual agency, it is also a huge disservice to the sellers in terms of marketing reach and breadth. I have doubts as to whether or not this is properly explained to sellers.
It should be noted that as of this writing our local MLS is changing the rules to force brokers to syndicate Coming Soon listings to other member brokers. But still not to non-broker websites like Zillow and others. This is certainly a step in the right direction. Hopefully this will lessen the incentives for this shady practice. Time will tell.