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Singapore Property

Based on my 10,000 mile trek across the country and 30+ cities, talking to the man and woman on the street, as well as agents and internet companies, the internet is only one way folks investigate home buying or selling. People still drive the neighborhood and read signs, they go to open houses, read the glossy real estate porn mags that come in the mail, they read billboards and bus stop ads, they watch tv, listen to radio, read magazines …
in some towns & cities, they even read the newspaper classifieds.

Old school is still school and still works. So don’t abandon it for the lure of the net (unless you can’t afford it, in which case you should go guerilla). If anything, be more creative in finding ways to connect with folks offline.

Build your brand. Give consumers value they can taste. Use repetition. http://www.nextmediagroup.net/images/home-homevestors.jpg
Host free seminars. Give away stuff (not junk). Get involved in your community. Do charity. Do meetup.com. Sponsor a kid’s team. Market to must buy or must sell folks– newly married, divorced or dead (Proctor’s play book). Find out what successful people are doing (Tony Robert’s school). Find your blue ocean. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Ocean_Strategy
Geez, there are so many offline marketing channels to get you b2b. I’ll take face-to-face interaction over avatar to avatar any day.

But you can’t overlook the internet for its world wide reach, permanence and low cost (mostly time, which can be expensive though). You have to use online channels too. But to put all your marketing eggs in that basket may be a mistake IMO (even Zillow does print ads).

Ideally, you ought to blend offline and online methods and find out a way to measure your results. Go with what works best for you. I know one very successful blogger who still gets his business with a low tech tool– the telephone.

For most folks the internet is the Google box. So SEO is important if you’re going to work the net. So is distribution/syndication (content is not king). But so is brand. You’d rather folks type your name in that box than Zillow’s (unless you own your local market on Zillow).

But in the end, the best communicator (not writer) and quickest to respond, regardless of which marketing method brought the prospect, usually makes more trips to the bank.

While I agree, Bill, that generally, you want a mix of sellers and buyers, market conditions may dictate a mix that favors one over the other. In a very slow market, I’d say weight buyers over sellers.

But then, I have to admit I’m a little confused – The CAR study says there is a high number of people looking on the Internet, but Joe’s post about his summer vacation makes the point that he thinks the lower number published in an earlier survey by NAR is too high and is suspect because of the survey’s methodology- so which is it?

Or could it be that the 40% number weas misunderstood? I understood it to read that 40% of the people who were using the Internet started there search at Google – maing it the largest starting point , and making Barry’s point about Blogging being importnant (since Google loves Blogs) – did I miss something there?

Joe:
I agree that every marketing channel should be used – In our company we have found that when people said they “found the property on the Internet” they had often seen a website address on a sing or in some other supporting marketing material which led them to our site –

Ardell:
I agree with you completely. I find that new agents typically work with buyers first because they are (a) more accessible and (b) are a source of faster money (since the commissions comes quickly after a sales is made, while listings don’t pay until after they have been marketed for a bit – then add the time to closing) – But I think anyone who doesn;t work both buyers and sellers is missing opportunities -