The Blog Tour taught us the importance of online businesses reaching people offline. Most of the people we interviewed had never heard of online real estate brands like Redfin, Zillow or Trulia — even in their home cities! (one lady in Seattle thought Zillow was a dance). Wow, were these companies wearing blinders? When we advised Redfin’s Glenn Kelman to advertise his online brokerage brand offline, he said he had no interest in offline advertising. Maybe he could learn something from the folks at Trulia. Consumer eyeballs are not always in front of a computer screen.
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Technorati Tags: trulia, advertising, branding, real estate marketing, marketing
I’m not so sure. Most online businesses can benefit from offline exposure, but the cost and trackability of offline customier acquisition vs. online is so much worse, that for some companies I think it makes sense to focus online.
In the case of a company like Redfin, many of whose clients are very plugged-in Googlers and Micrososofties, they can probably reach enough of an audience, with enough effectiveness, that they may not need an offline presence. Besides, the offline marketing presence they do have is largely referral-based — which is arguably the best form of marketing either online or offline!
Yes, I see your point Kevin. Some things, like brand awareness, are difficult to measure. The hope is that a person who has a need for real estate search (now or later), will recall the Trulia brand name and type it in the Google search box as opposed to a generic search term.
And perhaps consumers trust brands more if they see them in traditional ads (as opposed to only online)– There should be a consumer study on this somewhere.
We’ll have to check in with Trulia and see the ROI on these offline ads. We would think they can measure the effectiveness of the ads based on total/average visits —in the market where the ads ran.
As for cost, when you have millions you ought to devote a portion to offline marketing. What’s Zillow’s excuse?
Re: Redfin— I think we will see their offline ads in due course.
I agree that referrals are best– so, no matter how you build your client base, you increase your referrals.
This is a really good post. When VideoHomes was first conceived, one of the very first questions was: If I were a Philadelphia area Realtor, during the listing presentation what would make my seller’s ears perk up? I will do….
Today agents can rattle off so many sites I can see their seller’s eyes glaze over from here.
Albeit more than a mouthful, agents should be doing exactly this. Put it every where if possible.
My point is. To a Philadelphia seller, www.PhiladelphiaVideoHomes.com sounds like a good place to advertise his home. The seller doesn’t even need to be familiar with it for the name says it all. This is an example of ‘leveraging the known’.
The ‘known’ means offline. Good branding needs to integrate and assimilate rather than create ‘brand new’ from scratch.
Just like having the additional ammo to add ..”and if you list with me I can map your home’s location on www.PhiladelphiaDirections.com
“Sounds like an online map of Philadelphia” seller says…and presto online branding with going anywhere near a computer.
In the end it’s got to work offline. In other words it’s got to go ‘old school viral’ aka: referral.
Wouldn’t that cab look a lot better with www.ManhattanDirections.com on top? Oh, where’s the shame Joe! sorry…..
Kevin is right; it’s not that offline advertising doesn’t work. We just don’t have any money to spend on it, and we like being able to test a lot of different things quickly online. That said, we’ve actually stopped doing a lot of our banner ads too, because traffic is increasing without it, and Google SEM inventory has gotten a lot cheaper this winter.
It’s funny that you’re using Trulia’s ads to argue that we should advertise on a cab rather than on Trulia’s site.
Hi Glenn
Are you saying you cannot test ROI on offline ad media in a way that is useful? Granted, online allows for more testing, but perhaps the results of your online efforts would better steer you for your offline ads. Hopefully your online efforts are revealing something about your clients. If, for example, most of your clients were Starbucks drinkers, it might make sense to advertise on posters at Starbucks, or on their cups or on their muffin wrappers– you see what I mean? We strongly believe in 360 degree marketing. If you are only marketing online, you are missing a lot of folks (and folks from their referrals), as well as increased brand awareness. Is that big wall across the street from your office still blank?
And no, I am not suggesting you advertise on cabs (or muffin wrappers) to the EXCLUSION of ads on Trulia’s site, but as a supplement to it.
I see your point on cost– but that’s where your creativity comes into play– there are ways to partner/negotiate for offline ad space that may cost you little or no money. (We would tell you, but you’d have to pay us
Not surprising considering the vast majority of people are unhip to Web 2.0. Ask people what a blog is and you’ll get “HUH” more than “Sweet Sassy Mollassy (SNL reference) of course I do!”
That’s true Denver Lender. At least that’s what our (limited) research showed.