When Internet Property Listing Isn’t Selling For You

Property agents (local Singapore agents especially) have this rookie mistake in web marketing; getting a website to list their property listings and not doing anything about. Most, especially the less internet savvy agents would be muttering to themselves on the few hundred dollars spent on companies who tried to market their listing products and just forget that they have an existing potential marketing tool that they haven’t exploited.

Photo Credit: CarbonNYC

What went wrong?

Imagine a television channel that has no one knowing its existence. The channel keeps rolling but there’s no viewership to support. No matter how good the variety shows, the movies or the entertainment channel is doing, no one is watching it at all.

Eventually the people that’s churning out the contents got tired since there’s no viewership to sustain the cost of running the channel; it dies.

The above is just a metaphor of what is actually happening with an agent just listing his/her properties online on their own website without letting people knowing its existence. No or very little effort is being placed to emphasize that they have a marketing site. Soon, they think that ‘internet marketing’ is a waste of time and stops updating their site completely.

The truth is, internet marketing isn’t as simple or as automatic as it seems. TARGETED TRAFFIC (note my emphasis) is the key.

Targeted Traffic?

People always argue the fact that traffic is the key to internet marketing. They’re only 1/4 right. The 3/4 that really and exactly convert sales would be targeted traffic that stays on your listings and actually read what you have to offer.

You can drive loads of traffic to your site. But without people actually browsing and giving what they are looking for, you’re simply again wasting your time and money, without any Return on Investment (ROI) that you have spent on your site.

So what if you have a personal MLS (multiple listing service) that has little to offer on information of your marketing property? They either

  • Leave your site in 5 seconds because it’s boring
  • Leave your site in 10  seconds because they can’t find the information they want in your site
  • Leave your site in 15 seconds when they realise you have nothing to offer, not even a photo
  • And not calling you because they’re either phone shy, or can’t even find a way to contact you through a online form even if they have keen interest in one of your listing.

What should Rookie Internet Property Agents do to Market Online?

Find Supportive Real Estate Agencies

We can’t underestimate the power of selling through internet now, so I would say it is absolutely necessary to understand the necessity of establishing a good online prescence. If you’re worried about setting up your own website for now; join existing agencies that could give you guidance on web establishment support such as Knight Frank or OrangeTee.

A Quick Start By Paying The Correct Channels

To get a quick start and bang for your buck spending on internet marketing for properties, start paying for subscriptions to PropertyGuru and ST701 where they have targeted traffic already established.

The audience that you are looking for are with the two market leaders of Singapore real estate portal at the moment. So spending about $1,000 a year on their pro subscriptions gives you an edge over people who’re not mulling over how much their pro accounts can do.

Understand what is SEO and ROI conversions before starting a personal MLS site

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Return On Investment (ROI) are basic and necessary terms to digest in internet marketing. They should be part of your ‘what’ and ‘how’ in converting relevant traffic into prospective leads and finally sales.

An SEO-ed site can drive the right people to look at possible relevant landing page and funnel them into a process to eventually contact you (we can’t convert sales that easily like selling an e-book online, but you can make the whole lot process easier for your potential client).

With understanding ROI, you can spend the minimal (or maybe just optimized) amount of money for maximum relevant exposure on your site to convert your readers into valuable leads which might lead to sales. The higher the ROI on the amount spent, the better.

I’ll touch more on these topics as I go by optimizing my site as an example of how to soft-sell and capture the correct audience to your website.

4 thoughts on “When Internet Property Listing Isn’t Selling For You

  1. I agree that in today’s market, selling of property through internet marketing is pretty important. Still, I find that not many house seekers are internet savvy enough to search through internet search engines to find their houses. Newspaper classified ads is still the best way to reach a wide audience.

  2. Hey Lawrence! :)

    Thanks for popping by and following me on Twitter. I would agree to some extend on CATS still being the avant-garde of Singapore’s property listing for advertising, as most of us still closes deals this way with good audience responses from the papers.

    But you realise that Singaporeans especially the young ones are getting savvy, and that time will come when CATS get thinner and thinner in terms of advertising, we can definitely put a foothold span of 5 – 10 years before you completely see things are different in our marketing techniques.

    SPH acknowledges this trend, and started building Straits Times online quite nicely with ST701 as their online CATS.

    Great to hear people exchanging views, and pop by often! ;)

  3. Hi Benson, although this post is dated more than 1 yr ago, but I LIKED what your stated about SEO and ROI.

    I’m a property agent, as well a SEM. Since you are so into SEO, how about building a real estate website together and outrank iproperty and propertyguru :)
    It’s possible, ya know… Just need a good team of internet marketers.

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