By Jonathan Nicholas, Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing, Obeo
RISMEDIA, Oct. 5, 2007-A couple of years ago, Tom Peters, the
renowned business management practice guru, spoke to the Houston
Association of REALTORS®. In preparation for his talk, he interviewed
six agents as if he was going to list his property. He summed up the
listing presentations each of the six agents gave as follows: “Me, me, me, me, you, me, me, me, you, me, me, me.”
Peters was right.
When real estate Web sites first came on the scene around 1995, they
were basically electronic company and agent brochures that gave a
minute amount of listing information-but provided a wealth of data
about how great the company and/or agent was.
At the turn of the decade, real estate companies became much more
focused on who was looking at and using their Web sites. They finally
started to realize that there was actually a consumer their agents
might want to engage. The next challenge was to find out who the
consumer was and what she was looking for from an agent, which was-and
still is-information.
You would have to have been hiding under a rock for the past 10
years not to realize that an agent’s value does not come from holding
information close to his chest. It comes from providing expertise,
knowledge and experience as well as ably negotiating and managing the
details of transactions to a successful close.
In the ’70s, ’80s and early ’90s, it was appropriate for an agent to
have one picture, an exterior shot, to accompany any advertising,
property information brochures, newspaper ads or other marketing
materials.
Back then, the local MLS staff photographer-who was often
not-so-lovingly referred to as the “drive-by shooter”-was usually the
one who took the picture. Photos were inconsistent at best: open garage
doors, car-filled driveways, toys and bikes strewn about and snow
drifts 4 feet high. In the pre-digital, pre-Internet era, agents took a
minimum amount of pictures, often a Polaroid. Their business model was
to provide the least amount of information to the consumer to trick him
into calling the agent up for more.
Even today, agents play that same game with information box flyers
in front of properties for sale that only provide one or two pictures,
an extremely brief description-and no price! Most consumers today won’t
even bother calling agents who employ such tactics. Not only are they
outmoded; consumers can sense them from a mile away. Because of the
Internet’s far reach and depth and breadth, consumers’ expectations for
information far exceed what agents have typically been prepared to
provide or offer-now more than ever. So the question becomes: Just how
many images are appropriate to provide when marketing to a consumer
online?
The only correct answer is as many as possible.
In 1999, Gomez.com conducted a study that looked at consumer
behavior on real estate Web sites. The study provided the first real
look at what online consumers were expecting and what they were willing
to do themselves in the real estate transaction. Many were comfortable
hosting their own open house, negotiating the contract and designing
and distributing flyers.
The Gomez study also found that most real estate consumers want to
do all of their own research such as finding desirable neighborhoods,
looking up demographics and crime statistics and researching schools.
They were using the Internet as a tool for narrowing their options
during the process of elimination. It was just one year earlier, in
1998, that we first heard about real estate transactions closing with
the buyer purchasing a property sight unseen, using just virtual tours
and/or online photos. In today’s world, that’s more and more common.
What’s also common is that consumers want the real estate agent to
provide everything.
In fact, according to a California Association of REALTORS® 2006
online real estate consumer survey, 83% of online real estate consumers
expected multiple still photos to accompany a listing. A full 60%
expected virtual tours. In the next two to five years, I submit that
more than 80% of consumers will expect both media as well as video to
accompany every listing.
The National Association of REALTORS® recently completed an internal
study of its REALTOR.com Web site data, which showed that property
listings offering more than six photos received 600% more online
traffic than those listings with less than six - which typically have
just one photo, if any.
Web site Point2NLS (nls.point2.com), a vendor that builds real
estate Web sites for REALTORS®, also conducted an internal study of the
listings within their National Listing Service platform. According to
that study, property listings that had one or zero photos averaged
slightly more than 20 detailed views, resulting in an average of 2.3
leads generated over the life of the listing. On the contrary, a
property that had 21 or more photos in its listing averaged close to 80
detailed views which resulted in more than 10 leads generated during
the life of the listing. Translation: Adding 20 photos to your listing
will increase detailed views by 300% and lead generation by 335%.
The lesson: The more visual content you provide on each listing will
create more hits on that listing, which will result in more leads
generated, thereby giving you a higher return on each marketing dollar
invested. The application: Provide the consumer with a good mix of
visual content such as still pictures, tours, floor plans and maps -
regardless of the listing price, location or prospective buyer profile.
Simply put, the listings you treat this way will generate a quality
and quantity of leads that is directly proportional to the amount of
compelling visual content you provide to the consumer.