Marketing 101?

I hope this entry will be of some general interest and I hope I'm able to be coherent. It has to do with our perception of the role of the real estate broker and how we fulfill our obligations to those we set out to serve. In my view we are essentially a marketing engine. We sell things which are not ours and in which we have no control over design or utility value. We cannot for the most part create the desire to buy the "things" we sell, we can only attempt to identify the people who already have an interest in ownership and attract them to our door to view the products we have in our "inventory". None of this has to do with the nuts and bolts of the sales process itself, negotiation, legal requirements, escrows, inspections and all of that. We all do those things and while I think we're better at them than most, that's subject to competitive challenge. I'm interested here in the marketing, the thing we promise to listing sellers that we'll do more effectively than others, and to buyers the promise of a broad inventory of fairly priced and honestly presented homes. Historically brokers put out some signs, bought some newspaper ads, held some "open houses" and hoped for the best. With the advent of the internet that approach required some serious adjustment and that's really the place I was trying to get to with this blog. We're adjusting almost on a daily basis to discover the best venues, the proper mix of media, the frequency of appearance, etc. I know we're on the leading edge of the learning curve, but could we be doing even better? That's the type of thing I worry about every day, and I suspect that the answer is always yes, and that's a challenging thought. Following successful precedent is good, establishing new precedent is better. Statistically over 80% of home buyers now begin their search on the internet. The next most effective advertising strategy is the sign at the property, falling into a distant but necessary third is print media, and last, and in our office, the discouraged practice of the "open house'. Open houses account for less than 1% of home sales and we simply can't justify agents spending hours sitting like a spider in a web. Our listed homes appear on approximately 20 national real estate web sites, all linked back to us and we can provide a count of views. Our own site is heavily trafficked for a small real estate company, averaging over 1000 visits and almost 3000 page loads per month. This is the kind of traffic that leads prospective buyers into the neighborhoods of interest, and there, waiting for them are our reflective signs at the property, providing 24 hour a day visibility. Our print advertising covers our market area, newspaper, magazine and periodical, and we are visible daily on local TV. This was not intended to be a sales pitch. We're excited by the prospects of constantly shifting strategies to take advantage of changing opportunities. I thought you might get a kick out of sensing what we do to try to improve our service and just maybe have an idea of what else we might try. We don't even know all the questions, let alone all the answers. If you think that real estate marketing is running ads with pictures of 50+ smiling agents we're probably not your best choice for selling your home.
As always, thanks for visiting.