RISMEDIA, December 11, 2006—Real estate professionals generally want three things from their advertising investment: better qualified leads at the most efficient cost; more listings; and exposure that builds their personal brand. But with so many shifts in the marketplace, they struggle with how best to accomplish this. First, information should be the underpinning of your marketing decisions, starting with looking at the ways consumers are shopping for homes. And secondly, look for a media partner with a solid reputation that the consumer trusts, and one that is committed to your success.

With survey after survey revealing that close to 80% of home shoppers at least start their search for homes on the Internet, no doubt this channel is critical. But if you based all your marketing decisions on just this information, you’d fall short. Why? The latest research also reveals that whether buying or selling a home, consumers use a variety of media sources to actively seek out information in their search process. In fact, home shoppers spend an average of 21 hours looking at real estate magazines.
Home shoppers also told us:

- They use the Internet whether moving locally or to another market; they like the quick access to information

- They also see tremendous value in printed local housing guides. Magazines are cited as more “portable” than the Internet and continue to be a highly valued tool in the home search process. Our Internet-based distribution tool helps us manage the physical placement and pick up of our magazines in hundreds of locations in each market.

The best real estate agents today understand that you need to touch your best prospects offline and online.

Many traditional print publishers of real estate advertising are logically concluding that, for fear of being left behind, they should add online components to their offering. While that’s a step in the right direction, it’s not enough. At the Real Estate Book, we take this concept much further.

What does it mean to be a fully integrated business partner, and what are the benefits to you? First, the Internet offers a valuable extension to the physical placement of our magazines. Whether a home shopper is using search engines like Google or Yahoo!, or a real estate Web site like TheRealEstateBook.com or BobVilla.com, they will bump into ads placed there through our program.

Secondly, our ad submission and production process all happen online. The days of handwritten copy and faxing are well behind us. Advertisers submit text and photos easily via our Ad Submission System, giving our customers maximum flexibility and control of the advertising content that gets posted online and in print.

Thirdly, as a fully integrated Internet media brand, we also offer advertisers the ultimate tool to easily measure their return on their advertising investment. Our Leads Management System, an Internet-based tool available to all advertisers, shows the number of times the property was viewed, mapped and the number of e-mails inquiring about the property.

The speed of change in our industry is mind boggling. In times like these, it is critical that companies stay very close to changes in consumer behavior. Being a fully Internet-integrated business partner to real estate professionals offers a strategic advantage at every step of the process: online distribution; ad production; measuring ROI; verifying physical circulation of the magazines and tracking lead activity. RE

Scott Dixon is the president, real estate division, Network Communications, Inc. To learn more about how to put the full power of an integrated media solution to work for you, or to discuss our research findings, please contact Scott Dixon at sdixon@treb.comor 770.962.7220, extension 24214.

RISMedia welcomes your questions and comments. Send your e-mail to: realestatemagazinefeedback@rismedia.com.