Live Webinar

Watch out for The Academy's first ever live webinar tomorrow. Peter Knight will be presenting "The 7 Priniciples of Persuasive Marketing" from 5:30pm (GMT). We're doing it late in the day so that our friends from the US can join in. So it will be 12:30pm (EST) or 9:30am (PST) if you're across the pond from us.

You can register and find out more here.

Why Google Property Search isn't a problem for portals

It was finally reported in the national press today that Google is likely to launch it's Real Estate search in the UK next year. Hardly breaking news for those of us in the industry, but it seems to have had an adverse effect on Rightmove's share price nonetheless.

I don't believe this will be a problem for the big portals though. Here's why:

1. It hasn't caused armageddon in Australia and the US

Realtor.com in the US and Realestate.com.au in Oz, the dominant property portals in their respective countries have both continued relatively unscathed by Google's entry to their marketplaces. Why? Because they offer agents more than just another place to list their properties and they have established brands with loyal users.

Even if Google did pull traffic away from the established portals, would this actually harm them? Most of them don't run advertising, so their traffic numbers aren't important from that respect. We tend to think of these things in absolute terms; "will people continue to use Rightmove or switch to Google". The reality is they may use both, they may use many others. It's a big enough game for there to be plenty of players. The success of one doesn't necessarily mean the doom of another. Look4aProperty is still hanging in there after all.

2. Google is a search engine, not a portal

The established portals' dominance in property is actually great for Google, because it means others have to invest heavily in paid for search to get a look in at the top of the search results or toil late into the night adjusting keywords for years. Google is unlikely to want to compete with the major portals both because it is not a portal itself and because the portals help it to generate revenue, but it is likely to believe there is serious paid for search revenue to be generated from the 'long tail' of property advertisers, namely agents. Google Property Search may actually end up linking through to individual properties on Rightmove, Primelocationet al, in which case, the status quo would be maintained.

3. Agent websites compromise the user experience

You only need to look to Globrix to understand how far we are from Google stealing everyone's thunder. Globrix' site is just about as slick as you get in portal world and their property database (although not complete) is as good as one needs to claim to have 'complete' UK coverage. Despite this compelling combination and consequent success, they haven't really troubled the paid for portals. I would actually classify Globrix as a search engine rather than a portal, because to present properties fully, Globrix does and Google will rely on users leaving their sites to view property information in full on an agent's own website. This is where they fall down.

There are so many completely rubbish estate agent websites out there, it compromises the user experience massively when a slick site like Globrix links through to a property page on an agent's website that was clearly designed (badly) in 1998. Poor presentation and poor navigation on the agent site would discourage serious property hunters from repeatedly using Google Property Search, not to mention the potential for property listings to be duplicated or out of date. Some agents already have a great website with fantastically presented properties, but this still doesn't help Globrix or Google, because of the inconsistency in the presentation.

Rightmove has always carefully managed uniformity. Their property listings are consistently presented and as much as this has been a frustration to agents keen to achieve stand out, it has helped Rightmove generate a loyal user base who are comfortable with browsing the site. This is because they are familiar with how all the information on a property is set out. Rightmove have never allowed their listings to click through to the agents' own websites because of the loss of control that comes with this.

What next?

Google Property Search will come to the UK. Not today, not tomorrow, but soonish. That's about the only thing we can be certain of. What happens after that is open to huge conjecture. In a world of a successful Google Property Search, agent websites would need to be more fluid. Property pages would need to be the landing pages or individual properties would need their own websites in the same vane as the Estate Create tours. Think about how this works elsewhere, if you search for a product which Amazon or eBay list, it doesn't click through to the homepage, it goes directly to the product page, but most importantly here, Amazon and eBay attempt to persuade that visitor to delve deeper into their own sites by displaying offers, functions and other product suggestions similar to the product they have found.

There will be agents that 'get it' and raise their game significantly in this arena, and fast. Those will be the ones who are able to say to vendors "oh yes, all our properties are optimised to appear on the new Google Property Search" and leverage a point of difference from the competition, but they won't be saying in the same breath "and that's why we stopped listing on Findaproperty, Rightmove, Primelocation, etc." Why? Because every single one of their competitors would cite it as a reason not to list with that agent.

A change is as good as a marketing strategy

How often do you update your property listings? Earlier this year I wrote a post with some ideas for how to refresh the marketing of properties that have been on your books for a while (see previous post here).

Having attended a seminar with Rightmove recently, it appears that I made things overly complicated. Feedback from one of their surveys showed that the majority of customers thought that property photos should be updated every fortnight! This is in stark contrast to the agents' response who for the most part ticked the 6 months to never category.

Of course, actions speak louder than words and to put this to the test, we looked at properties with low click through rates (the number of times someone clicks on the property in search results to see the full tour). Changing the lead picture to another image from the existing photos caused, in some cases, an 8,000% improvement in the click through rate! By the law of attrition, more click throughs should equal more enquiries and to see what a profound effect such a simple change can have on the attention a property receives was a real revelation.

When you think about achieving stand out from other properties, it makes perfect sense. People trawl the portals regularly and will see the same properties over and over again. Using a different photo will provoke the reaction, "ooh, haven't seen that one before". Even if they have seen the full tour, will they remember? Have their circumstances changed? Have they softened that uncompromising stance on having a south facing garden?

I think this idea is just as applicable to other media too. I've often advised agents to vary their property photos in newspaper ads. You get wallpaper syndrome if your ads are filled with 30 images of similar looking 3 bed terraces. Be brave, use internals, show off what will make someone fall in love with a property and most importantly, use a different shot next week.

With some agents apparently using the old PR stunt of claiming to have sold out of properties, vendors who have been on the market for a while are likely to feel pretty miffed that their door is not being beaten down by hordes of applicants. Just rotating your lead image seems to be a simple way of generating a better response and getting some new leads to prevent having to put a "SOLD OUT" sign out of the window.

We're number 1! So what?

SpicerHaart got wrapped across the knuckles by the ASA last week for claiming to be the number 1 agent in Harlow. A claim that one of their competitors, Kings Group took exception to. Despite a lengthy disclaimer on the ad, the sources of data were called into question by Kings Group and the ASA upheld the complaint that the claim made by the ad broke their guidelines in relation to substantiation and truthfulness. You can read the full detail of the adjudication here.

The measurement for being number 1 in Harlow that SpicerHaart used was market share. Probably one of the most important benchmarks an agent should look at in assessing their performance against the competition. In a constantly expanding and contracting marketplace, market share is the only constant point of comparison.

From a marketing perspective, being number does 1 matter. If you've got more listings and sold more properties than anyone else, your success will influence others choice of agent by virtue of what they see around them. In certain circumstances being number 1 helps win more business in itself. The best example of this is probably on Google. If you're number 1 in search results this will attract more traffic to your site. You get to be number 1 because consensus took you there though, not the other way round. Consensus can be a powerful factor of influence. If enough people do something or say something, then others will follow the crowd. That is why we queue. That is why millions of us signed up to Facebook without much idea about what it was or why we should be on there. It's just that everyone else was doing it.

Perversely, many estate agents' efforts to stand out from the competition; claiming to be number 1, claiming to be the local experts, often lead them to being perceived to be just like the competition. Why? Because, they're all making the same sort of boastful claims about themselves. If you're doing this, you're actually conforming to the consensus that this is how agents should talk about themselves.

Be careful before you hang your hat on being number 1, especially if others are also trying to use the same peg. As I have written about previously, it's no good you talking about how good you are, you need to find somebody else to do that for you. The market share numbers may speak for themselves, but if they're not credible, and I mean 100% irrefutable, you run the risk of appearing to be another arrogant agent making boastful, unsubstantiated claims.

Sometimes, number 1 isn't favourable anyway. BT are number 1 in their marketplace. British Gas are also top dog in theirs. Does that make consumers more or less attracted to these brands? They're big. Does that mean they're clever? Does that mean I can expect a personal service? Does it make you feel valued as a customer when a company devotes their marketing spend to boasting about their own success rather than talking about their customers?

Being number 1 should actually be a byproduct of being the best. If you do everything better than your competitors, you should naturally enjoy greater success. Focus on the aspects of your business that will make you or keep you at number 1 and market the benefits of those separators to customers rather than your domination of a particular postcode.

Home Moving Trends Survey

There's been some big traffic numbers from many of the portals recently, but how many of these visitors are active in the market and actually selling a home? This time last year 95% of active home movers had never heard of Globrix and 25% were using Google all the time to search for property.

This is a constantly evolving space and those stats are from a whole year ago. We need your help to find out what's really going on now...

For the 3rd consecutive year, the Home Moving Trends Survey will provide estate agents with actionable insight into the behaviours of the customers you value the most; your vendors. The survey is only open to those who are currently selling or have recently sold a property.

We are asking agents to encourage as many of their vendors as possible to take part to ensure we have a broad and diverse sample of results. Questions include:

How long did you look at properties before putting yours on the market?
What is your primary reason for moving?
What was important to you in selecting agents to value your property?
What influenced your final decision on appointing an agent to sell your property?

The results in previous years have confirmed or denied many commonly held beliefs. Nearly ten times as many people said fees were not an issue in selecting an agent as said they were last year.

Every agent who generates more than 20 responses to the survey will receive a free summary of the results and findings once the survey has concluded.

You will find a template e-mail to send to vendors here.

Or alternatively, you can direct vendors straight to homemovingtrends.com

The survey runs from now until 31st October.