REALTOR® Magazine Online: Choosing Advertising Media

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Setting Marketing Strategies

Analyzing the Business Climate

Creating Your Market Identity

Planning Your Advertising

Coordinating Company and Salesperson Marketing

Developing Public Relations Strategies

Enhancing Customer Service

Planning Your Advertising

Choosing Advertising Media

Your choices of advertising media depend on your goals, your target market, and your budget. Weigh the pluses and minuses of various types of ads.

Newspaper Classified Ads:
Good for promoting listings, recruiting.

Pluses:

Targeting: Content can be can be written and publications can be chosen to appeal to specific audiences.
Exposure: People who are interested in buying actively seek out classified ads.
Cost: Classified ads are less expensive than direct mail, telemarketing, full-color brochures, and many other forms of advertising.

Minuses:

Space: The shorthand style of classified ads limits how much can be said.
Success: Only a small percentage of buyers come to a real estate company in response to classified ads. —Hal Kahn, CRB, in The Manager’s Guide to Real Estate Marketing, REALTORS® National Marketing Institute, 1986
Efficiency: Classified ads can attract unqualified and uncommitted callers that sales associates must talk to and screen.
Effectiveness: Classified ads are better suited to promoting individual properties than to building a company’s identity and name recognition

TIP:For suggestions on how to create effective newspaper ads, visit the Property Marketing section.

Newspaper Display Ads:
Good for promoting groups of listings, building corporate recognition.

Pluses:

Exposure: Larger display ads are more likely to get noticed than small classifieds and are a good way to promote your company at the same time that you are featuring individual listings.
Targeting: You can reach a variety of audiences by placing ads in different sections.
Convenience: Ads can be easily and frequently changed if you want to add or delete information.

Minuses:

Shelf life: Newspapers generally are read once and kept in the house only one day.
Quality: Print quality of newspapers is usually low, limiting the use of graphics and photos.
Competition: Your ad must compete with other ads on the same page for a reader’s attention.

Magazine Ads:
Good for building corporate identity by grouping all listings into a block, promoting individual properties.

Pluses:

Targeting: Many specialty magazines, such as home magazines, apartment locator guides, city magazines, visitor guides, and relocation guides, are aimed at desirable market segments.
Shelf life: People tend to keep magazines at least until the next one comes out.
Quality: Ads reproduce well and photos look professional; color quality especially is usually much higher than possible in newspapers.

Minuses:

Exposure: Circulation of specialty magazines can be small.
Production: Producing a magazine-quality ad usually requires hiring a graphic artist.
Cost: Color ads, especially those with photos, can be costly to run.

Direct Mail:
Good for building name recognition and identity, especially in new markets.

Pluses:

Personal communication: Direct mailings give you the chance to communicate your message to people one-on-one at their leisure, in the comfort of their home.
Reach: You can contact people by mail whom you might not otherwise encounter or who might not welcome other forms of contact.
Flexibility: You can mail everything from short announcements—such as the hiring of a new sales associate—to slick brochures about your company or a high-end property.
Comprehensive: A direct-mail effort can include several pieces—such as a company brochure and tips for home buyers and sellers, that allow you to give prospects a sense of all the services you provide.

Minuses:

Cost: Some forms of direct mail can be expensive, so campaigns must be planned carefully around your budget.
Effectiveness: Response rates to direct mail can be low if mailings are not followed up by phone calls and other forms of contact.
Saturation: Consumers are flooded with direct mail appeals—up to 4 million tons each year, according to the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency—and may discard them without reading them.

TIP: Consider what types of media formats your target customers are likely to read and view frequently. —Ed Rigsbee, “Position Your Business as Partner to Your Customers, Air Conditioning, Heating & Refrigeration News, August 6, 2001

Keep It Legal: Be careful when selecting publications to advertise in. Make sure that you do not make selections that would exclude the access of any group from learning about your properties. To do so would violate fair housing laws.

Choosing Advertising Media (Part 2) >

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