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10/23/2009 - Are Newspapers and other media dead?

So many discount real estate brokers and agents would like you to believe the narrative that all you need to do is post your home on a number of real estate sites to be successful. Just pay these people a few hundred dollars, allow them to send your listing to all these free sites, and you have instantaneous success.

We explained in our article "Why Flat Fee MLS Doesn't Work" that the MLS board sites, realtor.com and homesteadnet.com do not allow your contact information. You will lose all these potential buyers if you sign up for the flat fee MLS from any of these outfits.

You can put your own listing on all those other real estate sites for free. While those sites have a value, you do not need to pay hundreds of dollars for them.

Let us look at what Victor Lund of Wavgroup, a real estate industry consulting firm, says on a comment to such a discussion:

The newspaper and other print (especially yard signs) are still major drivers of online search. You can see data that we collected from broker websites which shows that more than 85% of visitors to broker websites come from visitors typing in the domain name . Print and other market branding “told” visitors what to type into their browser. Research in several industries has shown the best method for promoting your website on-line is through other advertising vehicles.

To be successful, a Real Estate Company must TELL consumers what to type in their browser. This telling costs money. That is why America’s Choice is so successful. We have been telling consumers (buyers) to type americaschoice.com into their browsers for more than 15 years. We tell them by expensive newspaper advertising, by expensive print advertising in Your New Home magazine distributed in the highest volume supermarkets, by paying for search terms on google and yahoo, by our professional signs, and by a recognizable name. All of this has worked and is working. Search engine ranking companies show that America’s Choice is absolutely one of the top utilized websites by buyers in Buffalo and Rochester.

In May 2009 alone we had 37,000 visitors to americaschoice.com staying an average of over four minutes. That is mindboggling. You get what you pay for with us. What are you buying from others? Hundreds of dollars for posting your home on free sites? Flat fee MLS that you can buy for $99 elsewhere and which does not work?

To answer the question, just as Mr. Lund implies, the use of expensive media to promote a domain name is what works. The companies that promote posting listings on domain names not used by buyers in the area are doing a dis-service to sellers. Think about it.

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