Times Union 11-17-2007

Reaching The Market

Realtors, builders focus on new methods to find buyers

By R.P. WHITTINGTON, Special to the Times-Union

While ads in the home section of the local newspaper still offer an advertising outlet for realtors and builders to find prospective home buyers, many are branching out into the internet and television to ensure they are touching all the bases when it comes to marketing their properties.

Many of us are already familiar with the Real Estate Channel, a 24-hour cable program that offers brief descriptions and select photographs of homes segmented by location, then by cost, around the First Coast.  But last year, Phil Pierce of Prudential Network Realty/Atlantic Beach teamed up with the developer of the Real Estate Channel for Comcast Cable, Michael Anapolsky, to create another television medium to reach buyers – the newly-launched Luxury Living Showcase.

“I was frustrated that potential buyers, especially those who lived outside the First Coast, really didn’t understand the area and the variety of homes available in our market,” Pierce said.  “For example, how would someone in Philadelphia who is thinking of moving to Florida know anything about Nacotee or any other properties in the Southeast?  Or, they may have driven by Fort Pierce or Palm Coast, but never stopped to check it out.”

Using Luxury Living Showcase, realtors, property owners and real estate developers can have a three-to-four minute video segment produced showcasing their homes and developments – which can also include film and general information on the cities and towns – and target the segment to run in specific geographic areas of the country.  The infomercial is produced within a 30-minute format and costs the equivalent of a full-page ad in most major market publications.

“Using sight, sound and motion, a segment can really make an area come alive for the viewer,” Pierce said.  “Also, it’s convenient.  I imagine the people sitting in front of their TV sets up north with six feet of snow outside longing to live in the sunshine.  That’s where I think Luxury Living Showcase will find a receptive audience.”

In addition to print and television, the internet has become an indispensable component in advertising.  Various surveys show that more than 80 percent of home buyers do some on-line research before they purchase a home – and realtors and builders are accommodating the shift in consumer on-line buying habits.

Most realty companies have had websites for more than a decade, but Joe Merkley, owner of Merkley Marketing Group, says there was strong shift over the peak years of 2004 to 2006 among individual realtors to have their own, personalized real estate sites on the internet.

“With their own sites, they can stand out more and offer more information about themselves and their individual property listings,” Merkley said.  “These days, it also shows the potential buyers that these realtors are serious about the business of home buying.”

Likewise, local builders are shifting more marketing dollars to the web – adding more information and functionality to compete with large, tract builders. For example, last year custom builder J.A. Long, Inc. of Orange Park added hundreds of new photos of home interiors and exteriors to its site, providing design plans and even adding available empty lots to help potential buyers get a more expansive view of their capabilities and workmanship.

Merkley says a more recent trend among real estate clients, and those in other industries, is an interest in search engine optimization – which helps ensure owners that their websites come up more often on internet searches and get more web hits.

“There are a lot of companies trying to do it, but it can be frustrating,” Merkley said.  “Yes, we can develop a strategy to get 5,000 people to your site each month, but if the viewer isn’t looking for a home, what does it matter?  It’s targeting the correct audience, the qualified, serious buyer, that’s the goal.”

The shift in acceptance among home buyers for using the internet hasn’t been lost on the home buyer magazines and local newspapers.  First Coast publications like Jacksonville Homebuyer and the Northeast Florida Association of Realtors’ NEFAR News magazines are introducing web-based home sales components for print advertisers, and The Florida Times-Union has been expanding its web presence for advertisers over the last two years as well.

Steve Metzinger, the Florida Times-Union’s Director of Digital Media, says the newspaper will expand its internet presence for real estate even more in 2008 with the introduction of a newer, more expanded virtual real estate product.

“Beyond just the basic information on the home, photo and price, we’ll have maps of the area where the home is, traffic information, distances to the beach, nearby recreational activities, and even video interviews with people who live and work in the area,” Metzinger said.  “We’re also going to provide facts about the neighborhood that now cannot be found all in one place.  Things like the area’s most dangerous intersections, crime statistics, and sex offender database information – grittier information that will really provide a great overview of where you’re buying.”

Metzinger says the newspaper will roll out the new format to a real estate advisory board early next year, with plans to introduce it on www.jacksonville.com in the spring.

“Plans now are to focus first on First Coast area’s that have the most housing inventory and the highest number of transactions, which will include northeast St. Johns County and the beaches, then add on other geographic sectors of the market throughout the year.”

While the stalwart of real estate advertising, the printed advertisement, still has a place in the modern media market, home buyers should expect to see more extensive television and internet exposure over the coming year – and more expansive functionality on the internet as realtors, builders and developers try to reach potential buyers.

“The real goal in all of this is to give the buyer a chance to see, hear and feel what it’s like to live in a community,” Pierce said.

Prudential Network Realty’s Phil Pierce can be reached at 904-241-2417 or at pbp72@aol.com.  For information on Luxury Living Showcase, visit www.luxurylivingshowcase.com.

Joe Merkley, President of Merkley Marketing Group, can be reached at 904-254-7010 or at joe@merkleymarketinggroup.com

Steve Metzinger, Director of Digital Media for The Florida Times-Union, can be reached at 904-359-4077 or at steven.metzinger@jacksonville.com

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