How newspapers work, and don't work, for Realtors

When Long & Foster, the largest privately-held real estate company in America, places marketing dollars with media companies, it seeks three things:

• To be big and bold.
• To have exclusivity.
• To be everywhere buyers and sellers are.

Cindy Jez, vice president of new homes and regional marketing for Long & Foster Real Estate, told publishers at SNPA's News Industry Summit that – five years ago – it placed 100 percent of its marketing dollars in print campaigns.  Today, the mix is 52 percent digital and 48 percent print.  And, Jez said the company will continue to evolve further into digital.

Long & Foster is heavily invested in a partnership with the Richmond (Va.) Times-Dispatch and BH Media Group.  The ads placed through this partnership seek to address two different and distinct sets of consumers that Long & Foster has to satisfy: its real estate agents and buyers/sellers.

Recognition is very important to its real estate agents, Jez said, all of whom are independent contractors.  In addition to ads, email blasts are an important component of the company's marketing plan – designed, in large part, to retain these agents.  To appeal to these agents, she said marketing efforts must be cutting-edge and offer products that competitors cannot offer or choose not to offer.

Complicating this, she said, are the conflicting messages about the real estate market that buyers and sellers are reading. She cited gloomy headlines that appear in many publications, which conflict with the "now is the time to buy" message that agents are telling their clients.  "It's not either of our jobs to correct that," she said, "but it is a reality that does exist in our marketplace."

The marketing challenge is also compounded by differing demographics between agents and buyers/sellers.  Jez said the average age of a real estate agent is 56 years old, compared to the average age of a home buyer: 34.  She said this younger generation was raised with mobile devices and many of them won't even answer a phone; but they will answer a text.  "So, you can see the challenge that we have in how the real estate agent chooses to market to a totally different demographic," she said.

Video is where the future of real estate marketing is heading, Jez said, adding: "One minute of video is equal to reading 1.8 million words."  Saying the brain processes visual content much quicker than it does words, Jez said it is imperative for those in the real estate industry to offer video.

The graphic below shows a very innovative leader board that the Richmond Times-Dispatch recently implemented to showcase Long & Foster listings at the top of its website.  Jez said: "This accomplished our goals of being big, being bold, being exclusive, and being everywhere buyers and sellers are today."

Jez said the company's first 150 listings are downloaded automatically from the MLS real estate listings to the Times-Dispatch marketing department.  She said the paper takes the photo, location and price from MLS and those listings appear 365 days a year, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.  "It is an extremely good win-win marketing concept," she said.  "Very affordable.  Satisfies the agent.  Satisfies the buyers and sellers ... and the media partners we have in other regions liked it so much, they've adopted it."

She said the other great thing about these ads is that they allow agents to see their effectiveness.  When viewers click on the ads, it takes them to the agent's website where they see additional information about the house and where they can request an appointment to see the property.

She said: "We have agents in our region who are paying up to $600 a month to capture the leads that ZTR (Zillow, Trulia and realtor.com) provides to them from the information we gave them for free."

She cited Allen Tate Realtors in North Carolina as one firm that very recently announced it would no longer provide its MLS information to realtor.com.  She said, "We are seeing companies throughout the country start to take back that information."

She also encouraged publishers to recognize the value of their account reps who are out in the field, creating relationships with real estate agents.  "At the end of the day," Jez said, "those people we create relationships with are our most valuable partners."

Great value also is found in compelling stories, she said, noting that her company is running a lot more advertorials than it used to do.  She said those feel-good stories draw readers in, as do creative headlines that invite readers into the story.

AdWerx is another marketing initiative that Long & Foster recently partnered with.  AdWerx is designed to help put an agent's brand in front of local prospects so when they are ready to buy or sell, that agent is the first name they think of. 

She encouraged newspapers to make the marketing information that they provide to agents short, sweet and affordable.  Turn-key solutions (like AdWerx) that are easy to implement will grab the attention of agents.

As advances in the digital world continue, Jez predicted that agents will soon be able to drive through neighborhoods, hold up a mobile device and quickly see what properties are selling for, and – with the click of a button – walk prospective buyers through a virtual tour of the houses in that neighborhood.  With video, they'll be able to listen to comments about the character and style of the house.

"In order for us all to survive as we go forward," Jez said, "we have to understand that we are partners in our advertising efforts.  We have to have a willingness to change and to change very quickly and also to be able to offer relevant solutions."