Newspaper Advertising
Where have you been spending your real estate dollars these days? I’m sure that you’ve made very significant adjustments within the last year or two like moving dollars from print to the internet. Newspaper ad revenues have depressed these past couple of years and are projected to fall further this year as well. For many years real estate brokers and auto retailers have been two of the largest customer groups that consume newspaper ad space. Even small papers began to print ads in color at higher prices when the internet began to erode that revenue stream. But there is no hard evidence at all that it did a better job of getting the home sold. The move to internet with real estate marketing is definitely a big factor in this and many real estate brokerages examine their budgets where advertising is a major portion for most.
The real estate audience has now shifted their attention to the internet which is now the primary research tool for real estate research so this makes it more difficult for newspapers to sell ads to their customers. But still there are sellers who insist that their agents put ads in the local paper. So in order to create a successful print ad ask yourself what you would want to know if you were looking to purchase a home. Occasionally newspapers run special sections just for real estate ads, open houses, etc. where you can reach a large, targeted market. So put as much information about the property in your print ad as you could find. Whether you create a newspaper or magazine print ad there must be an address, photo(exterior and interior shot of the house), description(the vitals – bedrooms, baths, square footage, what makes the house stand up from others, etc.), price and of course your contact information. If you have a website put it in too!
Also when you make your headline for your ad make sure that it gets the readers’ attention by clearly stating the purpose of the ad. Or you could also make a compelling question in the headline to prompt the reader to peak their curiosity or you could do the opposite by providing an answer, which solves a problem or evokes an emotional response.
And after you have written a compelling description of the property you need to tell the reader what you want them to do. This is called a Call to Action. Do you want them to call you for more information? Do you want them to go to an open house? Make sure that you tell them that you want them to contact you in order to create a sense of urgency. Say something like ‘limited time offer’ or ‘special offer when you call today.’ Then if there’s still space ass a P.S and briefly reinforce the benefits from your ad description. Following these simple steps will surely make your print ad effective and gain you prospective buyers for your property for sale.
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