Property search engines' marketing conundrum
AltSearchEngines discusses property search engines with Europe-based Yannick Laclau of Properazzi and Victor Aloi of Migoa/Nuroa. Here are the takeaways, all pretty obvious to anyone who has studied listings search engines:
- Marketing
- getting noticed and capturing market share from the incumbents - is
the key challenge. In the US, Realtor.com by virtue of its older brand
name is still the gorilla that Trulia and Zillow are trying to catch.
Comscore - There are a lot of property search sites, and the consumer generally can't tell the difference until they use Properazzi or Nuroa and realize their advanced functionality.
- Business model is... advertising.
- Vertical search sites all borrow features from each other, so sites tend to evolve along the same paths.
- With so many sites, all with the same business model and similar features, property search engines become indistinguishable... which leads to >>>
- Marketing is the key challenge.
Hello Pat,
I 100% agree with your takeaways regarding marketing. Here is there no-one with a very clear marketshare since as Dustin pointed out, even R has only about 5% now. I think the reality is that in real estate it is so fragmented with different sources of listings and with each player trying to aggregate it only compounds the problem for the consumers of which they should go to.
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"...have others talk about and promote your products for you." Great advice, but how? Locally, people seem to love our search because we give out more information on each listing than any other local (or national) site. But we're still missing that magic ingredient that encourages others to talk about it. So, you're right, we've got a marketing problem. Unfortunately, I'm starting to believe that marketing is more important than functionality (ie. Microsoft).
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I disagree with #2 and #3. Specifically:
#2: Some search sites (not the two you mentioned, but a handful) ARE better. Simply compare how much detail you get in photos and listing remarks on different sites and you'll see what I mean. After a few minutes of searching, anyone seriously looking for a home can tell the difference.
#3: Advertising is not the business model for all. Redfin sells no advertising; we make money by acting as the buyer's agent, then giving the customer a refund on that commission.
My disagreement on the other points is more tepid, so I won't go into it here. Full disclosure: I work for Redfin.
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The primary course of action for a home buyer would be to search for real estate properties in the local MLS listing and then go on to other search methods. Local listings have one main point going for them- they conform to local real estate values.
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The bottom line: 6
I would add that no consumer feels that one site has all the listings. This has been demonstrated time and time again. And in certain local markets, the listing venue of choice is not a trulia or zillow. That's why I think retrove has the best approach.
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Great post. It always it amazing how real estate agents truly still don’t use the web to drive leads and sales. Often many times we have real estate clients who “nickel & dime” our internet marketing services because of the poor US real estate market. But they have no problem spending tons of AD dollar marketing their listings in newspapers…
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I totally agree with you on that statement. As an owner of a very well respected website I hear this all the time by my clients. They would rather spend the money on a newspaper add rather than on web advertising.. I do see this changing over time though.
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Yes, I agree no MLS has all of the listings and many are quiet out of date.
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