As Spring arrives, the property world prepares for another bounce in buying and selling activity. One way that many agents will be looking to attract business will be going to exhibitions and property shows, but with the internet playing an increasingly Replica Watches UK dominant role in property advertising, are exhibitions still relevant?
Shows still take place around the world, bringing together all sectors of the industry, but with stands costing up from an entry level of £3,000 in a world of social networking and Skype, are property exhibitions too expensive?
The Inspector interrogates a spokesperson for Malta estate agent Malta Buy Property about their experience of shows and questions Dan Johnson, Managing Director of online lead generation firm Lead Galaxy, about how the numbers add up.
What kind of response does Malta Buy Property get from exhibitions?
"We get the opportunity to meet people who may not even have considered Malta. We've had some visitors to the stand in the past who didn't even realise that they could buy property in Malta!"
Do you find conversion rates are high, or are events more about laying groundwork with buyers who are in the early stages of house hunting?
"Conversion rates are in line with other sources of enquiries, but we have the additional benefit of having made personal contact, which makes follow up with clients easier. We also value the informal networking opportunities. We have press packs ready for any visiting journalists, which gives us the opportunity for free PR coverage. Many agents neglect this opportunity, which is their loss."
How much, roughly, do you spend on attending a show?
"Anywhere between £3,500 and £4,000."
Dan, with online marketing enabling agents to contact thousands of buyers with a single email or tweet, is £3,000 worth it?
"If you're operating on a limited budget, it's not the most effective way to spend marketing capital. The audience reach of maybe 4,000 people over a weekend is a fraction of the number that you can get on a website every single day. Then there's the cost of the staff, the graphics work, the preparation time, the recovery time to get back on top of normal workload once you're back in the office... There's a big time and cash cost - all to reach a smaller audience."
In comparison, what kind of spend would you have for online marketing with Lead Galaxy?
"For, say, £4,000, you'd get all of your properties exposed on Lead Galaxy's portal network for a year, with 7 million visitors looking for property to buy. Secondly, you get email campaigns and telephone qualified leads from our call centre. You could easily expect 10 to 20 times as many responses per pound."
There's also the question of how far into the buying process they are...
"I'd say exhibitions are typically for people either right at the beginning or the end of the buying process. People at the beginning probably don't have a clear idea of what they're interested in. They could be months away, or even years away, from making a purchase decision. At the other end, to be fair, I think a lot of potential buyers uses exhibitions to put a face to the name of a company before they commit."
The personal touch is more effective than remote contact Replica Dior via a website, though, isn't it?
"I think it's true that you probably have an opportunity to build a stronger rapport face-to-face than you would through the faceless medium of a website. There's no doubt that some of the leads you're going to get are going to be good quality. Those are, generally speaking, few and far between. Attendees at a show get battered with messages from all directions. It's actually quite tiring! A lot of people end up with a giant plastic bag of brochures and that bag never gets opened. If you come back with 100 leads, maybe 10% are really good."
Is there any other difference between leads from an exhibition and those from online marketing?
"One big difference is that if the show goes poorly, you have no redress. If your sales team can't get in contact with a lead, that's all on you, there's nothing you can do. We have a policy so that if anyone gets bad contact details on a lead, you can get a refund on that lead - you would never get that from an exhibition."
Have you attended many property exhibitions in the past?
"Yes, we used to have a sales business and actually towards the end of that time we stopped doing exhibitions because we found they weren't providing a positive return on investment. To put it into context, we can drive people to our website using Google AdWords, for example, for as little as 3p per visitor. For £3,000, we could bring in thousands of visitors. I think that's a way better use of money than using it to speak to 100 people."
