Hello everyone, I’m Sam. I’m new to Tortoise Property and Estate Agency. I have a BA Honours Degree in Marketing from Sheffield Hallam University and wanted to find somewhere that I can put that to use, which is why I’ve ended up here!
This blog will be a weekly series of me recounting my experiences, explaining why great marketing is so powerful when selling your home and the exciting plans I have for the future of marketing in Estate Agency. I believe this will be beneficial to me as I write down everything I do and hopefully will be to you also, as I do my best to explain Tortoise Property, convey our difference and answer any estate agency questions that anyone may have.
- An online valuation of your home in 60 seconds!
- Personal assessment of your home with Tortoise Property!
- Are we the right Estate Agent for you? Take the quiz!
- Connect and stay up to date with all things Tortoise!
Welcome to Episode 3!
Following on from last week’s blog about our ‘Phased Marketing’ model we’re going to be taking a deeper look at the individual sections, starting with the OnTheMarket Presentation. Let’s get started!
What is the OnTheMarket Presentation to us?
So, what is it? Well, effectively it’s just a blank page. It’s a place for us as estate agents to create a professional and compelling showcase of your home. We use OnTheMarket as our main showcase; all of our content (videos, pictures, virtual tours), information (summaries, descriptions, spotlights) and extras are available on this platform. We take the basics offered by OnTheMarket (a blank space to put our photos, videos, virtual tours, descriptions etc) and expand on it so that we’re able to present your home in the best way possible.
The Active Market
Because the portals are hubs for property information and property availability, this attracts people who are looking to move. This refers to the active market, which we discussed in last week’s blog, with 2.3 billion website visits in 2022. The platform is excellent for those who know exactly where they want to move, the type of property they want and how much they’d like to pay for it. If you’re unsure about any of these factors then you won’t get very far as there are 536,000 homes available to buy this week!
What’s on our Presentation and Why?
Due to sheer amount of available houses on the platform (up to 2,000 in our local market and 536,000 across the U.K –Rightmove, accurate as of 18th May 2023) we want to make sure your home is seen and stands out against these huge numbers. This is why we don’t just stop at the basic features that OnTheMarket offer but go above and beyond to make the main showcase of your property spectacular. So what do we do?
-Ensure your home is both a premium and spotlight listing. A spotlight listing pushes your home to the top of the page and as well as showing it again when you scroll down, so you will see it twice. A premium listing increases the size of the available advertising space at OnTheMarket, again giving buyers a higher chance of seeing your home. (Screenshots are included so you can see the difference!)
-Add in videos! We create a property advertisement video of your home as well as a walkthrough video to give buyers a clear idea of what is being offered. We also complete a virtual tour so that people are able to walk around your home from the comfort of their own sofa. We offer these different presentations as we are aware that buyers spend different amounts of their spare time researching a new home and require different media types to suit their lifestyle.
-Complete a professional and detailed floor plan with full measurements so buyers have an excellent idea of sizes and can visualise how big or small various rooms are.
-Include a ’Spotlight’ on the location of the house. This gives the buyer information about the area including the history, what there is to do and insights into the current population as well as data of the local property market.
-Include a buyer quiz! Who doesn’t love a quiz? We provide a buyer quiz to determine how suitable the house is for them, with the result being to either book a viewing or look or not!
As you can see we maximise the potential of the online space offered to us by OnTheMarket to ensure buyers have all the information they need to know whether to say YES and book a viewing of your home.
The Importance of a Good Presentation:
So why do we do this? Why put so much effort in? Let’s split this into two sections for the buyers and sellers.
Buyers:
From the buyer’s perspective, we want to give you the opportunity to say no; that this isn’t the right home for you. I know this sounds strange, to say no? However, saying yes to viewing properties without possessing enough information about them is bonkers! A waste of time, money and effort.
We want you to be able to make good quality decisions on the purchase of your next home from the comfort of your sofa. We want to make sure that when you book a property viewing through us, you have clear expectations of what you’re going to experience when you arrive. We understand that viewing a property costs you time and money; we’re not here to waste either of these. If you’d like to find out more information about online viewings, then here’s a link to a blog written by my colleague: A Tech Wizard’s Tips!
Sellers:
The seller’s perspective is simple. We want to ensure we create ‘Confirmation Viewings’. These are viewings that match the real life experience to the online experience. We want to create viewings where buyers are arriving at your home with it already on their shortlist. The viewing for the buyer should be a confirmation of their already existing expectations and emotions that has been created whilst exploring the online presentation. They should have a positive outlook on your home before they arrive at it! It’s far better for the buyer to process these feelings before the viewing takes place in person rather than them trying to do this during it. We want the viewing to be comfortable for them, to confirm these emotions and decision that they made prior to walking through your front door!
To Conclude…
Thanks for taking the time to read this blog!
Looking for some next steps? These links could be useful:
- An online valuation of your home in 60 seconds!
- Personal assessment of your home with Tortoise Property!
- Are we the right Estate Agent for you? Take the quiz!
- Connect and stay up to date with all things Tortoise!
If you have any questions or topics you would like to see me discuss in the future, then please do get in touch. I’m more than happy to connect with marketers, whether you work in my industry or not, as well as industry experts who I myself could learn from. You can connect with me on LinkedIn here.
Thanks again, and I look forward to connecting.