Why Advertise on TV
TV Helps You Sell More Listings And Get More Clients
Visiting parts of this website, you may have asked the question “How does putting my listing on TV help me sell it?”. That’s exactly what this page is going to cover. The fact is, that since the advent of “digital marketing” TV has gotten an undeserved bad reputation.
After reading this section you will understand why that bad reputation is undeserved and how you can capitalize on the misunderstanding held by other, competitive real estate agents.
TLDR: Here’s a brief synopsis of why TV is so much better for selling your listing than online marketing alone:
- THE NUMBER OF PEOPLE WATCHING TV DWARFS THOSE SEARCHING ONLINE. Locally, Preview of Homes reaches 309,600 households, while there are fewer than 15,000 searches per month online for real estate in the Treasure Valley.
- PEOPLE WATCH APPROXIMATELY 4X MORE TV THAN THEY DO ONLINE VIDEO. And that number grows as the demographic ages. Established families, with more money, spend far more time watching TV than searching online.
- 36% MORE PEOPLE TRUST TV CONTENT THAN SOCIAL MEDIA CONTENT. It’s not just that they trust TV more, but 1/3 more people inherently trust the content coming from TV than from social media or other online platforms.
- TV IS EXCLUSIVE. Anyone can throw up a website or purchase an online ad for a keyword phrase. But hardly anyone can get on television.
- TV GRANTS FAR MORE CREDIBILITY THAN AN ONLINE PRESENCE ALONE. Partially due to the exclusivity factor of TV vs online media, those who appear on TV or who can get their listings on TV, enjoy far more credibility as the go-to expert than those agents who don’t.
- TV AD SPEND IS AT LEAST 4X-5X OF THE TOTAL “ONLINE” AD SPEND (approx. 32-37% vs 8%). This is because there are far more people watching TV than are online and, coupled with all the other benefits TV advertising offers, TV ad spend results in far more sales than online marketing does.
One thing most agents aren’t aware of is that the amount of money spent each year on TV ads is far, far greater than online ads, including social media & online video (those two represent just 8% of the overall ad spend nationwide – crazy!). Most major, consumer-faced companies dedicate a large portion of their ad spend to TV.
Why do these advertisers spend 4x-5x more on television than ALL online media combined? There are a few reasons.
- There are simply more people watching TV than who are browsing online. The Preview of Homes TV show reaches a vast audience of 309,600 households in the Treasure Valley, according to ABC’s own numbers. That is over 10 times the online housing searches in the Treasure Valley for any given month!
- People watch, on average, at least 4x more television than they do all other “digital” media combined, including on tablets, computers, and game consoles. This is according to eMarketer.com, a company specializing in helping companies with their online marketing. If anyone is interested in showing the dominance of online marketing vs TV it would be them. But even they are forced to concede that TV still dominates our behavior, just as it does your buyers’ behavior.
- Another reason is because one of the most important factors when choosing to do business with someone is trust. Among the various media available to you to advertise your property or your services, TV has the highest trust level of any ad medium. TV is one of the best ways to start off on the right foot in the eyes of both buyers and sellers.
According to consumer research firm Nielson, 46% of survey respondents said they trust information and advertising from social media, compared to 63% who said they trust ads & info on television. 37% MORE PEOPLE trust ads & info coming from the TV than they do ads & info coming from social media such as Facebook. Even though these people know the TV ads are paid for and the social media placement may not be, more of them still trust TV than social media.
TV is exclusive. Let’s face it, while you can buy ads online for almost any keyword phrase you can think of the number of, TV ad spots are limited to a finite number. Add to the equation the fact that TV ads usually cost far more than online ads, and you have a recipe that spells exclusivity. We all know that being featured on the news or a show is far more effective than purchasing ad space on a show. This is because when someone is featured on a program the feeling is that they have been selected from all the competition as someone who stands head and shoulders above the rest.
When your listing is featured on the Preview of Homes TV show, viewers don’t perceive the feature as an advertisement. Instead, they see it as an exclusive property that is deserving of their time and attention because it is obviously better than the rest of the properties on the market at the time. Not only that, but with a very limited number of spots per show, there is a very real cap on how many properties we can feature in a given week or month. Those homes who make the show enjoy a status not available to any others, along with the other benefits mentioned above.