Engaging Your Buyers

by Gary Bateman and Trevor Reid

Could you imagine a potential purchaser spending up to 10 minutes looking at just the one ad for your property?

With the emergence of property portals over the past few years, online advertising is now critical to marketing properties. More than 75% of buyers use the internet to research properties and in excess of 7.5 million unique browsers view properties advertised on the web in Australia each month.

The biggest challenge with internet advertising is making sure that your agency's properties stand out from the crowd. The usual strategy for agents has been to pay for a prime position on a property portal. But even if you are at the top of the page, and even if you can attract attention with a clever headline or gorgeous picture, how can you hold the potential purchaser's attention for more than a few seconds?

Some agents are trying to engage purchasers through the use of interactive tools such as blogs, virtual tours or slideshows, however for many agents this has been too technically challenging or too expensive.

A new web tool called YouVu has overcome these hurdles. From as little as $40 per property, agents can easily create an interactive experience for buyers looking at properties online.

All buyers need to do is click on a link in the ad, or perhaps on your website or in an email or electronic newsletter. The link takes them to a separate page. At first glance it looks similar to ordinary online ads - with a few photos of the properties, some information about them and possibly a virtual tour.

What makes YouVu different is that you can hover the cursor on highlighted points on each photo (called Emotion Icons) to see another picture or new information. Buyers can click on rooms that interest them - perhaps the bathroom, dining room or hallway - and be taken to new pictures, new information and slideshows.

The Emotion Icons allow users to view details up close, see through walls, change perspectives, peep around corners, open closed doors, peer through windows, inspect other rooms and more, simply by moving the cursor over the Emotion Icon.

This creates an interactive experience for the buyers that can engage them for as long as 10 minutes! That's 10 minutes of their time spent learning about the property and forming a connection with it - and a lot longer than they usually spend looking at property ads.

You don't have to be a technology whiz to create the virtual showroom. All agents have to do is upload the pictures they want and follow step-by-step instructions to add the Emotion Icons and the text. If you like, you can also add, videos, sound, music or even Google's latest invention, Street View.

For agents looking to make their online property ads stand out, I would urge them to spend just a couple of minutes trying out a demo at www.youvu.com.au and see for themselves how easy and effective this new marketing tool can be.

Gary Bateman and Trevor Reid are Directors of YouVu Pty Ltd. For more information, visit www.YouVu.com.au.