Do you remember the good old days Sending in your dozen properties by post or courier to the local newspaper, perhaps with mini print photographs attached - or much later by email with blurry black and white images Ahh, how quaint.
These newspaper 'grids' of properties did indeed produce a result, phone calls from eager buyers waiting to see what was new to the market the very day the newspapers were published.
For twenty years I was one of those estate agents, before entering the publishing business myself as Sales Director of a 'new wave' weekly property magazine. That was fifteen years ago, and how modern - and profitable - it was.
Then the internet delivered the next perfect solution - searchable portals displaying streams of properties posted up the same day as they came on the market. Agents could surely now just put their feet up and wait for the phone to ring.
Well, this property revolution was well and truly in place ten years ago and increasingly the message from estate agents to us publishers was 'we don't need to do any print advertising anymore'. One by one they disappeared into the homogenised world of the internet and their branding disappeared. They were starting to display properties like saucepans on Amazon!
I had always believed that the purpose of all advertising, but especially print, was to help agents entice new vendors to list their properties on their books. With that in mind, I was deeply puzzled as to why some continued to advertise in the same old daily newspaper or fading weekly magazine, in template grids of 12 or more, their ad designs virtually unchanged from 10 years earlier.
Fast forward to 2014. Now, photographers, copywriters and brand marketeers were being employed by estate agencies, but evidently to little good effect as all their print adverts still looked so dull!
From my own estate agency and marketing experience I firmly believed what was needed was a more economical way to showcase the estate agents, giving them a USP, maximising their branding and individuality, and displaying gorgeous properties within a clean and contemporary ad design. The solution was the advent of PORTFOLIO magazine in the summer of 2014, a freely distributed but high-quality property and business publication. Now, already well-supported and offering advertisers contemporary design, great editorial, celebrity interviews, interiors/home shopping and topical business stories, PORTFOLIO has taken Brighton & Hove by storm!. Add to this the wide distribution network spanning hundreds of outlets all eager to stock the magazine and the longer (monthly) shelf life guaranteeing maximum audience and you have a recipe for great value to the advertiser.
It may be true that PORTFOLIO might not be as effective in some parts of the UK. Brighton & Hove is virtually unique in experiencing the London effect' of migrating buyers and demanding vendors who expect estate agents to work that bit harder at selling their biggest asset.
But at a time when portals themselves need print advertising to help with exposure to the market, it doesn't hurt to keep an eye on how to appeal to vendors in your area and stand out from the crowd. Maybe it's time to look again at quality magazine advertising.
*Lynne Edwards is Managing Director of PORTFOLIO magazine
www.portfoliopublications.co.uk
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