Harnessing the powers of both online and offline. Cheers.

Everyone says ONLINE will kill offline. Well, I do not think so. Just go to some coffee shops and we will be able to see many drinking coffee and reading newspapers at the same time. Even my father buys the newspaper everyday.  When I was young, I read two newspapers daily. Yes, that was pretty long time ago. I used to read both the English and Malay daily. I like both actually. My first job was found through newspaper. I found my second job online and the other jobs all found me online. I stopped buying newspapers at least 10 years ago. Proptech has changed a lot of things. Real estate negotiators (RENs) who do not know what is online advertisement, does not have access to Facebook or even Whatsapp property groups will find it hard to even survive, not to mention prosper.
However, there are still people stuck in the past. A SENIOR MANAGER in a PUBLIC LISTED developer told me this, ‘Charles, my campaigns via all these offline media is many times better than online.’ I asked her how much she spent for ALL her offline campaigns and she refused to answer. For everyone’s information, just newspapers adverts alone? Over RM100,000. Haha. She was fortunate because her property was one of its kind. Facing the sea some more. As for online, well her property was launched with a FULLY functioning WEBSITE (this is online…)  So, she was using offline to drive lots of traffic to her online and from her online, people continue to buy.  I hope she continues to be successful. Coming back to the newspaper and property story. Frankly, newspapers + online would be the best working partners. Online includes property listing sites, blogs and social media. Offline should include speaker engagements too; sales manager talking versus some seemingly neutral parties would have different effects. Do both please.
Think.  If we decided that we want to buy a property within these past few years, do we immediately run to the nearest convenience store to buy a newspaper and start browsing for property advertisements? Let’s assume, we browsed through the pages and found an interesting looking property advertisement by a developer. We assume that the advertisement was done in FULL COLOURS (around the price of a new base model MyVI). Do we immediately rush to the show gallery to view the unit? Even assuming we somehow saw an interesting show gallery along the road and we decided to drop by. After listening to the sales person, do we immediately sign to buy? Seriously? No… Usually, the smartphone will be our best resource to find out what’s available, get to know why it’s good or bad as well as comparing different products based on our personal set of criteria. Online becomes critical and different channels help to connect the dots. Do read an article in Focus Malaysia which tells a similar story but with much more stats and different reasonings from the industry experts. Happy mixing both for the best success yeah.
written on 20 April 2018
Next suggested article:  Selling your home faster? Some tops (updated) – Usable for RENs too