Real Estate Times Deathwatch, continued…

The continuing irrelevance of print media advertising for real estate marketing is something that I’ve mentioned before. In particular, I give our local glossy mag a pretty hard time, so I figured I’d take a look at the most recent issue (Mar 17 – 30) to see how they are doing. By all accounts, as we are in peak real estate selling season in San Francisco (February – June, then September – October) so the magazine should be at its healthiest, heaviest fighting weight right now. Unfortunately for them, the latest issue clocks in at an underwhelming 48 pages (not including front cover, inside front cover, inside rear cover, and rear cover).

Real Estate Times, looking pretty anorexic

As you can see from the image above, the Real Estate Times San Francisco is looking just as anorexic and haggard as the January issue, but the continued weight loss is all the more shocking given that this is peak season for real estate advertising.

Perhaps even more ominous for this all glossy production is that they dedicate a full page of advertising to explaining all of the online websites that will feature your advertising if you shell out the bucks for a page in their publication. Which seems to me to really undercut their messaging that print is an expensive and utterly necessary part of a successful property marketing campaign.

As you may have guessed, I strongly disagree – and here’s one more reason why: demographics. If I’m going to shell out the kind of dollars that Real Estate Times San Francisco wants for a full page ad, I could run a much more targeted campaign on facebook, google adwords, display ads, or pretty much any online advertising space. Advertising in print leaves me up to the mercy of the fates – I have no idea who is going to pick up a copy and read it. But online I can target my dollars in a very, very, very specific way and have incredible data to analyze during and after the campaign.