What UK High Street Estate Agency could learn from the slow death of Sunday Newspapers, the success of Savills and why Purplebricks might not succeed after all
I read a recent report that said most newspaper’ s circulation is dropping like a stone, especially at the Weekend.
The difference in their performance of the Sunday newspapers, year on year is quite staggering. The year on year circulation figures, released a few months ago, are eye watering
- Daily Star Sunday - down 13.2%
- Sunday Mirror - down 16.3%
- Sunday People - down 15.1%
- Sunday Express - down 5.6%
- Mail on Sunday - down 7.34%
…. Yet come Sunday 8am … and I heard the newspaper lad deliver next doors half a rainforest Sunday Times (we have been neighbours for 20 years – hence I know which newspaper) and his bag of newspapers was a full as chipmunk cheeks as he biked up the hill to deliver the rest of his heavy load
… because note I said most newspapers in the first paragraph, since The Sunday Times improved its circulation by 3.8% and the Sunday Telegraph was up 2.3%
The Internet Should Have Killed the Newspaper, like it did Woollies and Blockbuster
The t’interweb has killed some long-established companies, such old-school companies like Blockbuster Videos, Comet, High St Insurance firms, Woollies and High St travel agents. They all stood still, becoming irrelevant, while their clients progressed on without them (with Netflix, Amazon etc) in this new technological world
The internet and 24hr news channels should have also made the printing presses silent years ago.. and they are doing a pretty good job in most sectors of the newspapers …yet 792,000 copies of the Sunday Times get delivered every Sunday (an improvement of 3.8% on last year and the year before that … they grew by 3.4%!)
Why are newspapers like the Sunday Times and Sunday Telegraph doing so well against 24hour TV news and Twitter, when the sales of red tops and the Immigrant/Brexit/Diana story wielding Daily Mail and Express dropping like a stone?
Is Purplebricks the Netflix and Amazon of UK Estate Agency?
It’s true these new 21st Century firms (Netflix, Go Compare, Compare the Merkat, Amazon and Trip Advisor) spotted an opportunity and with awesome competency, know-how, reach, delivery and marketing – blew the old-school competition away
Yet,.. there is an important thought here …
What have the Sunday Times / Sunday Telegraph done to remain relevant, that the likes of Sunday People, Sun on Sunday and Daily Mail are slowly shifting their way towards irrelevance …. and possibly joining the likes of Blockbuster/High St Insurance agents etc?
..and then it hit me .. changes in relevance of a certain good or service, caused by this 21st Century new age internet economy, has nothing to do with the thing you are selling.
Are High Street Estate Agents going to become irrelevant and go the way of Woollies, Comet, Blockbuster and be beaten by the likes an Estate Agency equivalent of Netflix/ Amazon (ie Purplebricks/Yopa etc) .. or are they going to be more relevant like the Sunday Times?
To answer that .. we have to look at the market place itself
Newspapers aren’t all dead (just most of them)
In this 21st century world .. we are all in a shifting market place ..
Yet, my intuition tells me there is more to a shifting market place than a deterioration, a change or a movement in demand for that product or service … and then it struck me .. that UK estate agency is just like the all the Sunday newspapers
Like I mentioned in the previous section above, “Netflix, Go Compare, Compare the Merkat, Amazon and Trip Advisor) spotted an opportunity and with awesome competency, know-how, reach, delivery and marketing – blew the old-school competition away”
Every UK Sunday newspaper, be it a quality (Sunday Times/Telegraph), middle ranking (Sunday Mail/Sunday Express) or Red Top (People/Sun etc), isn’t lacking any competency, know-how, reach, delivery and marketing… and neither is UK Estate agency … in fact the similarity is spooky …
· Competency - all the newspapers staffed by decent journalists – just like all UK estate agents are staffed by decent negs, valuers and managers
· Know-How – all the newspapers know how to write news articles and take decent pictures, just like all UK estate agents know how to list, marketing and negotiate sales
· Reach – all the newspapers have massive network of 30 to 35,000 newsagents, just like there are 18,000 to 20,000 UK estate agent’s offices
· Delivery – all the newspapers have their newspapers delivered just like all the estate agents have a website (Rightmove) that gets 125 million visits a month
· Marketing – both newspapers and estate agents are king of marketing themselves
So if it isn’t a lack of competency, know-how, reach, delivery and marketing .. what is the issue?
But what have the quality Sunday papers done that other newspapers haven’t?
I believe the quality Sunday Newspapers, especially the Sunday Times and Sunday Telegraph, have organised themselves to be significant, relevant and meaningful to where their middle class reader wants to go with their life in the short, medium and long term .. with stories and articles, they want to read and empathises with.
The posh papers proven ability to sort fact from fiction and to print an outlook from across the political spectrum. They understand the difference between being informed and well-informed …
The quality’s know not to simply chuck out dramatic red top drivel stories about some Z-list Reality show relationships on Love Island or Daily Mail/Express sensationalist Brexit / Immigration/ Diana headlines on a week by week basis to drive up short term readership on a week by week basis (but not long term followers)
What can High Street Estate Agents learn from the newspapers?
What we can learn is it isn’t the largest or most innovative company that wins—it’s the one that’s most significant, relevant and meaningful to the people it serves.
The internet or Purplebricks or Yopa or EasyProperty won’t kill the High Street agents .. it will the High Street themselves that do that … if we don’t become more significant, relevant and meaningful
Significant, relevant and meaningful to the potential client .. not significant, relevant and meaningful to ourselves.
Our marketing and message as an industry hasn’t changed since the 1980’s – 90% of estate agency marketing is all.. we are an estate agent, look at us, we are a brilliant agent, we have sold this, we this this many offices, we have 6 stars out five on Trustpilot, look at the services we provide, we are local, here is a bullet point list of all our services, look at our Rightmove pie chart – its massive, look at our for sale board sold analysis, we have been open since this date, we open 8 days a week, 26 hours a day … utter b******s
… all that might be interesting to us .. and it might be moderately (only moderately mind you) interesting to those 0.01% of the population about to put their property on the market in the next 4 weeks but it isn’t interesting, significant, relevant and meaningful to 99.99% of the house owning population.
Instead of writing rubbish about someone on Big Brother (red tops) or how Diana caused Brexit and immigration whilst driving a T-34 tank in the Daily Mail …. The quality newspapers (Sunday Times etc) produce interesting, significant, relevant and meaningful news and information that people lap up and look forward to …and I suggest, we as estate agents do the same.
What can High Street Estate Agents learn from Savills?
And this idea of producing interesting, significant, relevant and meaningful information isn’t new .. Savills have been doing it for 28 years – and as every agent has suffered .. Savills haven’t .. in fact, they have become the Sunday Times of UK Estate Agency
Look at their share prices ..
Share Values December 2013 to Today (28/08/17)
· Savills +42.91%
· Winkworth -40.21%
· LSL (Your Move and Reeds Rain) -50.45%
· Foxtons -76.39%
· Countrywide -77.25%
So, what have Savills done?
Victoria Mitchell set up Savills Research Dept in 1989 with Yolande Barnes ..see this superb report that was written about Savills Research dept. 25 years after it was set up in 2014 and reasons why they set it up http://www.savills.co.uk/research_articles/186866/175593-0
Whilst Winkworths, LSL, Foxtons and Countrywide play the short game by spending millions of pounds banging the drum about their agency to the 0.01% of people about to put their property on the market …Savills instead play the long game.
They produce information that the remaining 99.99% of homeowners and landlords that don’t want to sell in the next couple of weeks find interesting, significant, relevant and meaningful .. so much so the national newspapers, The Evening Standard, the internet, all the regional newspapers lap up the information up like the cat that got the cream .. stuff like this ..
London Prime Market Quarterly Report http://www.savills.co.uk/research_articles/141280/218790-0
UK Housing Market Updates
and local area Reports .. like these
· Westminster and Pimlico http://www.savills.co.uk/research_articles/141285/209325-0
.. but here is where the magic happens .. when some of those 99.99% do want to sell .. guess whose agency is in the head of the punters .. Savills!
Be significant, relevant and meaningful to the people you serve
Have a look at these agents .. they are doing exactly what Savills do .. and do it ifpr a less money that Savills..
Like these agents ..
Birmingham http://bhampropertybuzz.com/
Chelmsford http://chelmsfordpropertyblog.co.uk
Lancaster http://lancasterpropertyblog.co.uk
Or these 25 agents producing monthly local property market reports on their town https://goo.gl/atJsML
These agents aren’t banging on themselves, their 5* Trustpilot rating, their cheap fees, their services or how wonderful they are .. instead they are producing most significant, relevant and meaningful interesting information to the people it serves .. because what we can learn from all this is ..
…. it won't be the largest or smallest, nor the most purple nor most innovative estate agency that wins — it will be the one that’s most significant, relevant and meaningful to the people it serves.
Kind regards
Christopher
PS If you want to find out how to write such articles or have them ghost-written for you .. visit my YouTube channel which has over 90 videos on being the most significant, relevant, meaningful and interesting estate and letting agent (so you can get ore property to sell and and let) https://goo.gl/jOHvsd or visit my blog https://goo.gl/o7gDwN which has 530+ blog posts since 2013 – again –all about being the most significant, relevant, meaningful and interesting estate and letting agent in your town
PPS Someone asked me what the long term readership of the newspapers was .. here they are
PPS Someone asked me what the long term readership of the newspapers was .. here they are
