Okay horse enthusiasts! I want to see your guns! What types of marketing do you use on your horse and equestrian properties? I've been doing some research and came across a few interesting sites that will place classified ads for these types of properties for a fee. I'm kind of skeptical when deciding which one because they all have different fees and looks to them, and I want to make sure I pick the one that buyers see! Here are a few of my top choices:
http://www.horseproperties.net- I usually don't like a website with ".net" in it, I believe you should use domains with a .com, but I liked that they were on-top of Google when I was searching and they use print advertisement...(yes, the hated PRINT advertisements) which I feel is still good for unique properties. They are listed in many equestrian magazines which could help their traffic. The fee is $79 for 4 months, $99 for 6 months or $149 for the year. They also have a nice piece of marketing material you can print and show your sellers where you will be listing their unique property. Looking good...Keeping it at the top of my list!
http://www.sellhorseproperties.com- This is another site I came across while searching, it was at the top on Google for some key words and I really liked the domain name. I didn't see any real other incentives for listing with them such as print or linking to other sites, so I'm still tossing this site around in my mind. Pricing is $55 for 3 months or $75 if you want a featured ad, $110 for 6 months or $130 for the featured placement and it goes up to 9& 12 months for more money. You can pay for optional enhancements such as bold lettering, better placement, more than 2 photos and more. Anyone have experience advertising here? I'm leaning towards the first site I mentioned even though I liked this domain a lot. I just don't see how this site is attracting tons of traffic yet.
http://www.equine.com - I like the domain. They are partnered with http://www.landsofamerica.comand advertise on 300+ sites, the Equine.com network of over 25 sites and on rural sites. Claim to get over 2.2 million visitors (not sure if that's in a day, a month or a year). What I didn't like was that they advertised you could list unlimited properties for $25 per month (didn't say you had to do anything special to qualify for that pricing), but when I went through the sign-up process, the prices went up to $33 per month and it's only $25/month if you pay yearly. That should be advertised upfront, or at least have a special asterisk on the price of $25/month they were saying upfront. Big deal..$33 isn't much so I'll try it anyways. Well, the credit card processing is temporarily down it says on the site, even before I filled in my info. Is this just for today? Has this been like this for weeks? Months? Years? Who knows...Is it just because it's a holiday weekend? I'll have to wait until Monday to call and find out. Site looks great and looks like it's been around awhile. Anyone advertise here?
http://www.propertiesforhorses.com - The last, but not least on my list. This is a nice looking site with a great domain name. Came up on top of searches several times. Has some properties listed in our state for sale so I know someone out here is using them. Pricing is $79.95 until it sells with 6 photos. Extra photos are $5 each. Not bad! Only downfall I'm finding is the navigation through listings. Seems you can't really set any criteria to search besides state. It's not like there are billions of listings in Massachusetts of these types of properties, but it'd be nice to make the site more user friendly.
Now I want you to share! Give me your best resources for advertising equestrian and horse properties! We'll be following through with our original marketing plan, but I want to beef it up to tailor it to this unique property and to show the sellers we care!
THIS BLOG WAS BROUGHT TO YOU BY:
Kathleen Cooper
JCKC Realty Keller Williams
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www.JCKCRealty.com
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Come on...I know someone out there has some experience or ideas to share! Give me a story, a website, a magazine or a thought! I'll appreciate them all!
Sincerely,
Kathleen
You might place fliers in teh equestrian supply stores, Farm and Fleet type stores etc. I have always been welcomed in these places. Also, attend events related to horses and hand out fliers. You can have a good time and work at the same time ( and write off your mileage ).
The pay placement is fun and dandy. But if you utilize SEO rich blogs with links, videos of the place you are selling and the local community it is in to hit all five senses, you can make your own internet campaign. Stand alone blogs on this niche are key.
Ron - Thanks for the great ideas! I'll look into places to pass out fliers for sure!
Andrew - Thanks for reminding me of that. We will definitely utilize our blogs and websites, maybe even throw in some Google PPC. We have a heavy web presence in the town the home is located in so we should be able to attract people easy. I just want to make sure it gets the most exposure possible and always love to hear of new ideas.
Have a great weekend!
Sincerely,
Kathleen
Hi Jack - Thank you for the site! I've been trying to find some free ones, seems a lot of them charge fees but I'll definately check that one out!
Sincerely,
Kathleen
Try www.HorsePropertyClassifieds.com
Great prices - buy ad space for up to 2 years for $99.00
You can print flyers from site.
Thank you for the website! I will check it out! We actually got a call on the house yesterday from an agent who has a client that already wants to make an offer. They are getting their stuff together and I'm waiting to see if it happens, but that would be awesome!
Sincerely,
Kathleen
Hi Kathleen,
I just came across your blog today. If your property hasn't already sold, you might want to consider equinesite.com. It is a local site that is very popular by New England horse people. As a small horse farm owner myself, I can tell you the site is a great place to network with other horse people. It is very inexpensive to place an ad and is worth the money. Another site is equinehomes.com. They post other realtors' listings on their site (not sure if there is a fee involved. It is also a New England based site.
I hope this is helpful!
Hi Kim! Thanks so much for the ideas, I will certainly keep them for future reference. We actually didn't have much time for anything, I am happy to say we sold the home in 26 days and had 3 different offers! We listed the property for $299,900 and sold it for $297,000.
Have a great weekend!
Sincerely,
Kathleen
You are all bozos! You are basing your decisions on how a site looks versus how it performs and how it draws traffic!
That's why real estate people are really bad at selecting where to advertise on the Internet! If a website says they are the "best" or the "professional choice" that doesn't always mean that they give you the best results. And pricing has nothing to do with it. Some of the free advertising sites provide better results that the pay ones. So go figure....
What about "hits" -- what a joke here! One person can put hundreds of "hits" on a site by just going to its home page. This information is useless. Websites can lie about their amount of "hits" -- and they do. Knowing a sites "unique visitors" is much more important...How do you get that information? Well you can ask them. HA - they can give you any number they want. The best sites usually never reply to such a request. Why? Because they don't have to! Or you can use services like compete.com -- but their information is not accurate either...it's just a "guess".
If you have a horse property, say in Seattle, for example, then you should perform a search in all three search engines, google, yahoo & bing for that particular area, i.e., "horse properties for sale in seattle" exact search phrase, and then decide where to list your property. You will be surprised at the results -- and that's how people will find your property. Or even search for "free horse property listings" or something to that effect to find where you can get free listings.
So what's one to do? Well, first of all, I would advertise on as many free sites as possible. Then I would purchase ads on several of the sites that show up in your search engine results.
I'm not naming any sites here...just showing you how to get the best results with just a little knowledge.
Sorry, if this wasn't a "touchy/feely" response. It's just the hard facts!