Turning engagement into income
Over the following pages…
Financial benefit 1 – taking from the competition
Throughout this document, our aim has been to put forward ways to engage and entice clients away from competitors, with the aim of benefiting market position, brand/business reputation and profitability. In terms of ROI/income, what follows can only ever be considered a hypothetical, a very big what if, where all the ducks were in a row, but we do believe there is the potential for financial gain.
Our thinking:
- Everything outlined in this document works together to bring in at least 1 new potential client/instruction a month that would have gone to a competitor, aka +1 to Aled Ellis & Co Ltd, -1 to the competitor.
- If Aled Ellis & Co Ltd has 8 main competitors in Ceredigion, that’s potentially 8 new clients a month, or 96 a year who have chosen Aled Ellis & Co Ltd over them.
- Take Zoopla’s average Ceredigion property value, which currently hovers around £285,000, and a 1.5% commission. Should those 96 complete, it could potentially add £410,400 in income, at 1.25% it’s £342,000. Office for National Statistics (ONS) has the Welsh average house sale price as £196,500 as of September 2023.
- With more clients comes a bigger market (and portal) share, which in turn attracts even more clients who are looking for a track record of competency and success, leading to an even bigger share and so on.
On Zoopla, at the time of writing, Aled Ellis & Co Ltd has roughly 6% market share of the 800 or so Ceredigion properties listed. With 21 agencies currently active on the site, we believe they could all lose clients to Aled Ellis & Co Ltd’s superior service offer.
There is a caveat, a savvy competitor can do the same if they can create a better service offer and market it well, but, and we could be mistaken, we don’t think they’ve thought about it to this degree.
Financial benefit 2 – commission
This may read a little naïve as to the way estate agents operate, and there are a few ‘what if’s’ but, perhaps, another financial benefit derived from increased engagement could be to monetise faster completions.
Although business needs will dictate matters, and it can be difficult to argue for even a slightly higher commission if the market is settled at a certain rate, our thinking is with increased engagement comes more instructions, and more opportunities to match listings to clients, which could lead to offers being made/accepted sooner, and if all goes well, faster completions.
Although this could be marketed just as an extra reason to choose Aled Ellis & Co Ltd over a competitor, over time, it could also be used to keep the minimum commission at a higher rate e.g. the Ceredigion average is around 26 weeks, complete in under 20 weeks and the client pays 2%, under 26 weeks it’s 1.75%, beyond 26 weeks it’s 1.5% or a variable.
The idea is that there’s no loss of commission if the process takes the average or longer, but if faster for any reason, there’s a potential for gain, especially if the listing is likely to move quickly anyway. Our possibly naïve thinking is that a prospective client might agree to pay a little more for the chance of a quicker sale.
Possible tagline: We complete faster, or you pay less commission.
Financial benefit 3 – a featured listing
This is a cheeky one, but a third potential benefit of increased engagement, could be to monetize featured listings on the website. In exchange for a marginally higher commission, a limited number of clients would get an exclusive featured (spotlight) listing on the website homepage, a primary slot at the top of the upper section of the main sales page, a primary position on the office window and the main listings wall.
When it comes to marketing, perhaps the best idea would be to offer it face to face initially, a quiet, soft launch where the customer agrees to an extra 0.5% commission in return for the benefits the extra prominence would bring. If uptake is a success, then market it as a dedicated service.
Zoopla featured service
Though not a benefit derived from anything in this document, Zoopla featured displays seem to by default prioritise estate agents alphabetically, so a Featured Agent listing would place Aled Ellis & Co Ltd at the top of the page and the first estate agents a potential client sees. The only way that would change is if the user set a different sorting option.
As far as we know, the only way another agent can take that featured first place is if they have a name that is earlier in the alphabet. Alexanders who are currently first, would drop to second, as Aled is ahead of Alex. A1 Property Letting could be first, but they serve the lettings market and most likely wouldn’t be in play.
According to Zoopla, being featured on average increased property search views by 129%, tripled search click rates to property details pages when compared to other listings of the same age and doubled leads to slow-moving properties. Being featured might be a financially worthwhile avenue to explore, and it also bodes well for our own featured listings idea.