In an increasingly non-print world, real estate print advertising may occupy a smaller space in your marketing plan, but it continues to be significant to market segments that value print. And the logistics of putting out effective listing-based print ads is as challenging and time consuming as ever.
Any good system needs to start with import capabilities. Manual input is a productivity killer. Beyond initial input ask if your software can also augment your database with new data sets - those you may have currently or may have in the future.
And what about exports? Your ad management software should allow for the enhancement of images and data. Make sure you are able to syndicate that enhanced data to online portals, and other marketing vendors.
Every ad and every data export caters to a specific set of data parameters, whether geographic, price-relative, specific property characteristics or several other indicators. Make sure your system allows easily-applied constraints that make ad selection quick, easy and efficient.
You may want to do production in your own marketing department, you may want to outsource it to a third party, or you may want your publications to pick up data sets that pertain to each specific ad. Or you may want to assign those options to specific ads, based on an ad's importance and cost considerations.
Make sure your ad management software gives you the choice – and that each ad production choice is reliable, automated and structured to ensure flawless output.
Make sure your system can track expenses, not only for an ad page, but the cost of each listing in each ad. This detail allows instant analysis of ad invoices, and how they break down across office profit centers, as well as agent and listing expense analysis.
An e-commerce application will allow you to collect ad costs by credit card at the time of order – eliminating collections altogether.
An ad management system should be a marketing database, where enhanced data can be applied to other marketing functions, as exports of data to a separate vendor, or enhancements to the ad software that allows one-click tours, property websites, video, social feeds, listing syndication and more. Ask your ad management vendor how they stack up in this regard.