Outspoken online agency eMoov is criticising what it calls the marketing strategy of Agents' Mutual's new OnTheMarket portal, saying it is not spending enough to compete with Rightmove and Zoopla.
In eMoov's latest blog, the firm's head of marketing Stephen Jury says his major criticism of OnTheMarket is that by forcing member agents to move away from either Rightmove or Zoopla. it is giving consumers a worse experience for their [founding agents'] gain.
Jury asks: How is this helping UK property sellers and claims that a customer- focused agent would want to give the best marketing to customers, meaning they would be on the largest portals.
He also doubts the marketing spend of Agents' Mutual, estimated at £6m to £8m. How long have the [existing] portals spent building Search Engine Optimisation to rank on Google on pretty much every town and street in the UK asks July.
He claims that even if the new portal employs a good SEO agency with previous property classified experience, it will be a hard slog to rank OnTheMarket within the next six months.
I'm sure they will come out fighting in January, but how many consumers are really going to hang about in say March if their property hasn't been sold by their agent. Questions will be asked, I'm sure, and any agent not on Zoopla or Rightmove will have to justify this to their customers he says.
Comments
Will you please tell me what is you exactly tell about in your post property sellers, agents or mutual marketing strategies. .:o
Whether or not you dislike online agents and/or Mr Quirk, the points that Mr Shinerock and EAT have been trying to make provide valuable balance to PropertyIndustryEye's slavish promotion of AM and Onthemarket. There is something very nasty and discriminatory about the way AM targets dissenters, and Eye does not help with its insistence on commentators registering before posting comment, which makes it even easier for the pro AM heavies to target online dissenters and ban from their meetings anybody who dares to promote critical debate. Surely it is a fundamental right to debate democratically and withhold your identity for fear of reprisals
The sooner the better we get rid of these low service, cheap as chips, online parasites the better!
It might seem like that to you, but to me it seems like putting a lot of faith in a business that doesn't exist yet. I think 5 years is a ridiculous commitment, who do these people think they are, the Gods of estate agency or something, oh, hang on a moment, they do don't they. By the way, I was told I was not welcome at one of their 'open meetings' despite being invited because I had apparently been outspoken in my criticism. Well we will se who gets the last laugh won't we.
@Simon Shinerock
It would seem that supporting AM is all about agents taking back control of their own businesses advertising etc. Proper mass coverage by the agents themselves give it a chance. Management Consultants and it would seem yourself, preach that the prime purpose of a business is to provide a 'service' to the public but it is first and foremost to make a profit. A considerable number of agents are not stupid you know so we will see.
P.S. Stephen Jury would say that wouldn't he!
Jackie, well said. The comments on portals actually support the ill informed view that portals are all that is needed to sell property.
It probably is a bit illogical to rant about something you think will fail and create opportunities for non joiners, just because you have been excluded. However, the sheer arrogance of Agents Mutual/OnTheMarket and their blatant disregard for the free market makes it emotionally understandable. I personally can't wait for next year so I can watch their pathetic proposition fall apart at the seams. However, I won't be saying I told you so, or holding my breath for an admission of failure. The people behind agents mutual are not going to admit anything, what they will be good at is allocating blame, I'm sure of that. I just feel a bit sorry for the gullible agents who have been sucked in by the rhetoric and signed up for five years!
One thing I have learnt from all these exchanges and ranting's is how bitter, twisted, childish and unprofessional these so called experts are. For their sake I only hope their clients do not read these articles!!!
emoov you have made your point, thrown your rattle out the pram....now lets us all go about running our businesses and leave the clients to decide.
Full blog available here http://www.emoov.co.uk/blog/2014/10/13/onthemarketcom-marketing-opinion/
Diddums
More playground silliness. I still think OnTheMarket's decision to exclude online agents is wrong and narrow-minded, but eMoov, as usual, is not covering itself in glory with its barely disguised bitterness.
The onliners aren't going to let this drop, are they What I don't understand is that if OTM is going to be so rubbish why are firms like eMoov showing so much bitterness about not being invited to the party If I was an online agent who thought that OTM would be a failure I would be keeping quiet and hoping that as many agents as possible signed up so that come the New Year I would have an 'advantage' - such a lack of logic with all this continual smoke-blowing.
Im sure they will come out fighting in January, but how many consumers are really going to hang about in say March if their property hasnt been sold by their agent."
It never ceases to amaze me that people seem to forget that we all sold houses before portals were invented!