Homes and Land Magaziine advertising! OMG! WHAT A DEAL!

I spent the last week trying to decide if I wanted to begin a marketing campaign in one or any of the hardcopy priint magazines. So I began looking them up online and contacting the necessary representatives to obtain the advertising costs.

After about ten calls to all the of the most popular magazines and getting all the pricing and other perks and bennies that came with them all I had made a decision on which one I was going to go with - HOMES AND LAND!

Now, the rep had told me the pricing and one of the many benefits that she "assured" me of was that of the approximately 150 leads per month that I would receive that they were thoroughly screened unlike any other lead generating systems.

Now, I had all but committed myself to Homes and Land Magazine at this point and I wanted to get some ideas on how to format my ad so I went to HomesandLand.com and placed an order for the magazine just as any other buyer or seller might do. Now, I really wasn't thinking about it at the time I simply wanted a copy of the magazine and did not want to take the time go and locate one in any of the in-store racks but later something would become blatantly apparent regarding the lead generation.

The system will not allow someone that is ordering the magazine to opt out of being contacted and, in fact, would also force you to decide if you are a buyer or seller. There is no option for I am an agent wanting a copy of the magazine, I am not serious about buying or selling, i.e. "none of the above". So I chose my options to force the system to mail me the magazine.

Well, I discovered after this that if I wanted to make the deadline I would not have time to wait for the magazine to be mailed to me so I went on my trek to locate a copy myself.

I first went to the closest Publix to me and found many other magazines on the rack but no Homes and Land. I went to Albertson's next...no Homes and Land. Wal-Mart...no Homes and Land Magazine here either. So I was not going to give up and I kept on my search and went to four other locations before I finally located a copy. And mind you, it wasn't because the ads were all taken. The racks were all marked for what magazine goes in the rack's slots. None of the stores I went to had a slot for Homes and Land Magazine...until the 7th store which was completely full of the Homes and Land Magazines.

Now, at this point I was becoming very concerned if I was making a good choice or not on which magazine I might use. If I can't find a copy how many potential buyers would find one? And this was near the end of the cycle for that month and the ONE store I located that had them in the slot was FULL indicating that even though they claimed to have a large of magazines in racks with a large number of circulation (40,000 county wide supposedly) that no one was taking the magazine, or at least not from the one store that actually stocks them.

So I called the rep the next morning to discuss this issue. She claimed that they were all taken by users of the magazine. But I explained that the racks were all clearly marked in the slots and the stores that did not have any copies had no slots marked for Homes and Land Magazine either. To which I was told that they are only in "select" locations that are high traffic. So I told her that once I finally found one that the slot on this rack was completely full to which, of course, she had an answer to that as well. That particular location is just not moving the magazines as well as others.

Now, I had written the prices down but I asked again what the cost of a full page ad was going to be. Funny, the price went up from $439/mth to $695/mth for a glossy print full page add. I did not say a thing to her about this just to see if she was going to be willing to negotiate the price (keep in mind they are franchised). I asked that for one month the price be at $500 (still an increase over the price I was quoted the day before!) and she would not budge.
So I told her that I was going to think it over but would most likely choose a competitor and thanked her for her time.

Now, when I registered for the magazine to be sent to me I registered with my email address from my Point2Agent domain which is realtyagentpro.com. Clearly anyone in their right mind would see that I am an agent that would be "screening" them. No one from Homes and Land Magazine had attempted to contact me to screen me in any way, shape or form and I began getting emails from both REALTORs and mortgage brokers.

I went to my mailbox yesterday to find a letter from a brokers office that I used to work at. I open it and find two copies of the same Buyer's Agent brochure. So I called the agent that sent them to discover that he had mailed me these items because he had received the lead from Homes and Land Magazine.

Now, as I stated above, the rep from Homes and Land Magazine assured me that the leads were scrubbed thoroughly before being sent to the agents. Which by the way are sent to "all" the local agents at the same time that are advertising in the area not just one. But also, since I had given my email address the agent did not catch from my email that I am a REALTOR and sent me a copy of their marketing brochure. I thank them for that because now I have some more good material to utilize! LOL

Well, needless to say, these events did encourage me.And I know now that my decision in the past not to utilize the print advertising has been a good decision. It's encouraged me to find a different marketing avenue to spend my money on!

I don't appreciate being lied to and/or having someone attempt to take advantage of me. This is just another great example as to why we as REALTORs need to take a concertive approach amongst ourselves to force these companies to change their behaviour and their super exorbitant pricing.

Yea, yea I know. If 99.9% of us boycott them there will be that one agent that will take advantage of it and jump off the bandwagon to be the "ONLY" agent utilizing that method of advertising to gain advantage over her competition.

Wow, what a deal! Or NOT!

Thanks Homes and Land Magazine for refeshing my memory. I'm sure glad I didn't give you my money!

I think I will take a nice little weekend away instead.

Best of luck to you!

Scott McClain
http://www.realtyagentpro.com/