Marketing Land

I have been the owner of a private island for a number of months and as is typical of most island owners, I am selling my mainland holdings now since I have moved most of my business operations to my island.

When I bought land in SL, it was easy - just searched around and bought what I thought was nice. Things got more complicated as I gained a better understanding of SL since I now have very precise requirements in terms of location, size, and of course price. While buying has become gradually more complicated, it pales in comparison to selling.

Selling land is much more complicated since the land market is, and has been for a long time, saturated. Someone looking for land has a huge choice - which is a great thing for buyers and not-so-great for those selling land. I went through a range of marketing efforts, including making my current customers aware of the land, posting ads on various plots I own in high traffic areas (I do get referrals from those - more about this later), and forum posts.

The interesting thing is that most buyers have precise requirements too. When I started to sell land, I wanted to grab the attention of someone that might not have considered buying land - this was a mistake. If someone is not in the land market, they are not likely to suddenly enter the market as a result of seeing a nice plot of land. Someone that is already in the market already has an idea of what they are looking for - the seller's job is to use his or her own opportunity sell to make potentially interested people aware of a possible buying opportunity.

So, I trashed my old marketing strategy and ended up selling most of my land rather quickly.

My base plan is pretty straight forward: size plots for sale so that they fit into a reasonable tier level, and then price based on the going rates in the area, the average selling price of all land in SL, and the selling price of land of the same size (regardless of location) as shown in the Land For Sale listing.

Based on this simple strategy I sold 2/3 of my land within a week. The remaining 1/3 has been on the market for a couple of weeks now and is due for a change in strategy.

The strategy for last 1/3 is going to be based only on two factors: size and price. I have come to the conclusion that this last 1/3 is really not worth holding on to for much longer since I no longer use it. I made a reasonable profit (10%) on the first 2/3 so I am willing to go as low as my purchase price to get the land sold.

Lesson learned: there is a lot of information out there - even when it does not seem apparent that there is any information in the first place. Your customers are talking - it is not only just a matter of listening to what they are saying but also what they are doing.