Real Estate Advertising in Today’s Auction Industry
Doug Regehr, Tonganoxie, Kans., defended his thesis, “Real Estate Advertising in Today’s Auction Industry,” Tuesday, April 28, 2009. Regehr is General Manager of Purple Wave, Inc. in Lee’s Summit, Mo. He graduated from Kansas State University in May with a Master of Agribusiness (MAB).
Purple Wave, Inc. is family-owned auction company founded in 2001. It is an online auction company which combines live auction with an online presence. The company has five major sales areas, including real estate. Today, selling real estate by auction is the fastest growing segment of the auction industry. Because of that growth, Purple Wave wanted to evaluate its real estate marketing methods. Regehr surveyed past auction attendees to determine the best methods to allocate marketing funds to attract real estate bidders.
“Information gathered from the surveys allowed me to generate marketing plan menus that include fixed and variable costs. This enables us to show potential customers how marketing funds are used to gain them the maximum amount of advertising exposure,” Regehr said.
The research on how the company can better spend the marketing dollars to ensure the auction will reach the maximum price for the parcel of real estate became the topic of Regehr’s Master of Agribusiness thesis project.
Kevin Gwinner, Marketing professor and Regehr’s thesis advisor, said, “Real estate is a high growth segment of today’s auction market. Doug’s study is the first published research of its kind that seeks to blend theory and practical application in this highly competitive area. The result is a tool that allows his company to efficiently recoup their marketing costs and at the same time target the most appropriate media outlets for promoting auction events to potential bidders.”
The full thesis publication can be found online on K-State’s Research Exchange at http://hdl.handle.net/2097/11970.
