Property Portals
Property Portals in Focus
With so many advertising options available to market new homes and land, both traditional channels like print and tv, plus newer online options, it’s important to understand before you invest. Property Portals can be a very effective way to drive enquiry and exposure when marketing new homes and land. This article focuses on property portals and their role in marketing “new” property options from home builders and developers, being a very different category to the established real estate market.
What is a Property Portal?
Websites that display product listings from multiple people or companies at one central site are known as portals. Portals are across most categories including property, cars, dating, jobs etc. The biggest brand portals in Australia include Domain.com.au, Carsales.com.au, RSVP.com.au, Seek.com.au etc whilst other portals without the household brand name remain focused on specific niches and are able to deliver exceptional results, like MyPackage.com.au & FindNew.com.au showcasing the new homes and land market.
Why Consumers choose to use Portals
With so much information on the internet, the priority for people now is about streamlining their search and importantly refining the options available. The use of portals helps during all phases of the research process.
For example, if you go to Google and type “House and Land Point Cook” there are 4,010,000 search results. The person performing this search is most likely establishing their shopping list and wanting to understand 3 things:
- Businesses – What businesses operate in this category
- Product – What locations and home design options can I choose from
- Price – How much will it cost
Consumers gravitate to portals to find out this information because it is a most efficient way to review options, become educated and gain confidence. At this point they are connecting with businesses and planning their next steps for further research.
Why Businesses list with Portals
Investing in advertising is only effective when your message reaches and is seen by the right target audience. Importantly also is how many enquiries your advertising generates and at what cost. Some portals emphasise a broad audience reach whilst others have a more focused approach to both audience and content presented.
It is highly probably that the person performing a Google search for “House and Land Point Cook” will visit a portal which displays relevant information. In this example MyPackage.com.au ranks as the number 1 search result in organic listings and is supported by a paid listing, plus is relevant to the category. In this example the advertiser on this portal is able to present a range of opportunities relevant to the consumer and potentially generate a direct enquiry at low cost.
An effective portal will take the visitor directly to a page with the content they are searching, as apposed to landing on a page and having to search to find what you’re looking for. The business investing in advertising is confident that the people looking at their listings are highly targeted and engaged, justifying their investment.
Over and above the results actually generated is the fact that property portals measure and report results, as they are highly transparent. This allows the advertiser to establish the cost per enquiry; amount of brand exposure generated etc, which makes involvement compelling and differentiates it from many other forms of advertising.
Are Portals for me?
In recent years proactive builders, developers and agents have recognised the opportunity and importance of having an extended online presence over and above their own website, hence the popularity of advertising on portals and using other online channels.
In an ideal world every business would advertise in every newspaper, tv station and online channel available to capture every available eyeball, both targeted or not. This is unrealistic and unnecessary. When considering property portals the main ones to consider are the big general property portals and targeted portals that we operate.
What appeals to our clients advertising on MyPackage.com.au and FindNew.com.au is that we have specific portals targeting specific audiences looking for Home builders, land or house & land packages etc and hasn’t created an environment that requires clients to be constantly upgrading listings to be found prominently in search results.
When considering different portal options its imperative that your listings are going to be highly visible and not lost amongst clutter or irrelevant content. As an example if someone searches on a portal for Custom Home Builders or Home Designs in Toorak is the result hidden back on page 3 of 300 results or 1 of 3 results in total appearing on the first or second page.
Property portals can be an excellent investment for businesses that want to generate additional direct enquiry and exposure 24/7, 365 days a year. They are no different than any other advertising medium, where the information needs to be presented thoughtfully to gain a response. It’s easy to get listings uploaded, results are transparent and speaking for ourselves fees are considered very good value.
Written by Adam Keleher. Managing Director Innovation Chain, which operates portals including MyPackage.com.au, FindNew.com.au, FindNewHomeBuilders.com.au and others, providing builders and developers with a low cost targeted advertising solution. Ph: 1800 885 681 or enquiries@findnew.com.au
