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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:

1. Businesses – What businesses operate in this category
2. Product – What locations and home design options can I choose from
3. 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

Business processes are an important part of the business and should be reviewed. Often to maintain a low overhead ratio many staff are being asked to take on additional roles within the business, are these staff skilled to handle these new positions? Is there duplication of tasks happening in your business, are you creating multiple spreadsheets to fill gaps left by your existing business solution?

Utilising the power of an integrated solution ensures that information is entered once and that the entire team are working together. The power of such a system can allow you to review your staffing needs and reallocate resources to other hot spots across the business.

Building your business around a fully integrated business management package that brings together rapid estimating technology, comprehensive and flexible materials and sub-contractor handling, live job costing reporting and a complete General Ledger system with Debtors, Creditors and GST reporting

Written by Brenton Cridland – General Manager (Databuild – www.databuild.com.au)

Web-based, Sales Simplicity has gained its commanding market share in North America because it actually goes beyond CRM, with dashboard-driven performance that automates the new-home sales process and dynamically manages the home builder’s website content, while offering award-winning reporting. Now those same capabilities are available to Australian home builders.

Sales Simplicity also offers a famously user-friendly interface that allows the entire sales team, management, and estimating department to be involved in the sales and options-selection processes. Communicating with prospects and customers is made simple with Sales Simplicity as well, because its eMarketing tools can promote plans and product offerings with individualized, auto-generated, custom emails. Plus, Sales Simplicity’s web tracking features allow real-time reporting on click-through rates that reveal who is viewing specific advertising and home designs. Sales Simplicity’s lead management and sales analytics allow sales managers to see inquiry rates, home visits, and conversion performance for the entire sales team from multiple locations.

“We are now offering ‘beyond CRM’ capabilities in Australia, as well as in the U.S., and Canada, where we are, far-and-away, the #1 solution in sales and performance,” said Barry Forbes, Sales Simplicity’s president and founder. “We expect similar success in Australia, and we’re thrilled to be working with Databuild as our partner.”

“Databuild is excited to be partnering with Sales Simplicity, because we can now bring this brilliant product to our market and our 3,500 customers. We already have customers ready to sign up!” said Brenton Cridland, Databuild’s General Manager.

Contact for Australian builders: 1300 656 790 or email sales@salessimplicity.net.au

About Databuild

Databuild is a software solutions company specializing in estimating, procurement and accounting software for the building and construction industry in Australasia. Databuild offers software targeted at the housing, construction, and other project-based industries. Databuild has been building software solutions since 1975 and is a division of ITW. The parent organization, Illinois Tool Works Inc. (NYSE: ITW), is a global manufacturer of highly engineered products and specialty systems with 600 operations in 44 countries. More info: www.databuild.net.au

About Sales Simplicity

Sales Simplicity Software, Inc., with sales and support offices in North America and Australia, is the creator and marketer of leading Sales Automation, Content Management, Lead Management, eMarketing and Reporting Management tools for new single-family, semi-custom and custom homes; condo, multi-family and senior living providers; developers and new-home realtors; and, apartment sales and rental agents. For more information in Australia, contact 1300 656 790 or emailsales@salessimplicity.net.au. In the U.S. and Canada, contact: (480) 892-2500 or visitwww.SalesSimplicity.net or www.SalesSimplicity.net/SeniorLiving

Read more:http://markets.financialcontent.com/stocks/news/read/19565204/Sales_Simplicity_Is_Now_Available_in_Australia#ixzz1ZCC2RSl4