Ivan Struzhanov: Web advertising (transcript of the report)

Internet is one of the necessary and most effective ways to advertise foreign property. How should you promote your properties in the Web? A report dedicated to this subject has been delivered at the INFOREAL Congress by Ivan Struzhanov, head of the client service department, portal “Prian.ru - International Property” portal.

Prior to choosing the best way of advertising in the Web one should understand the effect that may be achieved by promoting the company on-line. Effects may be split on two types: instant and deferred.

Imagine that you choose household appliances: probably you won’t stop on one website. In order to compare prices, available selection and design, you will most likely open several pages. In future, you will return to the one you like and dial the contact phone number. This is called a deferred effect. And vice versa: if you immediately buy household appliances, ordering it directly from the website, it may be classified as an instant effect. But this is a rare thing to happen.

Deferred effect is difficult to estimate, but it is crucial for the advertising of foreign property and property as a whole, it is one of the most important components. Also you should mind such concept, as a term of exposure for proposals. Mass consumer goods will achieve an instant effect in advertising, while exclusive products, are more likely to achieve the deferred effect.


Methods of Web-Advertising

There are three ways to represent the company in the Internet: online business card, selling site, and hosting on a major portal dedicated to overseas property.

If your company acquires clients through “word of mouth marketing” and does not intend to actively represent itself in the Internet, the online business card is the best option for you. Its main task is to form an adequate idea of what the company does and what clients does it have. Such site is small, it has a clear structure, consists of several sections (“About the Company”, “Services", “Contacts”, etc.) which allow the client to understand what do you do and how to contact you .

Selling site makes the customer want to order a product or service which is positioned on it. This type of a site is called to create an impression on the audience that you have certain competitive advantages. The site should encourage the client to perform a specific action. It should be made considering all existing standards - the colors and fonts must go together, important and contact information should be easily accessible. A simple, easy navigation is also needed.

Imagine you pay a first visit to your site. Try to answer the following questions:
• where are you;
• who does this site belong to: developer, agency, or a topical portal;
• how long does the company operate on the market;
• are there any testimonials from customers;
• is it easy to access the property units (they must be just a click away);
• does reading the property description make you want to contact the company;
• is it easy to find the contact information.

If the answer to these questions is yes, then your website is a selling one.

How much does the site cost? Creating a small website will cost you from 5 to 50 thousand rubles, depending on the design. For selling site the prices vary from 100 to 300 thousand rubles, of course they may be even more expensive, everything depends on the project.


Steps in developing a selling site

1) Analysis of the company, the scope of its activities and potential customers. First and foremost the agency should find out all your competitive advantages and the details of your activities.
2) Identify the ordering party’s requests. You need to define, which target audience is the site developed for.
3) Designing and prototyping a site. It is preferable for you to be provided with the project of the site in order to identify all of its shortcomings at an early stage.
4) Development of various design options.
5) Cross-browser layout – check the website for compatibility with all browsers.
6) Testing – before the launch, the site should be thoroughly checked for all shortcomings and mistakes.
7) Search Engine Optimization - if you have a selling site you need to attract customers to it, otherwise you’ll be just wasting money.


Hosting on topical portals

Many buyers do not hinder themselves with watching dozens of sites dedicated to property, and go directly to the topical portals, where all the necessary information - articles and property units - have been collected in one place.

Hosting on a major topical portal will enhance the prestige of your company, convert visitors that are simply interested in overseas property into your customers. The point is that such sites are specifically designed for each visitor to reach your property, review your information and return to you.

Before you pay the money to the resource and start advertising on it, be sure to find out if it is popular, and whether its visitors are your target audience. The easiest option is to check the visiting statistics. Almost all resources are now equipped with open web counters recognized in the Russian-language Internet, for example LiveInternet. Clicking on it opens statistics, which is publicly available. You can check who visits to the portal, at what time, etc. It shows the depth of views per visitor (the number of clicks divided by the number of visitors).

Open web statistics is a big plus for a portal, because you can personally appreciate its attendance and verify all data declared in the promotional material. When the portal has all counters open and the required information is easily accessible, it can already be regarded to as a working tool.

After reviewing the statistics, you must make sure that the visitors of the portal are your target customers. In order to do so, check where from do they come to the site.
 
The testimonials submitted by existing customers are also an important factor in selecting the topical platform. Portals that have a sufficient number of testimonials left by satisfied customers publish them in the appropriate sections.

The next important point is the content of the resource. A good resource should have top-quality content. Review the article published on the portal, check their quality, look whether they are interesting, check how relevant is the information on the countries represented on the portal, estimate the number of news.

If the portal meets all your requirements, you can start the property listing. The client views many websites, but he will most likely buy property on the site, which he trusts the most. Accordingly, the information placed on the portal, which, for example, is cited by media - is a pledge of confidence to the resource. Once you assured of the portal’s quality, you can understand what you’re paying for.

The main advertising tool on topical portals is creating a company’s card and listing your properties. When you register, you acquire the company’s card. It’s your face on the portal so do not copy all the information that you already have about your company there. Most likely nobody would read a long text; however, if the text is very short, it may create an impression that you have nothing to say. Your contacts, a description of your activity, etc. come further. Effective advertising slogans, plus editing of existing texts about your company is an ideal solution.

The next step after creating a company’s card is property listing. Do not forget that this would attract the attention of your potential customer. The first that he/she sees are the pictures, so they must be of good quality. The description comes next. It is necessary to specify both the total cost of a unit and the cost per a square meter (many buyers pay specific attention to this figure). While adding the images, be sure to hold on to the sequence: exterior - view from the window - interior. Use the style and format in the description of your property, make sure that it is not given in a solid text, specify the competitive advantages of the unit’s location (how close is it to the beach, the airport, etc.), the advantages of the country where the unit is located (a possibility to receive residence permit, etc.). Adding a colorful video is also a good idea. If you have any promotions ongoing for this property you should not hide them somewhere at the end of description, it would better to state them straight in the very beginning. While listing properties be sure to observe the structure of demand.


Example of an advertising campaign

We were addressed by the “BEST-Nedvizhimost” company, they demanded us to ensure the rapid sale of any property from their database, which can only be done when working with target audience - those who are interested in purchasing property abroad.

Prior to planning the advertising campaign, we met with representatives of the “BEST-Nedvizhimost” company and discussed their specificity. The company offers property in several countries (more than 500 units, in more than ten countries). On that moment, the company’s official website was still under construction, and we made sure that the click-throughs from all their advertising positions led to the company’s card on our site. We have also defined the priorities of the company’s business.

Since the goal was the arrangement of quick property sales, the whole advertising campaign was focused on massive property advertising. 300 units were listed in the portal’s database, and the company was provided with a few special offers on a number of countries. Plus, advertising in specialized cut-through blocks dedicated to several countries.

Preparation has become one of the most important stages of the advertising campaign. First, we chose 300 properties from the database of the “BEST-Nedvizhimost” company. The emphasis was put on Bulgaria, Turkey, Montenegro, Spain and Italy. Other countries were also presented to the customer for the visitor to be able to see that the company works on these destinations, and, if necessary, address the “BEST-Nedvizhimost”. Moreover, apart from the overall quantity, the units were allocated in such categories where there was the greatest demand but the smallest number of proposals.

After uploading the properties we needed to choose the most attractive offers and launch them into broader advertising – place them in “Special Offers”. Positioning in this block draws the maximum attention of buyers interested in purchasing property in a specific country. This advertising position is designed in such a way that when a person visits the page of a country that he/she is interested in, a window with special offers is viewed even prior to performing a search. This automatically increases the number of clicks. After the going to the “Search” section the promoted unit would appear in the “Golden offers”, respectively. So the property will always be in sight.

We provided the “BEST-Nedvizhimost” company with 11 special offers which cost at €150 per month, four cut-through blocks with one unit (€1,100) and added 300 properties in our database. The total cost of advertising campaign has amounted to €3,750 per month. It didn’t take long for the first results to appear: within a month and a half the company has received many calls, sold one unit, worth more than €500 thousand, in Montenegro, currently two contracts are at the stage of signing. The goal of the campaign – acceleration of the sale of any property unit in the company’s database was achieved.