I read with interest a post from FOREM which stated that one of the big real estate players in the US, Century 21, is moving all their media spend to online. Surely this begs the question of how much of the purported £10 million Rightmove marketing spend was channelled for online media? Indeed, how much do all the larger players actually channel towards online advertising. (PPC is not included for the purpose of this post).
I haven't seen any online ads for Rightmove yet. This doesn't mean they are not coming of course and may already be out there (I just haven't seen any), but I get the impression the marketing is aimed more at TV and print. If this is the case then one would have to question this spend and ask why more has not been channeled online. 90% odd start their search online and whilst I wholly agree with the policy of cementing the brand with users (I even commend it), I am at a loss to understand why Rightmove would ignore the space where their brand needs it the most.
The Century 21 move from TV spend to online spend is big news in the States and shows quite clearly where their priorities lie. Indeed, seasoned online advertisers are now chasing the video adverstising market and still Rightmove (and others) do very, very little in terms of online advertising.
Perhaps one of our rightmove readers can comemnt and let us know (broadly speaking) what the marketing mix was, i.e. 30% tv, 60% online, 10% print ?? As a user, it feels like 50% TV, 50% print.
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I can't say I've noticed Rightmove promotional material myself. They are one of the most visited pages in the UK (Alexa) and you notice that other online businesses with that volume of traffic (ebay uk, asos) advertise on television. On another note, I've included your blog in my latest post The Top 32 UK Property Blogs.
Thanks John and thanks for the inclusion in your top 32. I am not saying they shouldn't be on the TV, just that given the objective of this exercise was to cement their brand with their users I would have thought more would be spent online. Personally I liked the offline ebay marketing at Waterloo station at Christmas (giving out free wrapping paper). Perhaps RM will do more online and some station campaigns as well in time. It is afterall early days for £10 million budget.
I would imagine Rightmove are trying to attract people that would not know them. Maybe they feel they really have the online side of things sorted and the next step would be general brand awareness.
I think we forget that nowadays more and more people actually spend the same amount of time surfing the net as they do watching TV in the UK. Actually, I don't even have a TV and make good use of BBC's iPlayer - brilliant tool that is head and shoulders above its competitors.
So I am with you wise Property Owl. Why ignore the 6.173 million people already looking at property related sites each month (comScore Dec 08). Why not drive agents 'hotter' leads by adding online into the mix. Their marketing campaign is quite hypocritical - telling agents one thing (spend more online) and doing another (only TV)???
I think we tend to forget that branding happens online too. And on the plus side you're only one click away from searching for property instead of 30 seconds away from the next Ad!
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The website below is a free step-by-step guide that shows you how to do it. Hopefully you will soon be on the move.
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LINK
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