An Industry Guide to Multi-Channel

Marketing

Part of our Excellence in Marketing Series

Presented by

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Potential homebuyers use a variety of channels to search for property, which is why it is vital to ensure you are marketing across the right platforms to reach the right audiences.

Media consumption by those intending to buy a home in the next 12 months

Consumption Index* Time Spent

TV 42% 116 Light usage (<2 hours/day)

Press (incl. NIM+) 28% 117 Light usage (1-3 hours/week)

Unaddressed Mail 17% 119 Heavy usage (9+ items/week)

Radio 23% 122 Light usage (<1 hour/day)

Mobile 67% 143 Heavy usage (3+ times/day)

Digital 39% 136 Heavy usage (>24 hours/week)

Out of Home 38% 151 Heavy usage

An Industry Guide to Multi-Channel MarketingTechnology is driving behavioural change of media consumption in Australia. Consumers are increasingly seeking engagement, content and information via multiple platforms and devices, on their own time. With the continued fragmentation of the media landscape, proliferation of choice, and our limited attention spans, we are exposed to thousands of advertising messages daily. In addition, Australia is one of the most developed nations globally in terms of advertising spend with the second highest ad spend per capita.

The challenge, then, is for advertising messages to cut through the clutter effectively and to prioritise media channels that maximise reach and impact and, in turn, return on investment (ROI).

The following provides an overview of the function and benefits of each media channel as well as recommendations for how you can use each to full effect to take your agency to the next level.

Source: Roy Morgan Australia (July ‘15–June ‘16). Demographic Base: Intend to buy a home in the next 12 months (1.399m) *Index: Compared to all Australians +Newspaper Inserted Magazines

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Recommendations:

• Think local Use community papers to leverage relevant local

content. Showcase your agent profiles and share your success stories to promote your brand.

• Consider content and editorial partnerships Take advantage of feature opportunities for your

listings – it’s a great way to build brand awareness and buyer engagement.

• Target the affluent householder The largest readership of print newspapers

consists of people from established households, who typically have higher spending capacity. This gives agents the chance to drive higher value and more premium listings.

Newspaper readership by those intending to buy a home in the next 12 months

Format Media Consumption Relevance

Metro publication (e.g. Herald Sun) 27% Branding for the agency

Community publication (e.g. Leader) 31% Branding for the agent

Regional publication (e.g. Gold Coast Bulletin)

10% Branding for the agent

NewspaperDespite waning overall readerships, newspapers remain an effective advertising medium for agents. As the below table demonstrates, a lot of potential homebuyers use their local paper to search for listings.

Source: Roy Morgan Australia (July ‘15–June ‘16). Demographic Base: Intend to buy a home in the next 12 months (1.399m)

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Recommendations:

• Adopt postcode targeting Prospect for leads in specific areas where listings

would be most relevant.

• Combine with online You can improve your reach by supplementing

your letterbox dropping with online marketing. You’ll reach consumers at different times, in more places, and while in different mindsets. One idea could be to include a bespoke URL, such as a bit.ly link, which is great for brand building and allows you to track the effectiveness of your marketing.

• Keep at it An effective DM would require consistency and

repetition in order to see results.

DMs and letterbox dropsThis form of marketing enters directly into individuals’ homes and provides an opportunity for one-to-one dialogue with consumers. 11.5 million Australians read letterbox media every week (source: Salmat). Australian consumers rank direct mail as the fifth most effective advertising channel. The top three benefits they identify are: easy point of reference for later on (62% of those surveyed), informative (47%), and more relevant than other channels (35%). (Source: Australia Post, 2013).

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Recommendations:

• Use geographic and demographic targeting Target specific demographic profiles and multiple

regions; coverage could be at a national, metro or regional level.

TelevisionStill the highest reaching medium in Australia providing mass awareness with the ability to build reach quickly, however there is a high cost of entry (for both media and production). Further, TV audiences are becoming increasingly fragmented due to the rapid number of additional channel choices and screen options (catch up TV, subscription TV and services such as Netflix).

2009

Free to air Subscription TV

Video on demand (6 years ago)

2014

TV & VOD + STV Channels (2 years ago)

2016

TV & VOD + STV Channels (Current)

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RadioGreat channel for frequency building with relatively low (media and production) cost of entry. Ability to get the message out quickly and at scale (e.g. market updates). Also a relevant channel for agency brand building, however, due to the sheer number of stations, there is a high level of switching involved during ad breaks. Therefore, creative must be compelling.

Recommendations:

• Consider partnerships Seek opportunities for sponsorships or live reads

and station-led activations that can be broadcast live—e.g. live auctions, real estate market updates, clearance rates, interview with top agents, etc.

• Consider digital radio Growth of streaming services via Internet listening

as well as Spotify and Pandora are providing incremental reach for advertisers (Think Audio versus Radio). Digital Radio can also provide the granularity of targeting for advertisers through richer and more engaging formats (e.g. video, companion ads).

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Out of homeOut of home, or outdoor advertising, comes in many formats, each with their own advantages and audiences. When done right, these displays can be highly impactful among your target markets.

Out of home is showing the highest growth in the Australian media, apart from digital media. Approximately 9% of all large-format metro inventory is currently digital and is concentrated in CBDs and inner-city areas. Government restrictions (permits) per state and costs are impacting the growth of new large-format digital and conversion builds. The market is now experiencing increased demand on static large-format inventory to ensure continuity of branding and 100% share of voice.

Recommendations:

• Select the right format Consider your target audience and choose the

best-suited environments to target them, e.g. large outdoor billboards vs bus shelters or train stations.

• Keep messaging concise Copy/message needs to be short and sharp to

capture the on-the-go audience (e.g. no more than seven words for large format).

• Ambient and guerrilla marketing Ambient/guerrilla marketing needs to be disruptive

in order to grab the audience’s attention and generate high brand recall. This is great for agency branding purposes and provides higher engagement compared to traditional channels. All ambient executions should provide something that adds to the experience for the target audience (e.g. coffee trucks, water bottle during auctions, kids’ corner to keep them occupied during open inspections, etc.).

Outdoor advertising seen in the last 7 days by those intending to buy a home in the next 12 monthsFormat Consumption Relevance

Large format billboards 70% Branding for the agency

Bus/tram shelter 28% Branding for the agent

Train stations 26% Branding for the agent

Office building lifts/foyers 17%Branding for the agency/agent– Commercial listings

Gym/health clubs 12% Branding for the agent

Scooter/vespa (ambient) 5% Branding for the agency

Mass

Prem

ium

RoadsideePosters Transit

Metrolites

Airports

Path toPurchase

Large FormatSupersites

Large FormatLandmarks

O�ce Building

SportStadiums

ShoppingMalls

FItnessCentres

RockPosters

MobileOutdoor

Taxi-backs

Targeted

Stre

et

Source: Roy Morgan Australia (July ‘15–June ‘16). Demographic Base: Intend to buy a home in the next 12 months (1.399m)

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Social media marketingWith smartphone penetration up to 76% (a 6% increase from 2015) mobile devices have overtaken the laptop as the most commonly owned device. Apart from the ease of access to the Internet, the mobile phone is also the preferred device to access social networking sites. 74% of smartphone owners access social media via apps, which makes social media apps the most downloaded and longest kept apps in the market. On average, Australians spend almost 24 minutes on social networking sites per session. This means the typical Facebook user spends approximately 12.5 hours per week on the platform. (Source: Sensis Social Media Report 2016).

Recommendations:

• Making it viral Use social media for added ‘share-ability’ to

amplify your idea. Tag a brand or person in your posts (especially those with large followings) and remember to add relevant #hashtags (Instagram) but don’t overdo it.

• Click bait Your audience is only going to remember one

thing anyway, so make sure it’s the one thing you want them to remember, like the auction time of a major property in your portfolio. You only have three seconds to grab their attention, so make sure your message can do this. An example would be using an opening line like “Guess the highest growing suburb in New South Wales”. The best results will always be from creative that moves, whether that be through video, gif or cinemagraph formats.

• Give them ‘more’ Think about what you can give your audience

beyond just telling them about your brand or message. For instance, if you have a house or auction in a congested area, highlighting the best free on-street parking spots in the area tells your audience something they didn’t already know about the suburb that they want to move into.

• Speak to the right people Make sure your paid media spend is targeting

the right audience. Social media platforms vary in terms of the targeting granularity on offer. As a minimum, you’d want to target by age and location.

• Think local Social media is the ideal platform to build your brand in your local area. Engage with other local business and organisations in your community to leverage your brand and build a strong following.

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Recommendations:

• Don’t target environments, target audiences Gone are the days where marketers find audiences

by the specific digital environments they frequent. Targeting environments not only limits your reach and frequency, but also creates wastage. Advertisers should be targeting their audience regardless of environment, and buy display impressions that reach the right people. Example: It is logical to buy display ads across a business site if your target audience happens to be the C-suites. However, these sites have limited inventory and your share of voice would likely be small. Hence, your reach and frequency against the C-suites will be negatively impacted. C-suites aren’t the only visitors to these sites either. C-suites may make up only 15% of the site’s

audience. This means that 85% of your investment would be wasted on users outside of your target audience. Instead, invest in an audience buy that allows for specific audience targeting across not just business sites but on any other sites that C-suites frequent (e.g. golfing and motoring).

• Display activity needs to work as a system Display activity has a part to play in the consumer

journey till the desired action of the advertiser is attained. Always consider how display activity that sends traffic to a page is followed up with retargeted display to ensure that the property is top of mind. The best results will always be from creative that moves, whether that be through video, gif or cinemagraph formats.

DisplayDisplay advertising also comes in many forms, including banner ads, video, rich media and native advertising. Like any media channel you choose to use, you need to understand display’s role within your entire marketing plan. The role you choose for display will determine how you buy it. You can use display to perform the following:

Marketing Objectives Display Execution

Raising Brand Awareness

Behavioural and demographic targeting

High-impact formats (homepage takeovers, rich expandables)

Generating Leads Retargeting and lookalike targeting

New Audience AcquisitionBehavioural, census targeting (Experian mosaic groups), lookalike targeting

Audience Retention Retargeting

Behavioural• Uses cookies to target individuals based on their browsing history• Available through most publishers

Audience target groups (Experian Mosiac / Roy Morgan Helix Personas)• Classifies Australian household and neighbourhoods

into 49 unique types using census data• Assumes that people are defined by where they live• Available through Xaxis, Mi9

• Classifies Australians into 56 personas using continually conducted Roy Morgan research data

• Assumes that people’s behaviours define where they choose to live

• Available through Mi9, Yahoo & Xaxis

Retargeting• Individuals who have seen an ad or visited the site

are served the same ad or another ad for the same product/client

• Useful for campaigns where frequency is required to convert or where multiple conversions are both possible and likely

Lookalike• Classifies Australian household and neighbourhoods into

49 unique types using census data and assumes that people are defined by where they live

• Audience target groups (Experian Mosiac / Roy Morgan Helix Personas)

• Cookies are used to record browsing history• Best used in conjunction with placements optimised for reach

Types of Display Executions

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Mobile displayThe behaviour of a user on their mobile is vastly different from a desktop. Mobile usage is all about immediacy – fast access to information and answers. Users are less likely to do any heavy tasking like complex form fills as such advertisers have to work to reduce the steps toward a mobile conversion. Currently, Australian marketers use the medium to increase brand awareness. However, the fact that mobile devices are consumers’ main source of connectivity has made mobile advertising the trending medium to increase brand engagement.

Recommendations:

• Timing is everything Mobile usage varies across the times of day.

Depending on the marketing objectives, advertisers should run their mobile ads during a time of day where users are more likely to engage with the brand. Banks activate their mobile mortgage ads during rush hours on weekdays and all day on weekends.

• Geotargeting Geotargeting is one of the best attributes of

mobile advertising as it is highly targeted and reduces wastage, which results in better campaign efficiency. This means you only pay to reach the relevant audience in a particular location to align to the campaign objectives.

Kind of activities which Australians preferdoing most on their tablets

Kind of activities which Australians preferdoing most on their smartphones

7%

22%

33%

27%

11%

34%

17%

23%

20%

6%

I don’t generally use or have access

Less than 15 minutes

15 minutes to 1 hour

1 to 3 hours

More than 3 hours

(e.g. social media, dating app, messenger)

Communication

Finding out information (e.g.sports, news, etc)

Entertainment (e.g. sports, news, etc)

Shopping (e.g.travel, purchases etc.) and Banking

45%

29%

24%

17%

13%

16%

12%

12%

SMA

RT

PH

ON

E U

SER

ST

AB

LET

USE

RS

In a typical day, approximately how much time Australians spend

Using their smartphone for things other than calls or SMS (e.g. playing games, surfing the net, etc.)

Using a tablet (e.g. an iPad)

Average

78Mins

Per Day

Average

52Mins

Per Day

Base: 1,000 mobile users across Australia Source: A commissioned study conducted by YouGov Research on behalf of InMobi, January 2016

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Recommendations:

• Check search query reports regularly for opportunities

Search query reports are available in the paid search interfaces and show you what people searched for when your ads were triggered. This is a great way to identify new opportunities. For instance, there may be a lot of people looking for a specific service or product but the demand is not met with adequate investment from the advertiser.

• Flight your budgets based on seasonality Google Trends can be used to show when

customers are most likely to be actively searching for your product/service. Based on this you can dedicate larger portions of your media budget to peak month and similarly reduce spend in months where not as many potential customers will be in market.

• Use match types effectively Building out more refined match types can

improve efficiency. You should ensure that your account uses a good mix of Exact, Phrase and Broad match keywords and that these match types do not overlap with one another so that they don’t compete in the same auctions.

SearchSearch is a performance channel and generates large conversion volumes at efficient cost per acquisition (CPA). All of the daily optimisations and production (keywords, ad copy, ad extensions and account structure) should be developed with maximising conversions in mind.

Property in Perth

Property Listings

Best ‘property in Perth’

Properties available in Perth

Exact Match: Only shows ads for searches that are exactly the same as the keyword.

Phrase Match: Shows ads for searches

that have the same words in the same

order, but allows additional words before

or after the phrase.Broad Match: Shows ads for searches that have one or more of the words in any order and close variants.

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Recommendations:

• Do not spam Do not send bulk emails to users who have

not agreed to be on your mailing list. There are numerous occasions of companies unconsciously sending spam due to the lack of familiarity with Australia’s strict spam legislation. Organise an eDM calendar to ensure that the frequency of emails is managed.

• Give them what they want Think about what you can bring to your audience

through the email. The relevance of your email content would depict the open rate of corresponding emails. The segmentation of your email database would improve your ability to send relevant emails to various audience groups.

• Ain’t nobody got time for long emails As the attention spans of consumers grow

shorter over the years, it is essential to consider the fact that you have their attention for up to eight seconds. Make your email content snack-able by including subheadings and images that complement your short text paragraphs.

eDMEmail marketing is perhaps the oldest digital tool yet it remains one of the most cost-efficient digital marketing platforms. Due to the subscribed nature of eDMs, consumers are six times more likely to click through to your website via email than they are on Twitter. (Source: Threemail – Why Email Marketing).

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SummaryMedia planning approach

Firstly, you need to understand your target audience, their motivations and the behaviour you need to influence to affect change. When planning campaigns, you must optimise the mix of media channels collectively and not just the individual components.

Real estate marketing is highly competitive, and in an increasingly fragmented media landscape, it can seem near impossible to stand out from the crowd. Like any business owner, you need to constantly adapt in order to reach your audiences and keep them engaged. It’s all about being creative, exploring new avenues and finding the right marketing mix for your agency.

Media advertising landscape

With the proliferation of technology and increasing advertising messages, you must ensure that your messages are personalised and provide value to consumers. One of the key practices to ensure optimal return on investment (ROI) is post-campaign evaluation. This analysis allows you to determine core areas of success and similarly to identify areas of improvement and efficiencies for future activity.

Total SMI Jan-Aug 2016 Real Estate Category Jan-Aug 2016

1%

26%

14%

35%

30%

10%

9%

1%1%

2%

7%

1%

11%8%

44%

0%Cinema

Digital

Magazines

Newspapers

Outdoor

Radio

Television

Other

Media levers

Depending on the campaign objectives, there are multiple elements to be considered when developing a media campaign: budget, cost efficiencies, personalisation of targeting, relevance and messaging. The following are key considerations:

• Reach awareness or branding campaign

• Frequency determining the optimal level of messaging/

impact required to elicit a response

• Continuity required from a brand perspective to minimise

competitive clutter and increase brand preference

Where budgets are limited, prioritisation of the above must be weighted according to campaign objectives.

Source: SMI, Jan-Aug 2016

Reach Frequency

Continuity

About the author:We are MediaCom Melbourne, proud agency partners of the REA Group. MediaCom is a global network comprising 4,600 people working in 113 offices in 89 countries and is part of the Group M Network, owned by WPP. Group M is the No. 1 ranked media agency in Australia with combined billings of $3B, of which MediaCom represents half.* MediaCom Australia is also proud to work with other iconic Australian and international brands including Mars Wrigley, News Corporation, Carlton and United Breweries, Shell and Sony.

MediaCom is the Content and Connections agency; we believe in systems, not silos. With a long history and expertise in traditional media such as TV, print, out of home, digital and direct, we are now also pioneers in driving return on investment in new media channels. Whether utilising content, search, social, business science, data modelling or any other channel or communications strategy and activation, we provide quality insights and high-level accountability. And everything we do is underpinned by world-class client service.

Presented by* (Source: RECMA Overall Activity Rankings, 2015 – Published June 2016).