The Unconditional Blog

The impartial voice of the industry

 

Archive for the ‘Online marketing’ Category

4

Recruitment in this digital age

Posted on: September 20th, 2011 | Filed in Online marketing, Website news

We have recently been recruiting for a new Marketing Manager. It is always difficult to replace such a key role in an organisation; we were sorry to see her depart, but equally we much appreciated what she had done for us as she headed for a new and larger career opportunity.

The recruitment process for her replacement is well under way now with applications for this role compiled and the interview rounds started. We very much hope to make an appointment shortly.

I just thought that it would be useful for me to provide some feedback on this recruitment process in terms of effectiveness of recruitment marketing which might be of interest to others thinking about how to approach recruitment in this digital era.

This role of Marketing Manager for our company is a very nearly pure digital marketing role (we do some offline media) and as such given the importance of the capabilities we seek in digital marketing and social media, I decided that more than any other role within the company the candidates must be living in the online space. As a function of this profile for the role I decided we would manage the recruitment process ourselves rather than employ a recruitment company.

Let me be clear (for fear of alienating recruitment companies) I value the role of recruitment companies and have utilised them extensively in the past. We have used their services in recent times to find for us sales and finance roles. They add significant value in candidate database search, as well as the initial stages of recruitment screening and objective reviewing the interview process, as well as reference checking. My motivation for not using a recruitment company this time was not to save money. It was far more the desire to better understand the recruitment process, especially as it so closely mirrors the property marketing arena.

I wanted to test the various recruitment websites (Seek and Trade me Jobs) as well as to see the value of using our own social media contact network. In addition I was also very keen to try the recruitment offerings on LinkedIn. I have to apologise to the team at Jobs.co.nz, it was my intention to use their services, however time was against me and I never got the advert established in time.

In total I received 50 applications for the role, of these I was able to immediately cull 14 as they were not able to work in NZ. They were from a variety of countries (US / China / Chile / India) and yet all had excellent experience and qualifications.

In terms of source of leads the most came from Seek (16) closely followed by LinkedIn (14) and Trade me (13); direct enquiries totalled 7.

However when accessing qualitative performance the outright winner was LinkedIn that delivered 13 credible and applicable candidates, Seek delivered 10, Trade me with 6, together with the 7 direct enquiries all being credible.

LinkedIn provide a great toolkit of solutions including a slightly spooky ability to “pitch” to prospective candidates who meet the specifications of the role and who live and work in Auckland. I chose not to use this service, preferring to act in a more passive manner. Their dashboard though is an excellent reporting capability that adds significant credibility and professionalism to the service they provide.

As ever, just as in real estate the recruitment process comprises far more than simply advertising; and this is the hard task we are currently undertaking to select a worthy new marketing manager. It is though very useful to have had the opportunity to evaluate the various methods of recruitment in the new digital age.

3

Mobile property searching – the way of the future

Posted on: August 24th, 2011 | Filed in Featured, mobile, Online marketing

Homebuyers who search for property online are also turning to their mobile devices to locate properties for sale. This fact has been presented in the latest survey undertaken by Nielsen in the annual Nielsen Real Estate Market report.

As would be expected, the survey continues to show the trend of online being the most preferred and useful source of real estate information – over 95% of those surveyed stated that online was “useful or very useful”- this as compared to newspapers which dropping down from 42% to just 38% (compare this to earlier reports when more than half of respondents stated that newspapers were a useful or very useful source of property information).

The key insight though came when the survey respondents who had an internet enabled phone were asked if they had ever accessed a real estate website on the device? – 32% stated they had. This is significant as whilst there are dedicated real estate apps for the iPhone (the realestate.co.nz app) there are no mobile website versions of any NZ real estate website. People are clearly showing that they are keen to use their phone to access property information when they are out and about.

The report also discovered that real estate researchers online were much more likely than the national population to own an internet-enabled phone or device, with 48% compared to 34% of the population overall (Nielsen Consumer and Media Insights, Q2 2010 – Q1 2011).

What is significant is understanding the behaviour of accessing real estate information on a mobile device as compared to a laptop or desktop. Computers on your desk or on your lap are excellent for the “lean back” character of browsing property listings via ever more extensive galleries of high quality images. This is why real estate websites collectively attract a daily audience of over 134,000 unique browsers per day when only around 180 homes are sold each day in NZ.

Compare this with the behaviour of mobile users – they want and need information that is contextual to their location right now – what’s for sale around me? / what’s for rent here now? / When is the open home for that property 2 blocks down? / I need to contact the agent selling that home! / I want to look at the aerial image for this street to see what the backgarden looks like… and so on. People on mobiles accessing property information are not casually browsing, they are committed, active, passionate property searchers.

Back to the survey, other illuminating information provides some great insight into these mobile users.

Globally the Android platform for smartphones is now the #1 market leader with a 48% market share according to Canalys report of August 1st, additionally the platform dominates in 35 of the 56 countries surveyed. In NZ however whilst no published data is available industry opinion (web search analysis) would have the iPhone with a leadership of installed users with a ratio of close to 3 to 1 – far different to the US.

It is therefore very interesting to see from the Nielsen survey that 40% of those surveyed whilst searching for property online who had a smartphone claimed to have an Android device compared to 35% with an iPhone or iPad. This result surprised us and provided the impetus we needed to get an Android version of the Realestate.co.nz app (please be patient it is in development!).

Given the scale of adoption of the Realestate.co.nz iPhone app (over 35,000 downloads since launch in Nov last year) we were keen in the survey to see firstly how many mobile device owners had downloaded and used an app and also which app they had chosen to use.

The survey showed that of the 586 respondents that had a mobile internet enabled device 7% had downloaded an app and used that application to search for property / discover property. In terms of popularity – the clear winner is the Realestate.co.nz iPhone app – 49% people spontaneously identified that as their tools for property search.

The Nielsen Real Estate Market Report is based on a site-intercept survey on New Zealand real estate web sites conducted during May to June 2011 with a sample size of 1,219 respondents and a margin of error of 2.86 percent.
0

Specialised real estate search – Farms / Business / Commercial

Posted on: July 21st, 2011 | Filed in Businesses for Sale, Commercial, Featured, Online marketing, social media

Real estate as an industry is a large and diverse business employing over 15,000 people and transacting over 60,000 residential properties per year. As well as the residential sector the industry undertakes extensive activity in the transaction of commercial properties for lease or as investment, the negotiation of business sales and also the transaction of farms and other agricultural businesses.

Such diversity and specialization requires a different approach to web marketing, than a simple one-size-fits-all solution. That is why last year Realestate.co.nz took the decision to establish separate websites for each specialist category of the industry. These websites – the farming site of nzFarms, the business broking site of Prime Business and the commercial property site of Prime Commercial have ably and professionally represented the interests of the specialist agents in each category and their respective clients.

These websites have just gone through a major redesign – a design which reflects the successful re-design of the main realestate.co.nz website which was released in May.

nzFarms.co.nz provides the most comprehensive selection of listings by licensed rural agents for all types of farms and agricultural businesses as well as lifestyle properties around NZ.

The site currently displays 4,621 farms and agricultural business, with a further 11,807 lifestyle properties and lifestyle sections.

There are 9 categories of farms covering dairy farms, specialist livestock farms, grazing land, bare land, horticulture and viticulture as well as forestry.

 

Prime Commercial provides the most comprehensive selection of listings from licensed commercial real estate agents for all types of commercial property around NZ. The selection includes both property for sale as well as for lease.

The site currently displays 7,663 commercial properties and land for sale, with 18,613 commercial premises for lease.

There are 4 property types for leasehold premises covering office leased space, retail premises, industrial premises as well as hotels and motels for lease. The selection of properties and land for investment covers office buildings, retail property, commercial land and well as industrial land and buildings.

 

Prime Business provides the most comprehensive selection of listings from licensed business brokers for all types of businesses for sale across the whole of NZ.

The site currently displays 4,033 listings of businesses for sale from over 1,500 licensed agents providing services to business owners looking to sell and investors and business managers looking to take that first step on the ladder to owning their own business.

There are 12 specialist categories of businesses to search for on the site, from retail businesses to tourism, from age care facilities to hotels, motels and lodges. Whatever the type of business from just $5,000 to over $16 million!

 

The re-design of these sites is however not just cosmetic. We have added features and enhanced the presentation to make these sites even more effective as a business tool to these key audience groups.

More extensive search filters

There’s a property finder tool bar now located at the top of every page, which allows you to define your criteria. The selection is targeted to recognise the unique and specific types that exist within the farming sector, the business sector and the commercial sector. We’ve also extended the price range options and the ability to select surrounding suburbs by ticking a box.

Advanced search

This is an enhanced capability found on the Prime Commercial and nzFarms sites. Whilst it has always been a part of these sites it has now been upgraded to include much more advanced search criteria. You can now select multiple districts and regions. For example, searching for within the Canterbury region for Ashburton district, as well as Waikato region for the Matamata district, together in one search.

Other very useful new advanced search options are the ability to type in an exact price range (i.e. $740,900) and search by pricing method (i.e. Auction, Display price, etc.), as well as search by properties with a displayed address.

Larger images

The new sites display larger property photos on both search results and listing page. You can also view the properties in a full screen overlay, which shows off the listings to the maximum. You may notice that some listings have very different image sizes to others. We are constantly working with our customers to secure from them the largest available image which we process to give you the biggest and best impression of the farm, commercial premises or business you are interested in.

List view or gallery view

In addition to the standard list view of search results we also now provide a gallery view, which presents property purely by first image. You will also notice that all listings now have the ability to view all the photos from within the search results, making for a far more efficient process for browsing the property or business on the market.

Social share your listing

Located on the listing page, there is now the option of socially sharing your listing on Twitter, Facebook and Google+1. This feature enables any user to these websites to recommend a property to their peers and the rest of the world.

We plan on adding more enhancements throughout this year and next to these websites and will keep you updated. We hope you are as excited about these new redesigned websites as we are!

 

 

 

 

1

Energy efficiency – something worth celebrating

Posted on: July 20th, 2011 | Filed in Buying / Selling a home, Green, Online marketing, Website searching

You cannot have ignored the extensive TV campaign for “The Energy Spot” by EECA Energywise. This government agency has shared with us some of the myriad of ways in which we as a country can do a little bit to make ourselves more energy efficient. To all save a little, so we can all save a lot.

When it comes to your home the benefits of energy efficiency run deeper than cost savings. It can go as deep as your health and well-being. It is well know and often reported that the housing stock of NZ could be improved – making our homes more comfortable, warmer in winter, cooler in summer and healthier, while using less energy and water.

This focus on the overall performance of your home is the principle behind a parallel initiative: Homestar which is a Joint Venture partnership between BRANZ and the New Zealand Green Building Council. Through an assessment process homeowners can better appreciate the differences that can be made to the performance of their home. Armed with such information appropriate decisions can be made as to improve the living environment of your home.

The Homestar initiative was launched at the end of last year and involves a free online self assessment as well as a far more comprehensive and professional certified onsite assessment. As a result of the latter certified assessment; properties can be rated on a 10 point scale – the first of these properties having been assessed, are now on the market with the assessment rating providing a real point of difference in the marketing of the property.

At Realestate.co.nz we are totally committed to this initiative on behalf of the industry and also as a service we can provide to buyers, sellers and agents by profiling these properties on our website differentiated by this certified assessment. Have a look at these recent listings of properties rated by assessors.

It is important to point out that whilst the rating scale is 1 to 10 the vast majority of NZ properties are rated 2 or below, rating a 4 is a reflection of a reasonable amount of attention to efficiency. Rating a 10 is all but impossible without being able to generate your own power and recycle your water. A new house built to the current Building Act would likely score a 4.

As stated we want to support the Homestar rating process and we are putting our money right on the line. We have made a commitment to the real estate industry to say for every property listed on our site between now and the year end with a certified Homestar assessment we will provide the vendors of that property through the listing agent a marketing package worth $359 – comprising a feature listing and 2 weeks of showcase listing.

Just to be clear this is not for an online self assessment- it does require a certified assessor to visit the home to undertake the assessment. The costs for this assessment are not fixed, but indications are that it would cost around $500. So we are prepared to give back to vendors who want to demonstrate the performance of their property a large portion of their costs in the form of premium advertising their property on realestate.co.nz – a powerful means to promote their property online.

 

 

0

Are signs of economic stress leaving the property market?

Posted on: April 21st, 2011 | Filed in Featured, Online marketing

Nearly two years ago I wrote a post asking the question “Have signs of distress left the property market?” – in retrospect this was a bit of an early call as since that time I am not sure we would collectively feel that we have yet got over the worst.

That article was written to analyse the searching behaviour of people using realestate.co.nz to seek out properties that were being sold with signs of distress and desperation as a function of the very severe economic conditions brought on by the Global Financial Crisis and our own recession.

Bringing this analysis up to date provides a perspective that things have improved – and some things have not!

Back in 2009 we examined 4 keywords that were being used in searches which we judged reflected an interest by eager buyers to find properties where the owners where suffering and in need of a fast sale. These words were: Motivated / Urgent / Desperate / Must Sell. The chart shows the tracking of the total for these 4 keywords over the past 2 years.

Clearly the searching for these keywords has fallen off – both in absolute terms (blue line) and as a proportion of all searches (red line). From the highs of 2009 when the rate of these searches was up to 150 per week the scale of such searches has calmed down to a level of less than one in every 200 searches.

However what is interesting is comparing the level of properties on the market which include these keywords.

Back in January 2009 there were 93 listings on the site using the word “Desperate“, 6 months later this had fallen to 67, now in April 2011 this is number is still 67!!

The phrase “Must sell” has 3,269 listings in January 2009, falling to 2,527 in July 2009 and today back up to 3,444!

The keyword “Urgent” showed up on 436 listings in January 2009, falling to 344 by July 2009 and today – up to 386!

The keyword of “Motivated” showed up on 1,377 listings in January 2009, falling to 1,080 by July and again today it has risen to 1,477.

So it would seem that whilst the urgency of buyers to seek out properties whose vendors are experiencing pressure of mounting financial stress has declined markedly over the past 2 years the use of these key emotive phrases by real estate agents on behalf of clients has not diminished.

13

Sharing the experience of house buying

Posted on: March 19th, 2011 | Filed in Buying / Selling a home, Featured, Online marketing

House buying is a significant undertaking and from a personal perspective not something that I have undertake for over 10 years, as we have been, and remain very happy in the home we have owned for this period. However a property appeared on the market recently. One, which really captured our imagination and set our hearts racing. As genuine and interested buyers I thought it would be very interesting to share the experiences and feedback on the process of this house hunting / house buying.

The house in question basically ticks all the boxes for us of a house that we would very happily move into – a house that, having kept our eyes on the market for many years we thought in that classic sense that there would “never be a house that would meet or exceed our expectations”! (and at a price that we could afford!)

I propose to post a number of articles in the next week or so as we progress through the process, a process that may or may not lead to us buying the house.

I intend to be completely honest about our experience. I have been completely transparent with the agents concerned, they have my business card as CEO of Realestate.co.nz and we are approaching this as committed and serious buyers, not as a piece of consumer research; although I hope that there will be some interesting insights.

I do not intend to disclose the specific details of the property nor the names or location of the agents. I trust that the insights, observations and feedback will be of interest to buyers, sellers and agents alike.

The first experience for me in relation to this property was one of those moments of surprise and delight. I received a phone call from an agent, someone who I had not met previously. She stated politely that as we had previously visited an open homes a couple of months ago she was keen to provide us with early notification of a property about to come on the market later that week that may interest us – if we were potentially in the market for this type of house in this location.

I have to say I was very impressed by the professional and considerate manner of the agent. We had not registered to be on a database but given that we had not been barraged in the preceding few months by potential properties I was not offended by this proactive approach, especially when the property so completely matched our criteria.

The agent provided us with the address and a brief description allowing us that night to drive by the property and more importantly look up details on the property for free on Zoodle. First impressions – perfect!

I should point out at this time that the agent who highlighted this property to us was not the listing agent!

Listings presentation online

The property appeared on realestate.co.nz the next day and was superbly presented with a great selection of photos, providing a comprehensive view of the property. With the address displayed on the property nowadays provides so much potential to investigate the local community and amenities all from the comfort of your home computer.

Whilst property descriptions are useful the real power of a listing online lies in the photos and address. When it comes to photos there is never a situation where I could say there could be too many as it is amazing how easily you forget some aspects of a property from an open home visit where comprehensive photos can prompt you to recall.

Coming up – the open home and floor plans

11

New Year brings new business models for real estate

Posted on: February 8th, 2011 | Filed in Featured, Online marketing, Real Estate Industry News

It is often said that the best time to launch a new company is in the depths of a recession. To survive in the midst of such adversity should surely provide a proof of the potential when and if the recovery comes, and the economy begins again to fire on all cylinders.

Well, we are from all accounts climbing; albeit slow out of recession across the general economy. The real estate market though is still not as yet firing on all cylinders. Sales in 2010 were barely above the all time low of 56,071 in 2008 at just 56,303.

When compared to the 5 year period of 2003 to 2007 when the average total year sales were just under 107,000 it is very clear to see how slow the property market has become in recent years. Even during the recession of the Asian Crisis of 1997/8 the average sales volumes during those years was over 80,000.

So despite this slow market it is therefore not surprising to see some new companies emerging in the real estate market. With these new companies comes some new approaches which clearly are trying to define a new business model to attract what is still a significant business.

The real estate industry in the residential sector alone accounted for total transacted sales of just under $25 billion in the last year. With an average commission of around 3.5% that adds us to close to $850 million in fees earned by the industry per annum in the depth of the property market recession. In the height of the market the figure reached over $1.4 billion.

Such revenue opportunity supports a large industry of over 11,000 sales agents working out of a total of close to 1,100 offices around the country.

These new entrants to the market that have emerged over the past couple of months share a two key things in common:

1. They focus on online marketing

2. They offer a lower fee for selling a property

The two most recent companies to highlight are 200Square and The Property Market. Additionally it has recently been speculated that Mike Pero may be looking to enter the property market. It is interesting but not surprising that the proposed concepts is also a solution based on a lower fee structure combined with a focus on online marketing.

NZ Real Estate - new business models for 2011Late last year details emerged of an Australian company Refund Real Estate looking to enter the market with a rebate scheme of fees and a focus towards online marketing.

This focus online is logical. As has been detailed in the blog previously the focus of property buyers and sellers is to use the web first and foremost for searching and researching property. This focus online in the home or the office is now fast being complemented by the evolution of the mobile real estate applications. At this stage with the Realestate.co.nz iPhone app which is gaining significant traction and usage, with over 14,000 downloads and well over 1,500 daily users. So for smart new companies to advocate the priority to online marketing is both logical and appealing as in so doing they not only save their clients significant amounts of money compared to print advertising, but also provide great analysis of lead generation.

The other aspect of these new companies, being the low fee offering as compared to the established operators. Certainly the consumer appeal of paying a flat fee or a lower percentage is undoubtedly strong, the key question will be as to the ability of these companies to make the business model work. There have been those who have tried and succeeded with a low fee structure, uniquely in the Christchurch market with Diane Astle and Premier Real Estate both offering a 1% fee service. Equally there have been those who have tried and failed, most notably The Jones.

What is certain is that the web marketing advocated by these new companies is pointing the way to the future for this industry, with it comes cost savings for vendors as compared to print media. As for the fees for professional services of real estate agents – the judgment will ultimately be made by the consumer who will trust in agents that deliver true value whether that will be in a low fee, or a full fee structure will be interesting to see and well worth watching as the year progresses.

3

Realestate iPhone app proves popular!

Posted on: December 7th, 2010 | Filed in Featured, mobile, Online marketing, Technology

blue bar chart growing - croppedThe first week with the app has been a blast! – we are delighted and so it seems are our audience, which feels great.

Since we launched 10 days ago we have had just over 7,000 downloads.

The usage so far is spectacular. Over the weekend we found that the level of traffic really picked up as expected (and as shared with us by US real estate sites with apps) as people used it to plan, navigate and collate their open home tours!

On Saturday we had the equivalent of 1 in 10 of our website visitors to listings on realestate.co.nz accessing property information via the app. During that period they viewed over 10,000 unique properties – that shows just how compelling the app is with people on the go, who want to be in touch with the property market.

Not only is the usage great, the feedback is awesome – thanks!

iTunes-1The iTunes store provides a platform for rating the app and we are again delighted to have had 20 written reviews and 25 ratings with an aggregate score of 4 out of 5 – plenty of people rate it 5 stars, there are some 4 stars and some 1 stars (its an open rating system!). The review section though does not allow the opportunity to comment back to posters, so here is some answers to questions asked.

FatCat Matt commented “Good app for the crazy ones buying houses like us. But needs to list the auctions date also!”

This is a good point and currently the app only highlights that the property is being sold by auction, tender or by negotiation. We will take this on board for future updates to the app.

ReaderG commented “Looks great but why not iPad too? Look forward to the upgrade”.

A good question and one that has been asked a few times. Firstly the app works well on the iPad – in the 2x mode you get great images (example below) and maps – the images are in the main configured for the iPhone 4 retina display so the quality on the iPad is pretty good.

iPad image example

Secondly we are waiting and reviewing the role of the iPad in real estate search process and are keen to get feedback. The principle of the iPhone app is to have a device which people can use “on the go” – whilst out and about at open homes and at the weekend. The integration of photos captured at properties as part of notes on the property is core to the principle of the app and this cannot be handled on the iPad – at the moment.

What I think this comment shows us is how valuable a search on a map is to the real estate search within the website of realestate.co.nz. We are currently working on this update for the new year on the website.

I can say that an iPad app is part of our plans for the near future as would be an Android app and Windows 7 mobile app.

……………………….

Mazone66 commented “Sadly doesn’t show over 50% of current listings. Disappointing”

The app is currently showing 45,296 listings of properties and building sections for sale as per the screen shot below (great feature this to be able to zoom right out to the whole of NZ).

iPhone addresses 6 Dec 2010On the site currently we have 49,314 homes for sale, 16,743 building sections for sale as well as 11,382 lifestyle properties. That means that the app has 58% of all the current licensed real estate listings we have on the website (we have a subscriber base of over 95% of all licensed real estate offices in NZ).

So Mazone66 is partly right in that we do not show all listings, but we do have more than 50%. There are 2 reasons for this lack of completeness. Firstly whilst we have close to 100% of all listing sent to us by real estate agents with an address, still a lot of agents request us not to publish the address, secondly address matching to map positioning is not an exact science (for more detailed explanation on these two issue please read my comment to a question on the earlier blog post on the launch of the iPhone app). Rest assured we are working really hard to improve the ratio of listings that are shown on the app – we want to provide the most comprehensive experience.

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Zoomzoom.mike commented “The only app that has ever asked me to go into general settings to enable location; the rest ask the questions within the app“.

We have double checked with our development team at Cactus Lab and they tell us that the code for the app for the iTunes App store does not have an option to ask for location or not to ask. The experience that has been noted here is not a function of how the app is built but may be a part of the set up of the phone on an individual basis. I am sorry Mike that this was the experience, the iTunes app store and the iPhone platform has many compliance requirements and we have to build to that, we want a seamless experience and we are sorry that you had this experience.

ZoomZoom mike also commented”Needs to have more specific search / filtering to make it truly personalized and useful. For example I only wanted to see 3 bedroom, 2 bathrooms, less than $400k”

The “refine” button allows for filtering of bedrooms, price and type of property. It does not provide filtering on bathrooms. We did in reviewing the spec for the app judge that removing the bathroom filter would not be a great loss in the interest of use of space. Clearly we may need to review this.

iPhone refine options Dec 2010

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appUser John commented “This is a great idea, done really well, except for the out of date realestate.co.nz database.

3 out of 4 houses I found with this app were actually no longer on the market. There are other houses around that don’t show up on the app. Also, it crashed 3 times in the 1day I was playing with it”

The issue in regard to the houses that are for sale not showing up on the app was answered earlier. In regard to property found on the app no longer being on the market. This is of concern to us. Our database of properties for sale (as well as rental, commercial properties, businesses and farms) is an integrated database with all of the customers of the website (real estate companies and agents).

We have over 1,000 real estate companies and offices sending us data everyday – sometime multiple times per day. In this way our database becomes a mirror of the database of the real estate offices and is very much live and dynamic with listings constantly being added and removed. These companies and offices want to ensure that they only advertise on our website or theirs properties that are truly on the market.

As to the experience of the app crashing, this is very frustrating. Naturally we have extensively tested the app however unlike a PC environment the mobile OS environment is susceptible to the connections with carriers and the nature of the computing platform. We are really keen to be able to investigate such crashes. To help us if you wouldn’t mind if you could go to this website and follow this instruction to log crashes – it does this through a sync feature with iTunes so you don’t need worry about remembering where you were on the app when it crashed!!

0

Partnering with Westpac adds value to the new Realestate.co.nz iPhone app

Posted on: November 27th, 2010 | Filed in Buying / Selling a home, Online marketing, Technology

Westpac New ZealandThe new iPhone app has been undertaken as a partnership with Westpac bank. There is, in my mind, real value in being completely open and up front about this as it is vastly different to the traditional sponsorship model, where a large branded company pays money to “get their brand” on some other product or other. Often resulting in a sense of “selling out”!

The partnership with Westpac could have been with any bank. We chose to work with Westpac due to their pro-active, open approach from their marketing department. It also speaks to the logical synergy (ahh - marketing speak!) - banks, mortgages and property buying are all one inextricably linked event or activity and cannot for the vast majority of home buyers be unbundled.

Westpac have been a partner on realestate.co.nz for over a year now with a smart mortgage calculator on the property-for-sale side of the website and also another calculator on the rental side of the site, offering renters an insight into what their weekly rental payments could afford them if they put that towards a mortgage payment. This rich integration which pre-populates the selling price / rental price of property into calculators, is judged (based on feedback) as valuable and an added-value service. What is great news is that Westpac are delighted with the lead generation from these tools and the partnership.

Westpac site calculatorsWith the iPhone app we wanted to go further than just a calculator. The app has the ability to let the user call the real estate agent or email the agent from the phone when reviewing property from right across the street. So why not allow people to contact someone to discuss the mortgage? Westpac have mobile mortgage managers out and about in most areas of the country and these can be contacted through the virtual bank branch on the app. Just locate the closest branch on the map and dial up the mobile mortgage manager based there.

As well as accessing finance help and advice through the app, Westpac naturally have a vast number of ATM’s around the country and adding these to the map view of property search makes total sense - we all need to top up cash reserves, and knowing that there is one round the corner from the cafe seems to make sense and add to the interactive ability of the app.

Finally Westpac has the ability to communicate really effectively with our target audience in a way that benefits both of us. They have very highly trafficked website and featuring the app on that site reinforces the values of innovation with their customers. Their email campaign also accesses a large database of property prospects and then lastly their latest TV commercial being aired over the summer enables them to reinforce the value of this partnership and showcase the app.

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