Section’s integrated approach increases online sales

“Domain” in The Sydney Morning Herald has always been Sydney’s best newspaper section, allowing vendors and agents to showcase properties and reach the biggest audience of potential buyers. 

 

Real estate agents were increasingly looking for more solutions and value from Domain, which prompted us to look at a new integrated approach to our market. In a climate of aggressive competitive sales and marketing activity, Domain’s new print and online integrated offering needed to deliver increased market share and drive revenue growth. 

 

We developed a comprehensive programme of trade marketing activities to drive the success of this integrated offering in the Sydney market.

 

Our campaign objectives aimed to:

• Strengthen the product offering for the market by delivering combined advertising solutions across print and online.
   
• Provide clear differentiation by utilising our combined product solution, something not offered by our main competitor.
   
• Educate advertisers about the strength of utilising print and online to reach more buyers.
   
• Increase advertising revenue into Domain in The Sydney Morning Herald and on Domain.com.au.
   
• Provide tailored advertising solutions relevant to specific geographical areas in Sydney to suit the vendor.
   
• Provide a more streamlined process for agents to access our print and online solutions.

 

To “launch” this new approach to market, we held a stylish event for 200 key real estate agents at a new, high-profile residential apartment block called The Residence in the Sydney Central Business District. This new location was being marketed as a unique, prestige property, and was on the market for investors and homebuyers. 

 

In conjunction with the launch, we developed a print campaign to communicate the combined audience strength of Domain’s print and online audience. The trade advertisements provided vendors with a variety of key selling propositions, positioning Domain — in print and online — as the most effective advertising platform, and explaining how Domain enables vendors to reach outside their local area by delivering more potential buyers. The advertisements also demonstrated that through the combination of print and online, Domain was leading the way in New South Wales in total audience delivery, as well as offering an integrated solution not available through any other real estate brand. 

 

Domain Media’s integrated packages have achieved results beyond expectations.  Online sales via Domain.com.au have increased by approximately 15% since integrating print with online advertising. The success of Domain’s integrated offering has enabled the brand to grow in revenue and in market share. Total market share was 53.9%, up from 48.9% last year. We continued to dominate in the eastern suburbs, with volumes growing by 5%, while our key competitive newspaper declined by 43%. Performance in the northern suburbs of Sydney has also delivered excellent results, with volume share up from 32.6% to 37.5%, which is mostly at the expense of the local competitive newspaper.

 

One real estate agent had this to say: “Over a year ago, our business made the strategic decision to advertise exclusively with Domain media. With the exposure we receive in Saturday Domain, Tuesday’s Domain Inner West and Domain.com.au, our expectation of results has been exceeded. Domain reaches a market we can’t get to through other publications and the combination of the print and digital medium produces exceptional results for our vendors.”