Zoopla has kicked off an eight week marketing campaign to fend off the threat of OnTheMarket and to capitalise on the key house hunting months of May and June.
The Zoopla campaign follows a 41% increase in the portal’s marketing spend for 2024, which it claims will drive extra hits on top of the seasonal uplift and an estimated 34% rise in vendor leads for agents.
The portal’s statement on the campaign draws on its monthly consumer tracker of “2,000 general population respondents” and says that feedback from this has inspired it to position itself as “the number one portal for potential vendors”
It says the campaign will “saturate” popular events and cultural moments such as the men’s football Euros and FA Cup finals on TV, On Demand, YouTube and social media channels, as well as the Zoopla homepage and app.
There will also be increased regional marketing in what it describes as ”high-performing regions of the North West and West Midlands” on local radio, street advertising and ‘Zoopla purple’ taxis which launched in March.
The statement continues: “This second marketing campaign of 2024 will help agents make the most of improved market sentiment, with 1.1 million transactions forecast for 2024 despite headwinds in the mortgage market and sales agreed up 12% year on year. The campaign’s call to action and onsite content on Zoopla will also help prime buyers and sellers to make a move and will highlight how Zoopla can support them with their moving decision in 2024.”
Additional marketing activity coming soon includes a partnership with an unspecified property programme which will be launching in the summer.
Commenting on the launch, Nikki Cole - director of national sales for Zoopla - says: “One in two UK adults turn to Zoopla first when they’re looking for a valuation and our latest marketing campaign continues to build on this successful platform. We’re all about delivering agents prepared and educated sellers through our marketing and getting the property market moving faster as a result.”
Six weeks ago OnTheMarket surpassed surpassed 15,000 advertisers for the first time in its history - some 60 days after the portal was acquired by US retail giant CoStar. The figure includes both agents and developments, exceeding its previous high of 13,867 recorded four years ago.
One of CoStar’s pledges to OTM shareholders during the acquisition process was that it would beef up marketing and take on not just Zoopla, but also Rightmove.
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Interesting strategy! To use a 100 metre race as an analogy, the current third placed athlete at the start of the race is aiming to end the race ahead of the present first placed athlete champion. The current first placed athlete does not seem to have a new strategy and is not looking to invest in some new running shoes, and the present second place athlete is feeling its best way forward is to spend cash to keep ahead of the third placed athlete.
In other words, of the three athletes, the new one wants to beat the first and second runner, the present champion seems to just want to plod on doing what it has already done because it feels nothing has changed, and the second athlete wants to burn cash - not to chase and beat the current champion, but in the hope it can trip up the contender racing up behind it, who is not even thinking about them, rather thinking how to overtake both other athletes.
Sport is all in the mind, so too is business, winners have a winning mentality coupled with a winning strategy. Get that strategy wrong ... well we know what happens. And given 70M people tune in to the big three portals monthly already, is extra advertising driving more brand awareness really a great ROI for agents who are paying for this via their licence fees? Does it give them a big uptick in sales or lets?
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