Custom Web sites create leads on Plazacorp project
Direct Marketing News
01/11/02

A newly launched combined direct mail and e-mail marketing campaign, baited with the lure of winning expensive prizes, is driving potential real estate buyers to the Internet where many are likely to find their way to the sales offices of the residential developer responsible for the promotion. It’s another case where the Web holds great payback opportunities for developers by bringing them together with buyers.

Digital marketing firm N5R, Toronto, has teamed up with residential real estate developer, Plazacorp Properties, to create a personalized awareness campaign for the developer’s newest condominium projects in Toronto. And Plazacorp gets a clear view of how well the campaign is progressing from a Web site tracking page that reveals immediate results and shows from what marketing initiatives responses are coming.

Plazacorp Real Estate Advisors is a prominent developer of residential real estate projects in Toronto. It recently opened offices for its three newest projects: Chocolate Company Lofts, Wellington On the Park and Bloorline Lofts.

Last month, N5R dispatched direct mail and e-mail postcards to 20,000 prospects inviting them to their own contest site through a personalized URL. From there, they are directed to the Plazacorp sales office of the condominium project where they would most like to live.

“E-marketing and real estate have become great partners,” says N5R CEO and founder Roman Bodnarchuk. “N5R has worked closely with leading developers in North America and Europe to execute and drive effective e-marketing campaigns that either lead directly to real estate sales, shorten sales lead time and/or build awareness.”

With the Plazacorp project, N5R is again delivering effective permission-based, real estate marketing, he says. As in other projects, the goal is to identify potential buyers and deliver them to the physical sales office “for that’s where the sale really takes place.”

The direct mail postcards were drawn from 10,000 people on the developer’s database, says Drew

Fiala, N5R project manager on the Plazacorp campaign. It remains a valuable resource even though some data dates back four years and may be out of date. While many on the database may no longer be interested in buying homes or condominiums, others may have held off purchasing or find they need a larger residence.

The e-mail notices came from 10,000 names on the N5R database of people gathered from other projects the agency has been engaged in, he says. They are permission-based prospects to whom N5R sends offers sparingly to avoid abusing their consent.

He says the technology behind the individualized Web sites with personalized content is YourMail from Westminster International, Richmond Hill, Ontario, a full service mail provider. Westminster President Terry Shane is a pioneer in recognizing how direct mail can complement Web marketing and in devising the technology that creates the personal links.

When people use the URL to go to their site, they see the information that has been stored on them along with promotional material on the new Plazacorp condominiums. Fiala says they are asked at the site to update their information. When they do, it qualifies them for a contest prize.

When they answer a series of questions posed to them there, it qualifies them for a second chance to win the prize. Steps they take leading up to and including the actual purchase of a condominium unit, such as a visit to a sales office, give them additional chances to win.

Respondents also gain another contest entry for referrals of friends or colleagues who are interested in purchasing a condominium unit, he says. This viral marketing has been found to be an effective means of lead generation for these kinds of real estate projects.

The contest is a strong enticement for people to visit their sites because the prizes are of considerable value. There are three prizes where the draws for the winners are to be held about a month apart for each.

The first prize is a $1,000 cash award. The second is a trip to Mexico. The final prize is a plasma flat screen TV.

After each of the first two draws, reminders will be e-mailed to prospects pointing out they can still win the remaining prizes, says Fiala. The reminders may also contain updates on the condominium projects and may inform recipients of building revisions like adding certain materials to floors or walls.

A page on the Web server for the contest site tracks hits to the site, where they came from and many other details about the responses, he says. The page is accessible only to the client and N5R personnel through a password controlled URL. It reveals near real-time results.

“Basically, it will show how many people are coming on the site on any given day and from where. So we’ll be able to know exactly how many people came to the site from the direct mail database and the e-mail database or from a newspaper ad. The tracking is really strong. It shows the question responses, the people who requested more information, and all kinds of stuff.”

If you log in with user name and password, it shows real-time statistics, he says. If you wait five minutes and refresh it, you can see some numbers have changed. It’s especially effective for projects that extend over a fairly lengthy period of time because it supplies timely data for changing the marketing messages or target audience.

“If the direct mail piece gets a really good response, we can send out more direct mail. If the e-mail is getting good response, we can go that route. It lets you react quickly.”

He says N5R usually provides a results tracking page on projects like this. A client definitely wants to see what is happening and it can lead to productive on-the-fly brainstorming sessions.

“If we don’t like the results or even if we do like them, there is usually some sort of action you may want to take. The tracking page even shows referral rates from the number of people referring friends.”

Many of the Web marketing elements at work for Plazacorp stem from other real estate projects N5R has done. Another combined direct mail, digital marketing program invited people to an online contest and led to more than 7,500 sales leads on vacation real estate properties for big resort developer Intrawest [see DMN, July 2002, In The Mail, page 2, “Intrawest uses personalized postcards to pre-qualify prospects.”].

One ground-breaking effort was a marketing assignment N5R undertook for real estate developer Tridel Corporation in 1999. MyFreeTridelHome.com was launched to build awareness and generate sales for Tridel's new Icon condominium development.

A condo valued at $160,000 in the Icon development was given away. Weekly smaller prizes were also awarded to keep prospects returning to the Web site. They had to answer an 81-question questionnaire to enter the condo contest.

This resulted in a valuable database of answers from the contest entrants. Based on the answers collected, the Icon was redesigned to include more one-bedroom units, which most entrants desired.

It also led to a specific financing program with the Bank of Montreal called ICAN@TheIcon, a promotion that let participants purchase a condo in the Icon for only a $1,000 down payment. Contest entrants had indicated they wanted lower down payments.

The campaign produced 4.5 million hits to the contest site, more than 30,000 contest entrants and 6,000 qualified leads. As a result, Tridel realized more than $20 million in real estate sales for the Icon.

A U.S. study by Pew Internet & American Life this year reveals how much consumers are relying on the Internet now for their real estate shopping. It says the number of online house-hunters has increased by two thirds since March 2000. One third of all Internet users, or more than 40 million people, have looked online for information about a place to live.

On average, on any given day more than three million Internet users are online searching for houses or apartments, says the study. Of those with Internet access, 47 percent of people between the ages of 18-29 have searched for residences online, while 37 percent between the ages of 30-49 and 25 percent between the ages of 50-64 have done the same.

According to another study by the same organization, eight million Americans who found new places to live in the past two-years report that the Internet played a crucial or important role in helping them through that transition. And a recent study by the National Association of Realtors in the U.S. found that 41 percent of all homebuyers used the Internet as a search and research tool.