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Brendan Wong
Print advertising is still a viable tool for real estate agents, according to the listing agent behind the winning property on Channel 9’s The Block: All Stars.
Director of 1st City Hasemer + Caldwell, Brad Caldwell-Eyles, launched an extensive print and online marketing campaign for the Bondi heritage house that won the reality television program last month.
He said while he viewed the days of national and city-based newspapers as limited, this was not the case with local papers.
“Community newspapers ... are still very strong and they still remain a fantastic place to advertise property,” Mr Caldwell-Eyles told Real Estate Business.
“We learned that print is a reinforcer to digital, so I wouldn’t leave print out of the equation for 90 per cent of my campaigns. The only time I would leave it out is for low-priced properties.”
Over two million Australians tuned into the finale of The Block to see three Bondi homes sell well above the median price.
The winning house achieved a sale price of $1.67 million - $295,000 over the reserve price – and helped Adelaide couple Phil Rankine and Amity Dry pocket a total of $395,000 in prize money.
The $50,000 multi-platform advertising blitz included shooting video for every room in the house, day and night photography, mailing out brochures, distributing 50 signed hardcover books to serious buyers, advertising in local and metropolitan newspapers and online, and an official website.
“Everything was upscaled and bigger,” Mr Caldwell-Eyles said. “In terms of market presence, there were stacks of it.
“On the Saturday Sydney Morning Herald and the Friday Australian Financial Review placements, where you would normally do one-sixteenth of a page, we would have been doing half-page ads so there was no doubt that genuine buyers could see what was going on.”
Mr Caldwell-Eyles said through the campaign he learned a great deal about how to leverage social sites Twitter and Facebook and push to use high-end digital tools, such as Domain’s You Wish - which gives a property the premium position on the Domain.com.au home page.
He added that the marketing had been executed from the outset to build the right home.
“In terms of marketing, we were the guys that had three bedrooms, two bathrooms plus study and our competitors had two bedrooms, one bathroom, and if you were looking online as a genuine buyer, you would imagine that was something that would build value into the property.”
The Double Bay-based agent also attributed the property’s success to other initiatives, including real inspections on weekends and ensuring people made appointments to attend them, and organising buyers to use buyers' agents to speed up auctions.
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