Creating a new Lifestyle: How realestate.com.au used content to create an emotional connection for users
Australia's largest property website has undergone a content revolution in the last year, as it looks to attract even more users. Mumbrella takes a look at how they have gone about it.
Over the last 18 months one of the country’s largest websites has undergone something of a quiet revolution – moving from a functional property portal to become one of the biggest digital content publishers in the country.
That change at realestate.com.au – the eighth biggest content site in the country including the likes of Facebook and Google1 – has seen the site add a raft of property content, which is aggregated from the News Corp real estate section. Last month was the launch of its most ambitious content push yet, a new vertical called Lifestyle, which covers exactly what you would expect.
These changes have come under the stewardship of Libby Minogue, who joined the company in early 2016 as executive general manager for media and marketing.
She says the push towards a content-driven approach was about creating an “emotional connection” for the millions of visitors to the site each month: “We started 2016 helping people find a house, now we’re really focused on helping people create a home.”
The idea for Lifestyle came from a simple insight that 30% of Australian property owners identified themselves as property improvers, interested in renovating and decorating2. This means the 6.1 million average unique audience3 visiting realestate.com.au each month, are not only looking for a new home but are also ‘daydreamers’ searching for inspiration.
Last August Minogue lured Mark Roppolo from his role as head of digital with Foxtel’s Lifestyle Group, to join the company as executive manager – content and production.
Asked about the changes the content has made to the brand he says: “The brand is much more personal and moving from a utilitarian mindset into an approachable and more relatable one.”
Roppolo describes the push to launch Lifestyle as intense, but incredibly satisfying, taking less than ten months from conception to going live. Launching with over 720 articles, six web-series and adding over a 150 new pieces of content and video each month.
Despite the relative speed, it was not hastily constructed but borne from research about what visitors to realestate.com.au were looking for, as well as where the opportunities lay in the broader and highly competitive lifestyle market.
The research showed the audience’s desire for an accessible lifestyle portal.
Roppolo adds: “What differentiates us from the other home living brands is our audience are representative of all Australians, we’re a completely national brand with an audience across the whole of Australia.
“What people are asking for in that space is how can they get that aspirational element from a brand that’s more accessible and friendly. We will be creating content for people around the price points they want, the styles that interest them and also the location they live.”
Since launching on March 9 the Lifestyle platform has had over 2.4 million visits4. Combining this with the largest online property audience in Australia, provides advertisers with access to a large and engaged property seeking and lifestyle audience.
Minogue describes the target audience not in terms of demographics, but their property lifecycle. First time buyers identified by the site are targeted with different content than investment property buyers, renters, or flippers.
Inevitably data is a key part of that proposition, with Minogue’s team taking the detailed user information the site already held on users to help shape that.
The site is divided into five verticals: Indoor Style, Outdoor Living, Renovating, Organising & Cleaning and Dream Homes.
While written content provides a backbone for growth, driving SEO and links from other parts of the site, video is a key component for Lifestyle. realestate.com.au has invested in collecting a group of relatable and likeable on-screen talent, creating regular snackable videos around trends and tips. These include The Hungry Gardener Fabian Capomolla and the Three Birds, a group of ‘housewives next door’ offering renovation and styling advice.
The site has also introduced a successful roll out of episodic video series looking at different topics including a Grand Designs-style series called The Converted, which looks at unusual homes, and another called Unfinished Projects.
These in turn open up new opportunities for different types of advertisers to come to the site and integrate into the content, with Telstra and Bankwest respectively backing The Converted and Unfinished Projects.
Roppolo explains: “Our strategy is really about brand engagement, acquisition and revenue. We think we can do all three of those strongly – drive our own brand, drive partners’ brands and generate revenue.
“And we’ve had really strong success already, one of our highlights has been our Bankwest campaign Unfinished Projects. We’ve got amazing results there with 200,000 article views and 550,000 video views across various sites. We are thrilled with it because it’s good, solid native content that gives the consumer something back but also drives both our brands at the same time.”
And Roppolo is under no illusions the success of the site so far, is down to the mix of great of content alongside the line-up of well-known experts.
“The talent is key in terms of the content because of their expertise, they give a real approachable feeling to the content we create,” he adds.
“Almost all our conversations with customers are centered around talent and how that works for both brands.”
Roppolo sums up the driving push behind the site succinctly: “Putting the people into property is really important to us as a brand. We can push the brand from a property utility experience, through to an engaging and brand-centric lifestyle experience.”