Options for Advertising Overseas Property in Russia
According to research “Overseas Property — 2011” by Tranio.Ru, the majority of market players use both online and offline advertising channels. The most popular tool is search engine optimization. It was mentioned by 78.4% of respondents. The least popular channels are TV and radio advertising (7.4 and 8.0%, respectively).
Pros and cons of media channels
Channel | Minimum cost, rubles |
Pros | Cons |
---|---|---|---|
Search engine promotion |
30,000 | for most customer requests, high conversion potential |
Effect is not immediate, and results cease if there is no continuous financial support |
Contextual advertisements |
50,000 | Targeting options, high conversion, wide audience reach, quick results, operational statistics |
— |
Social networks | 100,000 | Increases company visibility and communication with potential clients |
Generates requests for rent only. Frequent info updating is required. Results only become visible after a long period of time |
Magazines and PR on the internet |
90,000 (per month) |
High level of target audience selectivity, winning audience trust due to the prestige of the print title (magazine, newspaper, etc.) |
Not appropriate for lead generation |
Exhibitions | 140,000 | Opportunity to establish new business contacts, support corporate image and brand, attract real customers |
Too expensive for small agencies and independent realtors – numerous competitors at the same exhibition, few |
Outdoor advertising |
50,000 (per month) |
Location specific targeting, large, constant audience, high frequency of audience, contact with advertising |
No way to provide detailed information, fuzzy audience |
Display advertisements |
150,000 | Increases brand awareness, large audience |
high cost, limited advertising space |
Internet portals |
10,000 (per month) |
Large audience, easy placement, low cost |
Few advertisement duplication, competitors’ ads in the same portal |
30,000 | Boosts site traffic, initiates sales, enables specific targeting options |
Lack of efficiency, potential negative consumer attitude to ‘junk mail’ |
|
TV and radio | 1,000,000 | Wide coverage, creativity, targeting options |
— |
Search Engine Promotion
Search engine promotion or optimization (SEO) is a set of measures aimed at raising a website’s position in search results for particular search queries. The higher the position in search results, the better
Pros:
- Search engines enjoy huge popularity.
Click-throughs account for most customer requests. People looking to buy houses and apartments generally take their first step by consulting search engines, such as: Google, Yandex, Bing, [email protected]. - High conversion. Visitors from search engines behave actively on your website.
Cons:
- No immediate effect. With proper optimization, a website should achieve
a top-10 position in Google and Yandex in three to six months. For example, it took Tranio.Ru 18 months to reach second place in website rankings dealing with property. Good results are achieved if focus is put on selection of queries, texts on websites,web-page structure and design of ads. - Continued support is essential. Search engine optimization is an ongoing situation and optimizers must work continuously to maintain and enhance search positions. If a customer stops funding promotion, results evaporate. Yet with continual funding, achieved positions can be held for years. This provides a stream of requests and a steady flow of new customers to the website.
The cost of a single
Contextual Advertisements
Contextual advertising is a type of online promotion showing ads that have direct relevance to web page content. This is the advertising that becomes visible in search engines when users type requests.
Pros:
- Target specific. Contextual advertising selects and displays ads that coincide with a visitor’s interests, and this naturally increases the likelihood of a response.
- High conversion (higher than SEO). Landing pages increase conversion
by 2-3 times compared to the final page of ads. - Quick results. You don’t need to wait for your website to reach top positions. Most orders are initiated after the fourth visit. In as little as two to three days, you can see a significant increase in the flow of customers.
- Wide target audience.
- Fast statistics collection and immediate analysis of results possible.
Cons:
- Higher cost (compared to SEO). CPC (Cost Per Click) is up to 300 rubles. Using specific locations reduces the cost per click four times. Contextual advertising is good for promoting expensive properties, or unpopular regions that have few competing advertisers and low CPC. The total of the advertising campaign audited in Yandex.Direct and Google. Adwords is 50,000 rubles.
Social Networks
Social networks featured in Russia are Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, VKontakte, Moy Mir @Mail.Ru and Odnoklassniky. The Russian audience on VKontakte reaches 52.7 million per month, while on Facebook it’s 25.4 million people. Pages on social networks are excellent for announcing news, organizing events, promoting special offers and other interesting content. Tranio.Ru experts highlight the advantage of using Facebook: this social network is used
Pros:
- Wide coverage. According to a study by Mail.Ru Group in Russia, more than 90% of internet users (the total number is 65.9 million people) visit social networks.
- Increases the company’s popularity.
- Communication with partners and potential customers.
Cons:
- Inability to generate low cost leads.
- Frequent updates are necessary. A post on Facebook remains "fresh" only for up to four hours. On average,
10-20 people view each post, and a good result in this respectis 210-280 likes per week. The bottom line is, you have to post relevant, interesting and appealing content often. How positive the result is will be reflected in the number of comments, likesand re-posts. - Campaign duration. It takes between six and eight months to attract a significant number of people.
A text ad with a picture will cost 4 rubles per CPC on VKontakte and 30 rubles on Facebook.
Another type of promotion in social networks is review writing (SMM, social media marketing). Experts collect positive reviews by real customers and make these reviews visible, so that they attract new potential buyers. The cost of this service is from 30,000 rubles.
PR in Print and Online Media
For promotion in business and trade media, both articles and advertisements can be used. With articles cooperation can be mutually beneficial: if you provide a competent and informative article by a reputable expert, you might be able to place it for free. Promotional articles can also be published for money. Modular advertising can be expensive, especially in print media. For example, the cost for placing a modular ad in one of the leading Russian newspapers ranges from 67.5 000 to 1.2 000 000 rubles on their website and from 164,000 to 2, 000,000 rubles in their paper edition.
Promo.Tranio.Ru offers you media promotion services designed to give you a promotional edge. Our experts ensure your articles, press releases and expert reviews are published in popular Russian business media, such as Vedomosti, Kommersant, RBK, Lenta.Ru and others. The service fee starts from 90,000 rubles per month.
Pros:
- High selectivity of the target audience based on their demographics and interests.
- Possibility
of long-running campaigns. - Piggyback on the prestige and authority of the media and increase confidence
in the company/brand.
Cons:
- Ineffective lead generation.
Exhibitions
According to Tranio.Ru’s study, Overseas Property 2011, property exhibitions rank sixth in the list of promotional marketing channels (46.7%). Among those who use more than three channels, 74.1% of respondents participate in exhibitions. Most large companies consider exhibitions one of the most effective tools for promoting properties.
Pros:
- Supports the company's image. For foreign companies new to the Russian market, exhibitions represent an opportunity to become well known in the country and introduce their products and services to a large audience.
- Attracts real customers. Property exhibitions are visited by 7 000 – 30 000 people. Such events have a particular focus and only attract interested parties, such as market specialists or buyers. At an exhibition, you can draw the attention of potential customers, exchange personal contact details and even negotiate a sale.
- Appropriate environment for establishing new business contacts. Since exhibitions are visited not only by potential customers, but by market experts as well, companies have an opportunity to find new partners and forge fruitful connections.
Cons:
- Too expensive for small agencies and independent realtors. For example, participation in DomExpo, depending on the stand size and equipment used, ranges from 2,916 to 15,396 euros.
- A lot of competitors at the same exhibition.
- Few
high-income clients among exhibition visitors.
Outdoor Advertising
An outdoor advertisement is a graphic or text advertisement placed on special structures, or on the external surfaces of buildings. Outdoor advertising includes billboards, media facades, pillars, supersites, trolls, etc. This type of advertising is highly effective and used by about 90% of major advertisers.
Pros:
Geo-targeting: possibility to reach regions of interest. Outdoor advertising can be thoroughly targeted, right down to where prospects actually live.- Regular audience.
- Inevitable inclusion in the information flow. Such advertising cannot be turned off. It is available
24/7 and does not require the user to pay any access fee. - Reaches a large audience quickly. Here, outdoor advertising is second only to television.
- Entertainment. High impact of outdoor advertising on the audience, as effective design solutions combined with the ad’s large format stick in the memory.
Cons:
- Outdoor advertising does not provide detailed information about the advertised product or service. A viewer only sees the ad for a few seconds and the distances involved can make the text hard to read. David Ogilvy, the doyen of advertising, commented on this issue: "I have never liked posters. The passing motorist does not have time to read more than six words on a poster, and my early experience as
adoor-to-door salesman convinced me that it is impossible to sell anything with only six words." As for outdoor advertisements targeted at pedestrians, this problem is not so acute. - Fuzzy audience that is difficult to count and characterize.
The cost of posting information on a billboard starts at about 50,000 rubles per month.
Display Advertisements
Display advertisements include banners, text and graphic blocks (TGB) on websites. Such advertising is often used to promote new buildings and luxury property. According to research by GdeEtotDom.RU, 64% of the respondents believe that display advertising is the most effective advertising channel on the internet.
Pros:
- Increases brand awareness.
- Large audience. Thanks to its vast reach
(1-2 million displays a week) requests are guaranteed to increase.
Cons:
Short-lived effect. It is necessary to update banners frequently, because information quickly becomes redundant.- Limited advertising space.
- High cost. The cost of banner advertising is calculated per 1,000 impressions; the maximum cost in Russian media is
500–600 rubles. However, the ultimate cost of attracting a buyer is up to 5 times higher compared to contextual advertising. The minimum cost of a campaign is 150,000 rubles.
Internet Portals
According to Seorate.Ru, a major thematic portal can attract 70% of the target audience. If your website does not rank well in search engines, you can contact portals that will allow you to show your properties to potential buyers.
Pros:
- Targeted audience and large amount of visitors.
- Easy placement.
- Low cost.
Cons:
- Few
high-quality portals. - Advertisement duplication.
- Competitors’ advertisements in the same portal.
Direct-mail
Pros:
- High conversion. Tranio.Ru experience shows that
70–90% of targeted emails are readand 20–50% of recipients go to the website. Subscriptions accountfor 1–5% of site traffic. A quarter of those who receive your newsletter will be interested in your offers. - Targeting: focus on a small group of potential buyers.
- Initiates sales. Subscriptions encourage repeat sales and return visits to your website.
Cons:
- Inefficient.
- Possible negative consumer attitudes.
Sending an email costs from 0.05 to 0.05 rubles. A complete package of services for designing effective and informative newsletters, emailing to your client list and analyzing
TV and Radio
Advertising on television and radio is considered an effective and powerful promotion tool.
Pros:
- Large coverage. Watching TV is popular among 80% of the population, while 70% listen to the radio.
- Creativity.
- Geographical,
time-specific and thematic targeting is possible. - Fast audience accumulation: it is possible to start a campaign
in 24-48 hours.
Cons:
- Too expensive for small agencies and independent realtors. Prices for advertising on TV and radio start from 1,000,000 rubles.
Contact our Promotion Department, Promo.Tranio.Ru. We will be more than happy to provide you with a package of proposals for advertising your overseas properties effectively in the Russian market.
Yulia Kozhevnikova, Tranio.Ru
We will send you a content digest not more than once a week