Published: 30th October 2008
Market leader elect?
It couldn’t have started much better for Mark Milner. In his first six months at the helm of The Digital Property Group (owners of
Primelocation.com,
FindaProperty.com,
Homesandproperty.co.uk and
FindaNewHome.com), he’s seen their market share rise to within striking distance of market leader,
Rightmove. Today, he talks to Globaledge about the economy, his vision for the future and why free portals have no chance of breaking into the “Big 4”.
Ashley Rigg: Hi Mark, thanks for meeting me today. You’ve taken over at a very interesting time, to put it mildly. What’s your view of the market at the moment?
Mark Milner: Whereas the rental market has been strong, there is clearly a stand-off between buyers and sellers which needs to unlock before we will see a return of transaction volumes. Interestingly though, on FindaProperty.com, where we track all responses, we have seen an increasing volume of telephone calls to agents year on year. Consumers are keen to understand what the market means to them and want to ask lots of questions, for example, how long the property has been on the market for, or has there been a price reduction?
AR: You mean there are more time-wasters around?
MM: I think buyers are worried by falling prices and are being much more cautious. On a more positive note, the lettings market is strong. It’s a big area for us at the moment.
AR: When do you see the sales market turning the corner?
MM: I think 2009 is going to be tough. How tough depends on what the Bank of England does with interest rates, what the government does with stamp duty and whether deals have been done as part of the government bail out of the banks. I think it could be 2010 before we see the market really picking up again.
AR: The latest comScore figures show you are getting closer to Rightmove in terms of user numbers. Do you ever expect to overtake them?
MM: I wouldn’t say it was something we sit around and worry about. We could throw loads of money at paid search and catch them very quickly but I’m not convinced that that would be the best use of our marketing budget!
AR: What is the best use of your marketing budget?
MM: We put a significant amount of money into search marketing and particularly SEO. We have a search manager for both brands (Primelocation.com and FindaProperty.com) and invest significant resources in it. We are also the only portal investing money at the moment in TV advertising. This quarter we are spending £4million on TV and print across both brands.
AR: Does brand advertising work?
MM: It’s about getting stand out. I was looking for a sewing machine for my daughter the other day and I clicked on the Singer web link as I knew the brand, even though it wasn’t the top result.
AR: It improves click-through rates?
MM: Absolutely. It’s about building a brand and giving consumers a reason to choose us rather than our competitors when they look at the search results.
AR: Why are you spending the money on both brands? Why not combine them and save money?
MM: There is actually only a 17% cross-over between users of Primelocation.com and FindaProperty.com, according to August comScore data. Primelocation.com has the highest penetration of any portal among third-, fourth- and fifth-time buyers and particularly among those who own their properties outright.
AR: Older people?
MM: Probably to an extent, given the age by which the mortgage is likely to have been repaid, but we believe it’s better to segment on the consumer’s stage in the buying process than to generalise about age and income. For example, FindaProperty.com is strong for first-time buyers through to second or third purchases. You’ll find that our TV advertising for each brand is very highly targeted at different consumer groups.
AR: You obviously spend a lot of money on marketing. What’s your view on the chances of the free portals?
MM: Many of them have been going for a while now and you just have to look at the numbers to see that they are failing to get much traction. [He points to the Hitwise figures which show the “Big 4” out in front by some distance]. One of things that really annoys me is the amount of misinformation around. Some of the portals are quoting wild and inaccurate figures and many agents believe them as there are no common standards.
AR: Any portals in particular?
MM: I’m not going to mention names but it’s a big problem because ultimately it’s agents that lose out.
AR: Google will probably solve the problem by providing reliable information for free. Their new
ad planner tool may do this.
MM: I think I saw that press release. You could be right. The problem with Hitwise and comScore is that they are beyond the budgets of most agents.
AR: As a PLC you’ll obviously be under pressure to deliver growth. How do you plan to get more money out of agents and where does overseas fit into the big picture?
MM: It’s about delivering value. Our strategy in the UK is to price regionally according to the value we deliver. Where we have a lower local market penetration, for example in new areas where we have not previously built market share of consumers or customers, we charge less. I’m not sure what’s behind Rightmove’s pricing. It seems to be that they charge more across the board because they can and that’s what the PLC demands. Our pricing is a lot fairer.
AR: So your sales teams cross-sell each brand with different rate cards in different areas? Does this apply to overseas as well?
MM: We have regionally based UK field sales teams that offer Primelocation.com, FindaProperty.com, Homesandproperty.co.uk and FindaNewHome.com as a single package using our value-based model. We also have a stand-alone UK based International Team and also have sales representatives based in France and the US. Agents’ inventory will appear on both sites so we are delivering enormous value. As you know from your figures, both sites are two of the best-optimised sites for overseas property. We believe it’s excellent value.
AR: What is your vision for overseas property across the group and what proportion of revenue does it account for?
MM: We do not divulge specific figures; it’s a corporate decision from the PLC.
AR: Not even a cheeky percentage?
MM: What I can say is that international is a growing revenue stream and the main reason for this is that we have invested in people and marketing.
AR: What’s the vision?
MM: There’s lots of things we want to do but it’s about iterative changes rather than big, glorious launches. The main thing to get across is our dedicated marketing budget for international. We do branding (for example, we ran posters at airports) but we dedicate a lot of resource to SEO and PPC as your figures show.
AR: Are you selective like Rightmove on which overseas agents and developers you will let list on the site?
MM: I’m not sure I understand this policy. If you turn a client down, it sends the message that other customers are more important, which I don’t think is fair. We check for duplicates and we check that clients have offices and maintain quality in that respect but we don’t turn clients away. We’d rather re-invest listing fees in marketing to drive results to an increasing number of customers.
AR: Thanks Mark, final question. Given how important marketing is in the success of a property portal – or any estate agent, for that matter – what is the single best property marketing idea that you’ve seen in the last five years?
MM: By far, the most important thing in property marketing is search, SEO in particular. Something like 85% of internet visits start on Google. The companies that invested earliest in SEO and content have done the best. It’s not a particularly sexy answer, but it’s true.
AR: I find SEO quite exciting but I’m sad…can you give any examples?
MM: I can’t give away specifics I’m afraid. It’s really not my area anyway. We have a team here that does a great job for us.
AR: No problem. Good talking to you Mark, best of luck with your plans.
MM: Pleasure, speak to you soon.
About Digital Property Group
The Digital Property Group unites four of the industry’s leading property websites – Primelocation.com, FindaProperty.com, Homesandproperty.co.uk and FindaNewHome.com – the online property search channels of DailyMail.co.uk and MailonSunday.co.uk, and Northcliffe Media’s local website network attached to their local and regional newspaper titles.
The Digital Property Group is owned by Associated Northcliffe Digital, the digital consumer division of Daily Mail and General Trust (DMGT). This parentage gives us extensive cross-promotional support within the Group’s highly successful media titles including Daily Mail, The Mail on Sunday, Metro, Evening Standard, London Lite and over 100 Northcliffe Media regional newspaper titles.