Old media, meet Zillow!
Last month, I discussed the new lead generation paradigm shift: Content will be traded, packaged and bundled for leads/ads. Here's a good transactional example - Zillow has content in the form of a well trafficked consumer destination for automated home valuation data and newspapers have listings they sell to Realtors.
Well today, Lloyd Frink announced Zillow's foray into the old world of newspaper real estate ads by "bundling" these traditional ads together with optional placement of the online ad on the Zillow site. Lloyd says:
How might this work exactly? For example, real estate advertisers who currently buy classified listings in their local paper will be able to choose to have their listings and open house information shown on Zillow. Not only will this contribute to the number of for-sale listings buyers can browse on our site, but also has the potential to create an incredibly comprehensive online source of open house information, by locality. And this is just the beginning; we have lots of other content-sharing ideas that we’re eager to start digging into.The new newspaper/Zillow offering positions itself as a comprehensive media coverage package... like an ad mashup. Newspapers achieve a modicum of relevancy ("yes, Mr/Ms Advertiser, we 'get' new media, but we know old media is still effective") and Zillow gets more listings data that makes it a stickier consumer experience ("after all, nobody wants to see the value of their house dropping each time they check...").
The only problem I foresee with a comprehensive ad campaign is the fact that newspapers and Zillow ads may be hitting two very different audiences - one traditional newpaper readers and the other tech-savvy. Like television ads (or even say, newspaper ads), the coverage may be too broad based, inefficient and not cost-effective for targeted marketing purposes. In any case, it may work as a marketing tool to the consumer who might find the strategy intriguing ("oh, look honey our ad is in the San Francisco Chronicle... and Zillow! Our agent really knows how to market!
Now that the model has been established, it's easy to envision more partnerships between old and new media. The interesting take-away is the natural synergy between the avowed media company Zillow and the publishing media. Will this open up the business models of the Homegains, Trulias, Inman and the Curbed.com blog network to start posturing like media plays as well? And even more interesting, will publishing companies realize that they can also build a Zillow- or Trulia- knockoff because they already have the brand name and consumer traffic to string along?
I like Lloyd's last remark above: we have lots of other content-sharing ideas that we’re eager to start digging into. Yes, content is king... real estate bloggers, you get the message...
Technorati Tags: Zillow, newspaper, publishing, advertising, real estate marketing
As always, excellent observations. I like this...
"publishing companies realize that they can also build a Zillow- or Trulia- knockoff because they already have the brand name and consumer traffic to string along?"
I think that at some point the large RE brands and traditional media will begin to understand this. T is excellent at SEO and dominates a lot of the organic results. But the RE brands or traditional media could easily do the same. Some would not have to do much to their existing sites to accomplish this, i.e. like remove session id’s from their urls. While Z has the estimated values but this tech could easily be licensed from cyberhomes or real estate abc.
The more they continue to feed listings to all of these various sources, the less valuable they (listings) become to both consumers and to search engines as the same content will be available on so many different websites and the SE’s don’t want the duplicate content. When the consumer is giving so many choices of sites to view listings they won’t value any of the sites, as they are all viewed has having more of the same. Maybe that’s why craigslist and continues to grow and the users are so loyal?
Reply to this
Very sharp observations about T & Z... note today's newspaper deal with Loopnet. With the proliferation of listings, brand names like Craigslist do rise above the clutter.
Reply to this
What I have difficulty in understanding is why do agents want to provide Zillow with the content for their site. I know they say it is free, and granted they do not charge for agents to show their listings, but why build another competitor. There is no doubt in my mind that at some point Zillow will start charging for the listings or better yet they will probably look to sell the leads they generate. Yea we need another HouseValues or whoever to stick their hands in our pockets. I don't think so.
Reply to this
@ ATLrealestate - The reality is that if you are a listing agent, you want to get (and soon your customers will demand) maximum exposure for your (their) listings. Yes, in the long run Z may look into monetizing the sites via agents like you but as long as you are not dependent upon their traffic, no worries. I do agree in the long run this trend of syndication of listings will change the face of real estate as you know it currently and instead of being the information source you will become the information guide.
Reply to this
Not only will agents be syndicating listings, but also syndicating their real time content and becoming a data source/guide.
Reply to this