Why pay for the the Premium Upgrade?

Earlier this year, we carried out a statistical analysis to see how worthwhile it was for a specific customer to choose the premium upgrade. The difference between the two options is £199, which isn’t exactly small change. However, what that extra money buys is a lot more eyeballs for your property, which could make all the difference when it comes to quickly finding a buyer.

After 5 months listing a property on our network, one particular customer was considering whether to renew for a third quarter. Initially, she was not keen on the idea of renewing, as her property had not generated a great deal of interest. There were two main problems that were easy for us to identify:

1. Too much competition and not enough promotion. This property was in Cyprus, which is not a problem in itself, as Cyprus is a destination that continues to be popular with international buyers. However, the portals on our partner network offer many, many Cyprus properties for sale, so it can be hard for one single property to stand out from the crowd and attract interest from potential buyers.
2. The quality of the listing was poor. A very short description, coupled with poor quality and grainy pictures meant that even those potential buyers that found the property were unlikely to be wowed by what they saw.

What Happened Next?

Both these problems were fairly easy for us to address, once we had identified them as the likely source of a lack of interest in the property and the customer was persuaded to take the Premium Upgrade.

Part of the fee for this upgrade goes towards management time, much of which is spent helping to make the listing as attractive as possible. After all, if we have amazing and beautiful listings in our featured positions and newsletters, it helps make our portal partners better, gives the buyer a better experience and ultimately benefits all advertisers.

So it took about a week of emails back and forth, sending new pictures and liaising with the customer to get the listing in perfect shape and ready to be pushed out across our network.

The Results…

In the month before her upgrade, only around 20 people had viewed her property details on our network, meaning she was paying roughly a pound for each person that clicked through to view the full information on her property.

Once she paid the upgrade fee of £199, there was a huge jump in the number of people that viewed her property information to nearly 1000 in the first month, thanks to the increased exposure on our sites, social networks and email newsletters.

So as a result of her upgrade, 50 times as many people accessed her property page compared to the last month with a Basic Subscription, with the cost of reach each potential buyer plummeting in spite of the increased fee.

Thanks to the improved quality of the description and images, the net result was some serious interest in the property and two viewings arranged by potential buyers to come out to Cyprus and view it in person, plus interest from a local agent who had a client that he thought would like the property.