Florida home-builder uses rich media and geo-targeting to overcome the worst housing market in decades

Come to our party and get a free pool with your new house.

Advertiser: Stock Development, new home builder

Site: News-press.com, of Fort Myers, Fla.,  operated by News-Press Media Group, a Gannett property.

Advertising director: Brian Hellman

Challenge: New home builders in Fort Myers, Florida face one of the toughest real estate markets in the country.  So how to sell new homes? Stock Development’s decided that for its new home community, “Paseo”  traditional newspaper advertising would not be enough.

Strategy: The Fort-Myers News Press created a campaign for Paseo that focused heavily on homepage Rich Media using special offers to drive people to communities weekend sales events, promoted as pool parties, during the “season”, when the population of Southwest Florida doubles. Out of season efforts include a focus targeting out-of-state visitors to its online site, especially snowbirds.

The creative was also important. Of the 2.2 million impressions served, about 1.4 million were home page push-down billboard ads with vivid pictures of the resort like pool area, inviting visitors to come by on the weekend for a party, and get a free pool or $10,000 off their home purchase.

The campaign began in January,2010, and included some print in The News-Press and a high-end magazine, Grandeur. Click-through rates were tracked through ZAG, and internal Comscore to track specific cities and towns buyers are coming from.

Ads are being redesigned for summer to focus more heavily on the top cities for actual buyers, such as Toronto. The client is wiling to pay a 20% premium for the high level of targeting.


Results: The ads received 6,309 clicks for a .29 CTR Hellman says. The customer directly attributes  most of their 50 sales to the online ads, using survey cards and anecdotal evidence. The client has resigned and will be advertising to the top markets for the remainder of the summer.


Lessons learned:
1. This campaign got the creative just right:  A call to action event, dramatic home page ad format and a compelling offer. 

2.Geo-targeting extended the sites reach beyond the core DMA.  ZAG or other mechanisms to track zip codes of visitors added value for the advertiser.

3. The sales team had deep enough communication with the customer data to track actual buyers by city of origin and incorporate this information into the next campaign over the summer.

4. The agency model at work:  Hellman’s team did not try to sell the customer local cpm’s they did not want. “After meeting with the client and getting a true understanding of their needs we were able to present solutions that perfectly matched those needs.”

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