Advertising

Most of our sponsors are businesses which have been referred to us by our members or contacts we have done business with ourselves.

Given that Property118 operates a not for profit business model, and reinvests all income into the development of the community, we are completely reliant upon donations and sponsorships. Therefore, we are always happy to hear from providers wishing to increase their exposure to landlords and associated professions, especially when they are referred by our members.

Many of our sponsors are property developers and agents but we are open minded to working with any respected business which provides products and/or services which may be of interest to our audience.

HOW IT WORKS

We only agree to work with businesses which we believe have a product or service which will be of interest to our readers.

Intrigue and curiosity are they key drivers to the success of our sponsors marketing campaigns, which are far more subtle than conventional advertising. The difference being that articles featured on Property118 rarely include the use of brands, telephone numbers, links to websites etc. Instead, we work with sponsors to produce informative articles which touch on the features and benefits of the product or service they wish to promote. A contact form is added to the end of the article which affords interested readers an opportunity to request further information. These requests are then emailed in real time to our sponsors.

WHY SO SUBTLE?

Property118 is a social network, a bit like an online version of a local pub, albeit a very busy one with thousands of visitors every day! Try walking into your local pub with wearing a sandwich board advertising your business whilst speaking through a megaphone and handing out leaflets. You won’t get a good reception and that’s the equivalent of advertising in a social network.

However, you may well do business with a friend of a friend you meet in a pub but only as a result of subtle introduction and social interaction. Property118 works in exactly the same way. We are only able to continue to raise funds and develop our community on the basis that our referrals are of value to our sponsors.

Clearly it is in our interests for sponsors to get a return on their marketing budget. By the same token, it is important to us too, because we want to build on our relationships. Accordingly, we work very closely with our sponsors and help them to design their campaigns to maximise interest levels from our reader base.

MARKETING

Our servers send over 1 million emails every month to subscribers to our Newsletters, and also in the form of new comment notifications to our forum discussion members.

We publish articles on our website (certified statistics from Alexa.com here) and add links to these articles in our weekly Newsletter, which is sent to nearly 200,000 subscribers. Links are also posted on Twitter, Facebook and occasionally LinkedIn. Results can range from just a handful of enquiries to 100’s per article but typically the number of referrals is around 20 to 50 per article during the week of publication and tailing off thereafter. Unless otherwise agreed, all articles published remain on our website indefinitely. If an article is particularly popular, and depending on the requirements of our sponsors, we will re-run it in subsequent newsletters and even consider increasing the visibility of the article by adding it to our website navigation where appropriate. To avoid generating more enquiries than our sponsors can handle we work closely with them to ensure that service levels are maintained. We achieve this by controlling the flow of enquiries by adjusting exposure levels to articles published.

COST

Our typical return is £25 plus VAT for each referral. However, our charging structure is extremely flexible, and needs to be given that every sponsors requirements are very different. Some are more interested in brand exposure to their target markets or promoting their websites whereas other are far more focussed on paying commission for sales or building a database of future prospects for their products and/or services.

Please note that Property118.com operates a not for profit business model even though it is privately owned. All funds raised are ploughed back into the development of the website for the benefit of our members, subscribers and thousands of people who find us though internet search every month.

INTERESTED?

It would be my pleasure to discuss your requirements and to offer suggestions on how best to engage our readership. Please call me on 07834 754 223 or email mark@property118.com

HOUSE RULES FOR SPONSORS & BUSINESS MEMBERS

• Supporting comments only on an article written by another sponsor
• No self promotion of any type on any article written by a sponsor in the same line of business
• No telephone numbers and no email addresses to be posted in any comments under any circumstances.
• No links to your own website unless agreed by a moderator. Links to relevant information pages such as downloads or specific related articles may be agreed.
• Reference back to own member profile (including contact form) acceptable on any article unless written by a competing sponsor

BUSINESS MEMBERSHIP

An alternative to sponsoring articles or emails is business membership which is particularly useful for SME’s wishing to engage with our readers by contributing to our discussion forums. For this we charge £150 a month.

• Every comment posted below an article links back to the member profile of the person who has left the comment.
• For every comment left there are thousands of readers.
• We add a contact form to the members profile page so they can identify that referrals have come to them via Property118
• The more comments a business sponsor leaves, the more exposure their profile gets to our readers.
• Most sponsors choose to double-up and have a business membership as well as paying £25 + VAT per referral from articles

The process of becoming a business member is very simple.

1. Create a member profile – LINK
2. Log in
3. Follow instructions
4. If instructions do not pop up scroll down to the bottom of your member profile (you will need to be in edit mode)
5. Click in the long blue banner which says “Activate business sponsorship upgrade”.
6. Set up payment, then return to your member profile
7. Tick add business information
8. Complete the form
9. Scroll down and press update.
10. Hey presto! you have a business members profile.

Once you’ve set your business profile up feel free to call us any time on 01603 428501 and we will be happy to provide you with free advice on how to optimise your member profile and interaction with members for maximum effectiveness 🙂

#PROPERTY based advertising in a social networking environment – http://t.co/vNmB1ws3Mo – pay only for results!

— Mark Alexander (@iAmALandlord) April 30, 2014

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