Real Estate in Prime Time – Adding a New Dimension

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By Maria Patterson

RISMEDIA, September 4, 2008-It would have been hard to imagine back in the early 1990s that a cultural phenomenon could emerge from the simple concept of ‘lifestyle.’ But the visionary founders of HGTV knew they were onto something and proceeded to build one of the most wildly popular cable networks that exists today-now with a reach into more than 95 million households. Today, HGTV and its parent company, Knoxville, Tennessee-based Scripps Networks Interactive, have stepped up their efforts to bring real estate into its ‘lifecycle continuum’ by introducing FrontDoor.com-a listing portal for consumers where real estate brokers and agents can now participate in a true multimedia approach to real estate marketing.

Not Your Average Portal

While FrontDoor is indeed joining the ranks of online listing distribution sites, it brings with it some very significant differences-most importantly its loyal consumer base and the information-rich resources of HGTV (Home & Garden TV). Knowing that, on average, 700,000 viewers are watching an HGTV show at any given time during prime-time viewing hours, Scripps believes that its ability to drive information-seeking viewers from HGTV television programming to the FrontDoor.com website will expose participating broker and agent listings to a vast, real estate-primed audience. Based on several years spent cultivating a loyal audience of “Home and Lifestyle enthusiasts,” Scripps also believes that consumers will arrive at FrontDoor.com and be compelled to visit again and again due to its unparalleled volume of useful, visually rich, home-related content.

“When you look at real estate search,” says Vikki Neil, general manager for FrontDoor.com/Scripps Networks, “it can be a sterile experience. There’s a lot of information out there, but there’s no one hand-holding the consumer. FrontDoor is giving them content, search, advice and a trusted community-basically one spot where they can get a digestible amount of real estate information, including pragmatic, how-to advice on various aspects of the home search and transaction.”

All that aside, FrontDoor obviously has its parents to thank for its distinction in the marketplace. “One of the most powerful ways we stand apart is simply our brand recognition and credibility. We’ve built Scripps Networks with brands that are now household names, such as HGTV, FineLiving and FoodNetwork, to name a few,” says Neil. “There’s an embedded level of trust there which, in itself, is a big differentiator. FrontDoor is not a startup but an extension of the Scripps Networks family, so questions about who’s backing us or what our motives are don’t really apply.”

Trust, and a proven value proposition, explains Neil, are what helped FrontDoor reach such impressive critical mass so quickly-3.3 million listings, to be exact. While other companies may match that number, “it took them a lot longer to get there,” she says.

FrontDoor.com hit the ground running with 1.2 million listings from Realogy brands-CENTURY 21®, Coldwell Banker®, ERA® and Sotheby’s International Realty®-along with listings from some 700 independent brands affiliated with Leading Real Estate Companies of the World. Most recently, FrontDoor inked agreements with Prudential Real Estate Affiliates and Keller Williams International, further securing its endorsement among major players in the industry.

And while the HGTV brand plays so well with industry types, it plays even better with consumers. “I am amazed at the brand value we have,” says Neil. “People are enamored with our programming as well as the great online content and original video series we have at our fingertips. We know how to talk to consumers and for the longer term it’s very compelling to find new ways to connect with home buyers and sellers.”

“At FrontDoor, the pun is intended,” says Kelly Roark, vice president of Interactive Sales & Development for FrontDoor.com/Scripps Networks. “This is an opportunity for brokers and agents to ‘open the door,’ so to speak, to consumers who have a propensity to be hyper-engaged with their home. But we’re not just a listings portal. We’re a real estate information source to serve our audience through the entire ‘home lifecycle continuum.’ We have a 15-year heritage cultivating our lifestyle media network, with information on home design, maintenance, improvement and food, among other things. FrontDoor rounds out the cycle with home search, and buy and sell content.”

Adds Roark, “Given that the easiest client to get is the one you already have, brokers and agents need to start thinking about opportunities, such as those that exist with Scripps, to market to and connect with consumers before, during and after the home transaction-without having to handhold the client through a five-to-seven-year home cycle.”

Real Estate Joins the Lifestyle Mix

The Scripps Networks legacy began long before FrontDoor.com came into the picture. As early as 1979, Channing Dawson was busy studying home-related content. As the editor of Home magazine, Sunset magazine on the West Coast and Architectural Digest before that, it became clear to him by the early ’90s that the publishing business within the “Shelter” category was reaching a saturation point.

“I was convinced that I should be working on the concept of home ‘encylomedia’ using whatever video I had, although it was very lean at the time,” recalls Dawson, a founding executive of HGTV. “What I brought to the game that the TV guys didn’t have was the database relationship with magazine readers. With $400 billion a year being spent in home remodeling, the advertising side of the business was just begging to move over to TV. We at Scripps happened to hit at the right time in the digital realm when it was still possible to launch a cable network and get the distribution to prove that the Lifestyle vertical was a passion point for consumers.”

In the years following HGTV’s 1994 launch, Dawson likens the evolution of Scripps Networks and the lifestyle media movement to the “pontoon publishing” era of the magazine business-where the big ship surrounds itself with spin-offs in related verticals. This belief led Scripps Networks to diversify within the Lifestyle category and successfully put forth such manifestations as the FoodNetwork, DIYNetwork, and FineLiving Network.

“We reach 95 million homes, and with that comes this concept that you have to be as broad as your audience while still staying within your genre. Each program we spun off into these subverticals drilled its own Web environment,” Dawson explains. “And since we owned our own programming, we could repurpose that programming in other suitable places. That enabled us to quickly start a video-on-demand business, which ultimately led to the birth of our broadband business.”

Dawson attributes HGTV’s skyrocketing viewership rates to a fine balance in programming: “We’ve always come at programming as not just entertainment. It’s really a balance between art and science, where we focus on programming that is highly informative and hardworking-in addition to being entertaining. Simply put, provide enough good ideas and inspiration and still be entertaining-that’s what HGTV has been successful at-and it’s something that brokers and agents should embrace if they want to truly connect with consumers in the multimedia space.”

HGTV has also succeeded by allowing consumers to strongly influence the network’s content. “The American public is a fickle group,” explains Dawson. “A few years ago, all the shows in home-related content revolved around makeover, and now that has come and gone. Underneath it all, however, were real estate shows, which are now the number-one area on our network, and have been for three years.”

All this despite a soured market. “We’ve seen nothing but a steadily growing interest in the home-building and remodeling business, whether it’s a boom or a bust,” says Dawson.

Dawson believes that the current market has, in fact, led to increased interest in the home: “We’ve all been leveled by the crash in prices and have become more informed and enlightened about the investment aspects of our homes. This has changed the very way we look at our homes.”

The Multimedia Approach

According to Dawson, in order to effectively reach today’s viewers and consumers, the artful balance of ideas and entertainment that Scripps Networks’ programming has mastered must now be delivered in a variety of ways.

FrontDoor.com is designed to do just that in the real estate vertical, potentially becoming, as Dawson describes it, “the best media play out there” for real estate professionals.

“We have to go where consumers are going and deliver the content they want, when they’re there. In other words, approach consumers across multiple platforms-meaning a combination of TV, the Web, mobile, among other mediums,” says Dawson. “You can’t assume that everyone’s watching television, or everyone’s surfing the Web. But through a combined approach, we can now aggregate an audience that might not have come to the Web otherwise, and drive it to the Web for more information about real estate.”

Dawson provides a real-life scenario: an episode of HGTV’s “Get It Sold” addresses the importance of staging. During that program, viewers are instructed on how to receive more information about staging via their mobile devices or by e-mail. Viewers are also being directed to visit FrontDoor.com for more information on “last night’s show.”

“It’s the perfect marriage,” says Dawson. “We are delivering a whole new experience.”

According to Roark, this multimedia approach is exactly what consumers are seeking and will come to expect. “In most aspects of our daily lives, we are accustomed to the 360-degree visual experience of getting information. The boom in reality TV is a perfect example of our desire to understand and experience information personally by visualizing it through the eyes of another,” she explains. “Why would we not expect the same thing out of real estate, one of the most visually dependent areas of all? The visual tools we offer home searchers on FrontDoor.com help them understand real estate better through this medium. And since everything is evolving toward a ‘visual language,’ this is a perfect time for brokers and agents to get involved in the movement.”

The Power of Association, the Power of Content

According to Neil, there is one thing FrontDoor.com can offer brokers and agents that most listing sites cannot: immediate credibility with consumers. “For brokers and agents, where one chooses to build one’s brand is crucial,” says Neil.

“FrontDoor is a great place for real estate professionals to nest their brands. Having their listings associated with Home & Garden TV creates a glow for a broker or agent and gives them assets that are above and beyond what they have on a normal search site.”

Furthermore, Scripps will soon look to syndicate their content to brokers, thereby developing more collaborative relationships with its real estate partners.

“With our site, brokers and agents are buying into the rapport we have with customers,” says Roark. “But we go way beyond the basic branded banner to offer integrated content where partners can participate in delivering helpful, relevant information to consumers.”

Of course, FrontDoor’s search functionality is not to be discounted in the process. “Search is the crucial third leg of the stool, as is the community and local play,” says Neil. “We will be focused on that through the rest of this year.”

Ultimately, FrontDoor believes it is in exactly the right place at the right time. As Dawson says, “There’s a lot of competition out there-we’re the newcomer in a traditional field that’s being disrupted right now by the digital world. It’s a very good time for us to be in the space.”

For more information, please visit www.frontdoor.com.

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