Realtor Addresses Cable's Curb Appeal

Cable World, Sept 3, 2001 by Christopher Schultz

Success of local spots can be tracked via coded 800 numbers

Angela Downes has a dial-up formula for success.

Downes, an agent for Ebby Halliday Realtors in Dallas, started advertising on AT&T Broadband's local system a year and a half ago with a commercial introducing herself as an agent. Last month she stepped things up by running a full 30 second spot showcasing one of her homes--an area first and an industry rarity.

But more important, Downes has devised a way to track the success of her ads over the phone.

For years realtors have advertised on local cable channels dedicated to classified advertising by pasting photos of listed homes above a contact number. But AT&T Broadband doesn't have a classified channel in Dallas. So to help drum up business, Downes got creative.

According to Misty Maloney, the AT&T Broadband account executive who works with Downes, the agent last year started buying a "crawl"--a text message that slides across the bottom of the screen--on the Weather Channel. Insurance agencies, utilities, foundation repair companies and AT&T Broadband itself, among others, use the crawl for advertising.

Now Downes has a full-blown commercial with a panoramic indoor and outdoor view of a listing, along with a voice-over describing the property.

According to Maloney, Downes spends around $1,500 a month for her ads to run on cable nets that skew toward affluent customers, like the Weather Channel and CNBC. Downes, who pegs the figure at less than $1,000 per month, talks excitedly of the results.

"I just knew that there had to be a way that I could pinpoint and specifically market to a targeted demographic--and cost-effectively," Downes said.

Downes runs spots on only two of the 17 ad zones in AT&T's Dallas system--a large Dallas metro zone plus the smaller, more upscale Park Cities. Each day Maloney faxes her the run times of her ads; Downes then compares the times with the calls that come in over the ARCH Telecom 800 number provided to viewers. Downes identifies each call by its extension, which has a unique fourth digit ascribed to each network where she buys one of the local ad avails. This way Downes knows which networks invite the greatest responses. She can sort the calls on an online database which, she says, can "categorize and sort by the source code or the extension code or by time, date--any way, shape or form."

Of the ten cable networks Downes buys spots on, the most responses come from A&E and CNBC. The others are Lifetime, Food Network, TNT, CNN, the Travel Channel, the Weather Channel, Oxygen and Family Network.

The 800 numbers have helped Downes trim down superfluous advertising since she started, when she advertised on 15 networks. "We've fine-tuned it down to ten," she says.

Even so, the ad buys don't necessarily translate into immediate success. Take the home Downes is currently advertising, which is listed at $850,000 and sprawls over a big lot near the Bent Tree Country Club in the far-north area of Dallas. It's a prime cable candidate, Downes says, because it's a pricey property that's worth an extra push on the ad front. (What's more, the current owner did not want a real estate sign in the front yard, Downes says.)

Thinking that golfers and country clubbers might be prime prospects, Downes met with Maloney, who sold her on a couple of spots during the British Open on ESPN and the PGA Championship on TNT, as well as some other less-targeted spots.

The house still hasn't sold, although Downes says she gets at least one call on it every day, which is far more encouraging than the weekly call she would expect without the cable ads. The spots will run for about 90 days, and if the house sells, Downes says she'll replace it with another.

Downes won't say how much she pays for her professionally produced ads, but she boasts, "You'd fall over--it's so inexpensive." She also points out that she doesn't actually pay for the spots--she has agreements with auxiliary real-estate businesses, such as title agencies, which underwrite the cost in hopes that Downes will funnel business their way. For their sponsorship, the companies get a tag at the bottom of the screen.

Downes's boss, managing broker Vivian Black, identifies her as one of Ebby Halliday's Star Award Winners--those multimillion-dollar producers who fall into the top sales bracket. She's an innovator who's "willing to share and is open to tell other people how to do it. She wants everybody to move ahead," Black says.