The Urban.com.au Industry Hub is born

The Urban.com.au Industry Hub is born
Alastair TaylorJune 2, 2014

Chances are that 25% of everyone who reads this article will belong to or take an active part in what we deem to be a part of the Urban Industry - property developers, architects, planners, engineers, development managers, financiers, analysts and creatives.

Today we are launching a new section of Urban.com.au where we aim to concentrate industry focused news, analysis and opinion as well as allow interested organisations to carve out their own little corner of Urban.com.au.

The best analogy to use when describing the Industry Hub is a highly-targeted Yellow Pages-like directory for the Urban Industry... with a modern twist. The Industry Hub member pages themselves are what you'd expect in a directory: a chance to showcase product and service offerings while facilitating lines of contact for new business enquiries. In addition Urban.com.au staff also build a portfolio of projects each member organisation has worked on, leveraging off the Urban.com.au Project Database. Third-party advertising is suspended on all member pages - only Urban.com.au house ads will run.

Since March 9th 2013, the day Urban.com.au launched, the site's motto has been "enhancing community and development industry interaction for the mutual benefit of a future urban Melbourne." Quite simply we aim to accelerate interaction by deploying platforms such as the Industry Hub. Melbourne is a knowledge-focused, innovative city and knowledge is always enhanced by the concentration of people and their ideas - the Industry Hub will be no different.

After an expression of interest has been received, new members will get a friendly "hello" call from myself and one of the first questions I'll be asking is how new member organisations may be able to contribute to ongoing discussion on Urban.com.au in a wide variety of forms.

Put simply we're targeting any organisation - small, medium or large - who operates within the Urban Industry - our sign up form lists the different categories. With the end of financial year approaching, the Urban.com.au Industry Hub is a perfect opportunity to lock in low-cost brand awareness advertising for the next financial year.

Our goals

Urban.com.au is still, despite our continued growth and unique audience profile, very much in a start up phase and we need financial support to help us expand our capabilities. We will always focus on Melbourne's built future through doing what we have always done - collating and analysing new development information as well as report and opine on areas such as Transport, Planning and Policy. However we also wish to provide a platform for more concentrated content for our biggest audience segment.

The financial support Industry Hub members provide will also go a long way to help us expanding content areas such as Melbourne Life - after all, what's the point of building more urbanism in Melbourne if we don't hear about the experiences, ideas and opinions from the people who live in it?

Oh, and... Urban Sydney, you're next.

The details

Like the Yellow Pages, a fee is charged to place a classified. The Industry Hub has a simple base annual fee (prices exclude GST) and is tiered as follows:

  • Small businesses with under 10 employees: $350
  • Medium-sized organisations with between 11 and 50 employees: $750
  • Large businesses with over 51 employees: $1500

* The number of employees is based on the nationwide headcount (FTE and contractors) of your organisation.

All new members are required to fill out the sign up form.

After receiving the sign up form, I'll endeavour to contact you on the phone as soon as possible to discuss requirements and then I'll follow up with sending a Media Buying Authorisation (MBA) which will outline the annual fee and any other fee(s) associated with optional promotional features (refer to rate card) you have elected to purchase.

The MBA includes a content specification and checklist for the Industry page and we ask that you sign, scan and return the first page of the MBA along with your Industry Hub page content. Invoices are generated on the date your Industry Hub page is published and payable within 7 days.

A thanks and shout out to our launch members

Thank you to all the people who have filled out the Effective Measure audience surveys which pop up in the bottom right corner of the screen - the information we have been provided with through the surveys has been invaluable and I wouldn't be writing this article had it not been for them. If you haven't filled out an audience survey before, please do - the anonymous information we receive is closely linked with our content and expansion plans.

Check out our launch members! They're all listed below (and this is an opportune time to point out that any Industry Hub member mentioned in an article will have their Industry Hub page link appear at the end of an article).

Special thanks go to Mark Wizel and the CBRE City Sales team who have elected to take out one of the four exclusive Gold Sponsorship packages we offer as part of the Industry Hub - the support they and all Industry Hub members provide is greatly appreciated.

Alastair Taylor

Alastair Taylor is a co-founder of Urban.com.au. Now a freelance writer, Alastair focuses on the intersection of public transport, public policy and related impacts on medium and high-density development.

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