The real estate market has unique challenges. As compared to other sectors, it is time locked, super localized, highly competitive and an extremely involved product. Consumers in India do a thorough online search before buying a high-value product like a house.
According to a study done by Assocham, in India, real estate companies spend almost Rs. 2,500 crore per year on marketing and advertising, 25%-30% out of these spends are directly going into digital marketing. This proves the relevance and efficacy of digital marketing in real estate. Real Estate Digital Marketing is playing a major role in providing personalized experiences to buyers. The focus now should be on getting conversions from those leads and boost sales:
Marketing campaign goal: Conversion
Marketers often completely ignore the conversion strategy while creating interest and hype around their real estate products. For example, Marketers need to inform their audience about the next step after watching a video to “call”, “visit”, or subscribe.
Some of the most important elements of an effective conversion strategy include customer profiling, using the correct call to actions, pitching and designing. However, there should not be any compromise made on the creative element, because the creativity & communication of the brand will make an impact on the consumer and will push him/her to enter the sales funnel.
Strong lead nurturing strategy
In today’s information age where the audience is constantly researching on digital channels, it is imperative to enable interaction, make dialogue or have a conversation. In the case of digital marketing solutions, brand engagement can be through various means blogs, communities, groups, blogs, emails, forums or on social media.
Engagement helps in building amiability, loyalty and a sense of dependability among the audience. There needs to be a well thought out strategy for engagement in terms of the way in which interest can be generated, for example, showing a video about the essence of the property and what it signifies, infographics, running contests etc. The technology and the platform of engagement also need to be thought out: it could be social media, blogs or flash media. Lastly, the most important aspect when it comes to engagement is the kind of conversation initiated and the objective of that conversation.
In the real estate marketplace, the above-mentioned engagement tactics play a crucial role as the purchase decision takes a long time as compared to other industries. This will enable real estate firms to establish the top of the mind recall and also help in building a word of mouth strategy.
Extensive marketing on vertical search engines
For any real estate firm, property portals such as IndiaProperty, Makkan, 99acres etc. are in top Google searches. There is a huge influx of traffic on these websites and they offer free as well as paid listing for properties along with advertisements. However, developers should also conduct thorough research about their target audience traffic on these websites and then market accordingly. Companies can also research their competitors and get a sense of which competitor is aggressively marketing on such platforms.
The most important element in marketing on these websites is the communication i.e the ad copy, use of call to actions, use of keywords and clean images of properties in order to give your target audience a clear picture about the company’s product and offerings.
SEM and advertising
Marketers have often committed mistakes in ad copies, budgeting, targeting and most of the times, they have made a mistake of having a common advertising and SEM strategy. This can be improved in three ways:
Keyword Targeting
- In order to target your audience effectively, Google Adwords and Ubersuggest can provide with the right keywords. The use of Webmasters and Google Analytics for a long term can help in optimizing your keywords data and help in understanding audience behavior and your most valued keywords.
- The next step would be to analyze which are the most successful keywords and expand on those common variations. Marketers should also consider long tail keywords which have good potential to get in more revenue as they usually have low competition and specifically targeted by visitors who are interested in buying. Guerilla marketing is a technique used in targeting, wherein locations and competitor keywords are used for improving brand search.
- For example, VTP realty, Pune based real estate developer belonging to the VTP group have used this technique to increase its reach and overall brand awareness.
Ad Copies
- Ad copies need to be developed by considering the needs of the prospects with a major focus on the headline, as David Ogilvy once said: “On an average, five times as many people read the headline, read the body copy.” Ad copies built out of the targeted keywords need to be precise, crisp and crystal clear. Another crucial aspect of ad copies is mentioning CTA’s. Any ad copy without a CTA is incomplete. CTAs help in pushing the audience in making the right decisions, it helps in identifying your real customers.
- Making personalized communication through ads which highlight the buyer’s unmet needs always makes a larger impact.
- For example, Oberoi Realty used a personalized ad strategy to target the luxury segment buyers. Buyers belonging to the luxury segment are looking for exclusivity and these buyers have pragmatic decision-making capabilities. Therefore the campaign ads directly appealed to their psyche with relevant numbers and information, which was absolutely critical.
A/B Testing
- This process will help in understanding which ad copy is performing. Every aspect of the ad copy including the content, CTA, color combinations or even the headlines is put under the scanner in order to get a complete understanding of the performance. The objective here is to make use of the best copy with the best elements and have personalized communication with the prospect.
Video Marketing
Video has become the biggest form of consumption in content marketing on every platform. More than 45% of people watch at least an hour of video on Facebook per day. Video marketing plays a crucial role in real estate marketing, especially in a country like India where trust is a major concern.
Showcasing properties on video through various channels is a way of establishing a strong brand identity and also to cultivate brand loyalty among your customers. As compared to television ads video marketing is way cheaper with better returns as you have a higher probability of conversion through these ads. Today real estate marketers are showing their creativity by using different elements apart from just showing the properties.
Having an emotional connection with the brand
Brands which have an emotional connect with their target audience develop a personalized relationship with their audience. There is a sense of trust, reliability and also forms a strong brand identity. Having a clearly defined brand persona creates strong brand loyalty.
Social media groups, blogs, articles, user communities play an essential role in developing a relationship with the target audience. Real estate being such an involved product, brands need to be aware of the interest levels of their audience in order to provide them an enhanced buyer experience. Having a dialogue with your audience results in better engagement and strong brand recall.
For example: When Amanora Park Town was launching Amanora Gold Towers, the brand developed an emotional connection with its target audience by leveraging the community living aspect of the brand. Brand positioning was built around the message that the project signifies the “Amanora way of life” which means living easy and hassle-free. It made the buyer focus on community living with revolutionary amenities instead of focusing on it being a premium value asset.
Conclusion:
Digital marketing techniques have helped several brands work wonders. It is imperative to know your audience to drive conversions. Real Estate Digital Marketing has opened up new opportunities for real estate developers. Digital marketing in real estate has helped in improving customer engagement, customer acquisition using lead nurturing techniques, using various advertising platforms and making the best use of influencer marketing. In the near future, we are about to witness increasing investments in digital marketing from real estate brands as new technologies are set to elevate the buyer experience in real time.