Being ahead of the market with the latest trends and technology is key in any sector of business. It is even more critical in the real estate sector, which has lagged in this regard.
The real estate sector in India has a growth rate of around 20% and contributes 6-7% to GDP. The demand for housing has been increasing exponentially over the last decade. However, there is a significant gap between consumers’ demand and what realtors deliver.
The top 15 listed developers in India spend a total of 600-700 Crs on marketing and are still struggling to sell their inventory across various cities. Marketing technology and trends are changing rapidly, and the real estate developers, agents, and consultants are struggling to keep up. Traditional marketing for realtors is no longer valid, and a significant change is underway.
When time and money are invested in marketing, doing it the right way and staying up to date with trends are essential. It is time for realtors to embrace new marketing channels and make their presence felt. It’s these small continuous changes that will ensure higher ROI in the future.
Here is my list of trends in real estate marketing.
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- Better visualisation: Virtual reality, Augmented reality and mixed reality:
Virtual reality and augmented reality are the current buzz words and are expected to disrupt many sectors, real-estate being one of the tops in the list. As per Goldman Sachs, Global investment research Virtual reality in the real-estate sector by 2025 will be having a market size of $2.6 billion USD.
Virtual tours and virtual mockups are a must-have for all projects. It enables consumers to be in the comfort of their home and understand your project. It not only makes you tech-savvy in front of your clients but also helps you be much more efficient and save money.
The power of better visualisation lets you bring clients to your office, where you set up an HD TV, a head-mounted VR device, and touch screens, etc., and tour them through many projects across the city from the comfort of cosy chairs, snacks, and beverages, and sell them the house.
For your clients, a 3-D tour is a more convenient way to view many houses in a short time. At the initial research phase of their purchase, the technology becomes a blessing in disguise and is more than sufficient to make initial decisions. You must go with HD video quality and create an immersive experience of your property—this interactive experience from the viewer’s perspective is more beneficial, engaging, and fun.
Augmented reality is an untapped powerhouse for advertising. A print media advertisement that may seem commonplace now can be made extraordinary with augmented reality. This feature will bring the property you are advertising to life by showcasing its essential details from a 3-D perspective.
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- Refocusing or Retargeting – Website
A fairly easy, cheap, and effective method is to go for retargeting. Retargeting campaigns bring in much better results than Facebook or Google ads because the setup options are broader. Retargeting is where your customer visits your homepage and leave the homepage soon after. He then sees your ad on another website. This recaptures his interest and he comes back to your homepage.
You can target both search and social media, blacklist unnecessary sites, create retargeting lists like social media followers or newsletter subscribers, and much more. You can easily target end users, general buyers, luxury home buyers, investors, and niche audiences, resulting in a higher response rate.
The key here is to invest in a strong website and to create high-quality content that effectively showcases your projects. The use of 360-degree photography, 3D walkthroughs, aerial views of the location and amenities, high-quality renders, live videos, and seamless page transitions, which offer transparency, works well with clients.
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- Use The Power of Social Media like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram
The cost and the trend of advertising on Google, Facebook, etc., are only going to increase. This is a strong truth that can no longer be ignored. So, how you use these tools to showcase your properties will help you become a key differentiator compared to your competitors.
The smart way to do it is to invest in lead generation via online advertising, either Google Adwords or Facebook Ads, or both. A good campaign setup can yield excellent results at a fraction of the cost of traditional marketing. The use of inbound marketing for lead generation, along with exploring newer forms of online marketing, is key to staying ahead of competitors.
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- Invest In A Good Real-Estate CRM or Marketing Software
The use of spreadsheets for sales and marketing is outdated. There are several standard cloud-based CRM tools available that can be easily customised to your needs. It’s impossible to manually follow up with thousands of generated leads and engage meaningfully with every one.
The alternative and more effective way is to have a system that can automatically add new contacts, schedule follow-up messages, alerts, and reminders, automatically send property proposals, and help with daily activities.
Staying vigilant on the marketing trends and diversifying your marketing channel is the need of the hour. Remember to focus on the long term organic growth for a stable business. The initial impact on investing in these new trends might have a small impact but in the long term, you can be assured of better ROI and a stronger customer base.