Along with traditional marketing strategies, real estate developers are now leveraging technology, digital tools and social media platforms for marketing their projects and showcasing their value, their properties and services, to their clients.
In today’s online world where everything is available in a single click, digital marketing is essential. No matter how much your company or business size, digital marketing is one of the best ways to grow your business. And to build your company and the reputation of your company, it is crucial to have the best digital marketing strategies ready with you. There are different digital marketing strategies i.e. social media campaigns, partnerships with influencers, content marketing, and many others in order to generate genuine leads.
TRUTH & HYPE OF SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS
As per industry statistics, the top 10 social media sites in terms of monthly active users are Facebook, YouTube, Whatsapp, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, Reddit, Pinterest, Twitter and LinkedIn. Facebook might still be dominant, but Instagram has seen impressive growth. This means one needs to keep track on where the target audience or specific demography might be moving. So, how to choose the right platform for social media marketing?
According to Anujita Jain, CEO Dotwise, Digital Unit of Alchemist Marketing Solutions, “Instagram and YouTube have become important platforms to reach and engage with the clients. However, top-end luxury real estate brands must build their equity on LinkedIn and Twitter too, while maintaining a healthy flow of content on the visual based platforms. What is the most relevant across the spectrum of projects is the advantage of motion based, browse-friendly video content across the platforms, and these must be served thick and fast in the social media environment. What is most relevant across spectrum of projects is the advantage of motion based, browse-friendly video content across platforms, and these must be served thick and fast in the social media environment.”
As per Arun Anand & Vyoma Pandit, Founders at Flow Realty, a new age real estate start-up, “Usage of social platforms for real estate can be looked into from two perspectives – customer acquisition/awareness and brand/internal promotion. From the former, Facebook and Instagram have played a major role in changing the customer acquisition process in the industry in the last 5 years. From a 90% offline lead generation dependence, we have come to 90% online lead generation funnels. For the latter, LinkedIn has played a big role in terms of brand awareness, especially for discovering talent, reaching out to channel partners and vendors/agencies.”
Shreyansh Baid, Founder, Shreyansh Innovations, Advertising Design Digital & Social Agency added, “Instagram followed by YouTube and Facebook are the most relevant social media platforms. But, each platform’s algorithm delivers as per user behavior so brands need to understand their nuances and use them to their advantage.”
Rahul Goyal and Rohan Shah, Co-Founder, Realatte Ventures LLP agreed that Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn have come in quite handy in engaging relevant audiences and then generating quality leads. ”Instagram will soon become one of the prime platforms in terms of reachability, leads and brand reputation. Apart from these platforms, having a presence on Twitter is also recommended.”
GOOD & BAD OF SOCIAL MEDIA
Just like, a coin has two sides to it, social media too comes with its own set of pros and cons. Its biggest advantages are the ease of use, reach and cost effectiveness and the biggest disadvantages are the vulnerability to negative reviews and trolls and results take time to manifest.
Anujita Jain believes, social media platforms are where real estate brands get a chance to focus on their brand. "In a category that is prone to project led advertising, with hard goals of delivering ROI, social media is a softer environment that allows a brand to not only manage reputation, but build it. As digital is fast becoming the go-to place for high involvement categories that depend on information and past credentials to create customer confidence, social media has a huge role to play for brands in reaching and engaging prospective customers by taking charge of the narrative.”
Arun Anand sharing the benefits said, “The pro is obviously reach – it has helped developers reach 100x the buyer coverage with just 10% budgets of what offline media like print/outdoor could offer. That is further enhanced by low marketing budget requirements which creates a level playing field for all kinds of brands. Customization and ability to adapt content real-time is another advantage.”
Vyoma Pandit spelling out the cons added, “The cons of course come from the fact that these are 2-way communication and democratic mediums i.e. if you put up content, you will have someone having an opinion on that publically via comments on the platform. So it’s important to have a team that not just monitors your paid marketing ROI but also your online brand reputation from time to time. The reach is also 2-way – if you can reach your buyers, they can also check on your online reviews before making a purchase; one bad buyer experience can create a lot of damage as compared to few years ago.”
Shreyans Baid expressed, “Social media has strongly helped convey a brand’s promise, gain trust, goodwill, and ethical reputation, especially during the pandemic. Today, we know what people are saying about the brand versus back in the days when perceptions were vague or based on consumer research. The audience is sharing their experiences that brands can pick and work upon if required. However, many a times consumers use social media to vent their frustrations also about a bad experience.”
Rahul Goyal said, “Pros are good online reputation that helps the audience in quick decision making and would result in better end conversions/sales. Having a team to respond to queries and questions can help brands in generating more leads. Positive sentiments also build trust for the brand which is important in real estate. But, audiences also use social media platforms to raise their concerns which are publicly accessible.”
DIGITAL MARKETING & GENUINE LEADS
There are different strategies that are being used by marketers in order to get genuine leads. And digital marketing is a source that enables you in amplifying your lead generation efforts by raising brand awareness, driving website traffic and improving community engagement.
To generate genuine leads, Rohan Shah suggested, “Have the right mix of platforms depending on the objective, scale and target audience. Brands should ensure a strong presence on Google Search for relevant keywords as this is the only pull-based digital platform. Facebook strategies should be tightly configured to generate highly relevant leads. Native platforms should also be explored when there is a high lead requirement.
Rahul Goyal added, “Implement multi-level lead tracking in your CRM to understand what strategies, creative, and platforms are helping your brand to get more site visits and bookings. Optimize campaigns based on the lead quality and not just on cost per lead. Creatives should communicate key details like price, location, configuration and USPs / Offers. The landing page should have multiple forms and should load within 4-5 seconds and Digital assets like Google Business Listing, Corporate Website, Chatbots and Social media pages should be timely updated.”
According to Shreyans Baid, digital marketing has 4 key cogs - content, media, data, and tech. All of the four areas need to work together to make any campaign successful. “Each platform is able to deliver to certain goals - Instagram is to create inspiration and aspiration, Facebook is for awareness and reach, YouTube is for storytelling. One will get genuine results by playing by platform while championing the 4 areas.”
Anujita Jain shared, “In real estate, every project is unique with its own nuances of audience and micro geography. Digital allows the option of trying a variety of hypotheses across platforms, audiences, geo pockets, at low costs. Lead quality is a factor of continually doing split tests and trials, to optimise the media plan on platforms, audience, and creatives. It’s crucial to use the initial few days of a campaign to triangulate that sweet spot of the right audience, at the right cost, with the most effective creatives, to consistently deliver lead quality through a campaign. Longer term projects have a different challenge of finding new audience pockets beyond the walled gardens of Facebook and Google, to keep the lead flow going. For those, intuitive campaigns with programmatic advertising and high intent landing pages, play a strong role.”
STATE OF INFLUENCER MARKETING
Influencer marketing is one trend that is doing rounds on different social media platforms but it is a double edged sword. Typically, consumers view the influencers they follow as trusted individuals and this helps brands gain credibility however, working with the wrong influencers can do more harm than good.
Anujita Jain agreed, “ The best answer to influencer marketing for real estate is not necessarily in the way influencer marketing is understood in social pop culture with young Instagrammers or Youtubers. In fluencers and in fluencer platforms must be selected smartly for real estate, as it ’s important to get reach and engagement with an audience who has the buying po wer for your project. Ge nres like celebrity or c orporate influencers are more effective, pulling in the right audience. Anothe r lens to approach influencer marketing is to create collaborative content with non-c ompetitive brands, which has bee n done tactically with c ategories like luxury automobile, but its time t o make larger strategic tie-ups to co-create win-win in fluencer content.”
Shreyans Baid said,“People look up to greater people who offer thoughts through their experiences. Real, honest, and candid stories are more persuasive than anything. Also ad rates have gone up by almost 25% percent so collaborating with brands or influencers similar to one’s target audience will bring relevant prospects into their universe.”
Vyoma Pandit added, “Real estate has been a late adopter of Influencer marketing but in the last 1-2 years, some developers have started using influencers, especially for showing a model home online or letting out an apartment in the project for use of ad-shoots/interior design projects.”
According to Rahul Goyal and Rohan Shah currently, influencer marketing is a booming business tool. “Just as the marketing techniques have shifted from offline to online, word-of-mouth marketing has not been restrained. Many top-notch real estate brands have been promoting their projects through an influencer. It has resulted in drawing potential clients and attracting the influencer's audience too. Brands are leveraging it more often than before and should soon become a trend in most the project launches.”
Real estate advertising is inherently low in patience, wanting fast results and high accountability. Digital instantly gratifies this need of this category. The interesting shift seen is how digital is being used to tell the brand story, build aspirations, project experience and customer confidence through social. All of these help in moving the prospect down the funnel. However, as the customer journey is not linear, integrated digital strategies can provide a comprehensive thrust to the brand across all aspects. - Anujita Jain
Digital media is constantly evolving with innovative solutions like Mobile app for every project, Pre-scripted calls rather than sending a standard SMS. Some platforms now allow brands to target their audience to geo proximity of as small as 50 meters, using trending Instagram reels to achieve organic growth and rich media creatives that offer an exceptional user experience. - Rahul Goyal and Rohan Shah.
The biggest change digital has done for RE is to create a level-playing field for young brands for reaching out to customers. Also, because of the Covid-created comfort of buying anything from your phone, customers have opened up to experiencing a big part of the funnel online from Discovery, Research and First Site Visit Online. All you need is a smart digital campaign, a neat online presentation, a smart team, and a strong buying proposition - no need for fancy AR/VR tools.- Arun Anand & Vyoma Pandit
In a category that inherently depends upon using the imagination to sell a product that needs a match of head, heart and pocket, videos online do the job of what a sample flat does on site. In the absence of impressive shoot-based AVs, what also works is hard-working render-or-stock footage based videos or infographics that bring alive a project.
KEY POINTERS FOR HIGH QUALITY LEAD GENERATION
- Have clearly defined metrics to measure quality – Lead-to- Visit conversion ratio, Cost-per-qualified-lead and Junk-lead-% and some to start with. Benchmark these against your industry/ category average. Measure these on a weekly basis
- Help your agency/digital team clearly define the target audience before you configure your campaigns in the medium (FB/ google). Very broad targeting could give you lead volume but will just keep your call-centre busy without proportionately adding visits
- Content changes everything. If you have the right creatives for the medium, its 70% job done right. And once you crack this, focus on creating more impressions of these for the qualified leads and look-alike audiences you have.
- Be patient. High quality lead generation takes time and iterative adaptation of the campaign and content for atleast 2 weeks. Changing the campaign configuration and content frequently never helps.
