Why And How Real Estate Businesses Can Stay Relevant Today

The Government of India published India’s GDP growth statistics. While experts did warn us that numbers would be in the negative just like the rest of the world, a 23.9 percent contraction in GDP numbers as compared to 5.2 percent growth in Q1 2019-20 was not something any of us had expected.

Yet, in this economic gloom, we also see stories of green shoots emerging; like the rallying stock market standing at $1.9 trillion as of August 2020, up 45 percent from its March 23 low (S&P BSE Sensex). One key reason for this is that the market is anticipating a positive post-pandemic environment in FY22 where we have moved past the gloom.

Leading economists give credence to these green shoots as well

• Mr. KV Subramanian, Chief Economic Advisor to the Government of India, adds to the debate, “I certainly think that the worst is behind us.”
• The chief economist at the Ministry of Finance, Mr. Krishnamurthy Subramanian, thinks we are heading for a ‘V-shaped’ recovery.

So, what does this mean for the Indian real estate sector? Will the recovery include the industry and help it come back on track to pre-pandemic numbers? Or will the industry be a loner stuck behind?

One argument would be that there is real potential for the sector to do so. Today, the real estate sector finds itself on firmer ground than earlier because of initiatives taken by the Government and industry leaders to bring transparency into the system.

However, these initiatives alone won’t save the industry. In today’s market conditions, the industry finds its fate pinned more on homebuyer sentiments, their behaviour and demands.

Homebuyer Sentiments

According to a survey by magicbricks.com, a third of buyers who were looking for properties have put their purchase plans on hold and 75 percent have decreased their budgets. Another survey, this one by housing.com, homebuyers have put their property purchase plans on hold only for six months and may plan to return to the market after that.

Homebuyer sentiments, from researches from countries like the US, also indicate that homebuyers would rather wait for the storm to blow over than risk investing right now.

Here, real estate developers find themselves in a predicament where property sales will stay low for the time being. And as the economy stabilizes, the demand for homes may recover quickly as a ‘V-shaped’ recovery takes better shape. In such a market where demand is postponed to a later date, real estate developers need to maintain brand recall and stay relevant to changing homebuyer needs as they come back into the equation.

Today, sales and marketing automation platforms allow real estate developers to stay connected, helping engage customers effortlessly via a range of digital channels. It is this experience that the homebuyer connects with when making site visits fall off their list of priorities.

Real Estate Marketing Automation platforms can help realty businesses keep their customers engaged. What this helps with is it keeps brand recall high and to stay relevant in the minds of their customers so that they come back to you when the economy corrects itself.

Marketing Automation for Brand Recall and Relevance

Relationships between developers and homebuyers have changed radically since the pandemic. Where once the demand for homes was high, customers today want far more than before for when it comes to parting with their hard-earned money, especially where ticket-size is large.

Moreover, with high competition for properties and dampened demand, the last thing any developer should do is to put a halt to their marketing engines. Marketing Automation doesn’t just help in reducing overall costs and effort to improve engagement with the homebuyer, it also helps your business understand changing homebuyer mindsets to help keep your messaging relevant to them.

When done right, real estate Marketing Automation can help win their trust and improve your brand image as well. And when the storm blows over and the time is ripe for investments, brand recall created during that period will provide dividends.

So how does it work?

Sell.Do Marketing Automation module offers multiple tools to create an engaging ecosystem for brand recall and maintaining relevance. Some of the tools in the module include:

• Bulk Emails
• Bulk SMS
• Drip Campaigns for Lead Nurturing
• Automated Event-based Email and SMS
• WhatsApp communication
• Paid Marketing

These tools can help realty businesses create targeted campaigns to engage the target audience across all channels effectively.

Here’s a brief list of benefits and best marketing tools to why marketing automation is critical to brand recall and to stay relevant in our current context:

Identifying Homebuyer Pain-points and Expectations

Tracking marketing automation campaigns, event-based offers/promotions, and drip nurturing funnels can help in finding out more about homebuyer preferences; helping identifying their pain points, interests and even track behaviour changes. By presenting different types of content and response tracking, developers set themselves up for better identification with homebuyer pain-points and expectations, which in turn can better sales conversation rates.

Marketing tools to identify homebuyer pain-points and expectations:

• Accumulated campaign reports
• Integrated sales & marketing report
• Email and SMS reports
• Individual campaign reports
• Sales forecasting report

Customer Communication Across the Homebuyer’s Journey

When someone reads your content, it is mostly to acquire information. It is a known fact that just sales interactions and cold-calling cannot lead to conversion in our digitally-laden ecosystem. What they need is to be informed as they move them through the sales funnel. This is lead nurturing. It’s to nurture the prospect to the stage you want to drive them to. Do read the blog on lead nurturing to know how marketing automation can help simplify the process.

Right and prompt messaging through the right digital channels, convenient to them, will create what we call ‘stickiness’ to the brand which makes brand recall and relevance a success.

Best marketing tool for communication across the buyer’s journey: Drip email automation for lead nurturing

Offers and Promotions to (re)Generate Brand Interest

As statistics suggest, homebuyers are more vigilant about their investments today and need more validation before reaching the decision stage. Promotions and offers can help create renewed interest. However, promotions and offers need to stay innovative to keep the homebuyer’s interest high.

Best marketing tool for sharing promotions content (Event-based & bulk sharing):

• Email and SMS
• WhatsApp
• Paid Campaigns
• Telephony (for sales)

While both teams for sales and marketing do work in conjunction with each other, Marketing Automation can help derive granular level data, matched sales data, to help any business find relevant messaging to match changing consumer expectations.

Staying Relevant in the Minds of Your Audience

As we pass through the gloom, customer data and insights will help real estate businesses not just keep brand recall high, but also stay relevant to changing contexts. And for realty businesses who want to win big in a post-pandemic market, the answer lies in Real Estate Marketing Automation.

Marketing Automation can increase team productivity, streamline processes, connect with the audience with relevant messaging to improve brand recall. Sell.Do, real estate CRM, can help real estate developers respond to changing market conditions while maintaining brand recall and relevance in the minds of your target audience.