ASSOCHAM survey

Realty marketers switch to digital

marketing & social media to entice youth,

maximize margins

& minimise expenses: Survey

More and more real estate marketers are now switching over to digital marketing to maximize margins and minimize marketing expenses as real estate industry continues to jostle with falling sales, drying cash flows, high interest rates, devaluing rupee and soaring input costs, an ASSOCHAM survey said today.

“Real estate firms throughout India spend about Rs 2,500 crore annually on publicity across different media and digital marketing accounts for about 25 per cent with a share of about Rs 625 crore,” according to estimates by various industry representatives in a survey on ‘Emergence of tech-savvy marketing in realty sector,’ conducted by The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM).

“In wake of the on-going slowdown in realty sector, property developers are cutting back on advertisement expenditure incurred on traditional marketing modes of print media like newspaper, banners, flex prints, brochures, flyers and others to enhance brand visibility and lure potential customers and are instead shifting to newer technologies through marketing tools like search engine optimization, search engine marketing apart from realistic photography, 3D visualizations, interactive walkthroughs and other gesture based effects including plenty of textures and objects to add a more natural look to their projects,” highlighted the ASSOCHAM survey.

Besides, realty developers are also shifting to web via social media, blogs, forums, review sections and real estate portals to engage with potential customers especially urban youth as they spend over half of their online time on social networks. 

“Advent of digital marketing in the real estate sector is a very welcome trend as the industry needs to constantly identify itself with growing and ever-changing customer demands and requirements,” said Mr D.S. Rawat, national secretary general of ASSOCHAM. “Besides, digital marketing is also sure-shot way to lure generation Y as they are more tech savvy and in real estate sector the profile of consumer is becoming younger by the day as it is also their preferred choice of investment.”

The ASSOCHAM interacted with about 2,000 real estate marketers, property developers and builders during May-July, 2013 at urban centres of Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi-NCR, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Kolkata, Lucknow, Mumbai and Pune to ascertain how the real estate industry is dealing with slump by cashing on social media and digital marketing to target and engage with consumers.

About 45 per cent of respondents said they have started using 3D walkthroughs and renders for promotion as it helps the customers visualize what they are buying. Besides, many even said it is helping them boost sales and increase customer inquiries, highlighted the ASSOCHAM survey.

While most of them also said these innovative solutions have helped them bring down overall marketing costs, it has also lead to higher return on investment, higher visibility due to wider reach, enhanced customer confidence and engagement through minimal logistic and setup costs.

Highlighting another significant cost benefit of digital marketing, the respondents said that content once developed can be reused across various platforms like web, digital video disks, multi-touch kiosks and others.

Many even said they are constantly analyzing the online behavior of customers and as such they are now able to better understand the customers’ needs and are able to offer them customized options which was not possible earlier through other media.

Many real estate developers also said they are hiring digital marketing experts as against the traditional sales and marketing guys to manage and heighten their presence and maximise their exposure in digital arena, social networks, blogs, newsgroups and newsfeeds.