Online marketing, the sole domain of consumer goods companies, retail firms and travel agencies, has now got property developers lapping it up. The realty sector plans to launch different digital applications to engage with prospective home buyers, and the shift in spend is helping cut down advertisement budgets by 10-15 per cent.
Ad spends across different media for the real estate sector stand at 80 per cent, with digital marketing taking up the rest.
Pune-based Kumar Builders’ chairman Lalit Kumar Jain said that going forward, the budgetary allocation towards its conventional marketing platform would come down, while digital and online marketing would pick up. “Currently, the industry is undergoing a sluggish phase with input costs skyrocketing, taking a toll on margins. The challenge for real estate marketers is to maximise sales and minimise marketing expenses to safeguard squeezing margins,” said Rajeeb Dash, Head (Marketing), Tata Housing.
Online sales
Tata Housing’s online sales have grown to 25 per cent from 15 per cent around two years ago. Dash too said the company is aggressively ramping up its digital presence.
“It will help realtors react to the needs of the customers on a real-time basis and understand their needs compared to the conventional marketing platform that includes e-brochures, banners and hoardings amongst others,” said Girish Shah, VP Sales and Marketing, Godrej Properties.
Tata Housing’s ‘La Tomatina’ was used to promote its township project ‘La Montana’ in Talegaon, Prior to this, the company had launched a similar campaign for its project Inora Park in Pune, where about 200 of the 300 flats were sold online.
Similarly, Bangalore-based Mantri Developers has tied up with mobile advertising firm TELiBrahma. Potential home buyers will be able to choose from a mobile application called ‘Augmented Reality Application’, which gives a 3-D view of properties.
Meanwhile, several marketing tools such as search engine optimisation and search engine marketing can be used effectively by real estate developers to generate targeted leads for projects, said Vishal Sampat, CEO, Convonix.