After reading the headline, you might be asking yourself, does digital marketing for real estate in India in 2022 really required?
According to industry estimates, the Indian real estate market is projected to grow from Rs 20,000 crore (200 billion US dollars) in 2021 to Rs 1 lakh crore (1 trillion US dollars) by 2030.
Most people think buying and selling real estate properties is a better investment to accumulate wealth in the future.
Yes, you heard that right! Real estate is also the most promising sector from the investment perspective which yields more than 30% CAGR (Compounded Annual Growth Rate) over time, according to experts.
Furthermore, India’s real estate sector is the second largest employer generator after agriculture.
Considering the above information, I am left wondering, thinking about what the future holds for real estate in India.
As a digital marketer, I thought about digital marketing for real estate businesses in India to help agents and developers attract more customers very quickly.
This article answers many questions that arise in everyone’s mind about digital marketing for real estate in India in 2022.
Does digital marketing work for real estate?
People will always make a final decision of buying properties after the field visits only.
But before getting them a site visit, it is very important to a broker or agent, or a real estate developer to recognize the interested buyer.
There are many people out there in the market who just asks and enquire about details about the property without having the intention of buying it. Identifying the actual potential buyer is one of the big problems for all realtors.
Is it possible to identify the potential buyer every time? The answer is NO. Then what is the solution for it? You can answer all the possible questions without getting them an in-person conversation.
Here digital marketing for real estate companies comes into the picture. It works best for this industry also. Digital marketing not only helps boost sales but also in creating brand awareness and stands unique among competitors.
What is the role of digital marketing in real estate in 2022 across the globe?
Today people browse everything. They get all the answers from the search engines for all their queries. No one wastes their time by asking friends, relatives, and neighbors.
When a person is looking to buy an apartment or site or a ready house he just goes and searches on the internet. A real estate company with a good online presence appears on the search engine results page.
A good online presence of real estate companies will answer most of the questions about the property that avoids in-person conversation for every other detail.
And now the person who is genuinely interested in buying the property will contact the realtor. Otherwise, he might leave his details like his name and contact phone number and wait for the realtor to contact him.
Today many brokers, realtors, and agents undervalue the effectiveness of digital marketing for the real estate industry.
Let’s take the example of two real estate companies. One with an online presence and the other without.
The first company without a proper online presence needs to treat every customer as a potential one without knowing whether he is genuinely interested in buying or not.
The second company with the best online presence about their properties with all the details and the customer one who already gone through it and get answered for most of his questions further contacting the company or the agent shows the customer is genuinely interested in the property and it’s quite easier to convert those.
So considering digital marketing for real estate business had significant benefits.
Benefits of digital marketing for the real estate industry over traditional marketing
Digital marketing methods get better and better and evolve with time. Nowadays, people in metropolitan and urban cities are not the only ones who are making use of search engines for their queries but the tire-2 and tire-3 cities people as well.
Digital space is widespread hands and reaching every corner of the country. So making use of digital marketing for real estate developers, agents, brokers, and investors is one of the most crucial parts these days.
Right audience:
Digital marketing helps in targeting the right audience. Today digital marketers have access to a wide range of tools that tracks an individual online activity, interest, age group, device, demographics, and much more. Digital marketers make use of this data and target the right audience who are interested in buying property.
Low cost:
Marketing and advertising cost is very high with traditional methods like television ads, newspaper ads, etc. In the case of digital marketing, like Facebook and Google ads, it is much more affordable. Online ads are one of the best techniques of digital marketing for the real estate industry to gain new customers.
High return on investment:
Digital marketing offers a good return on investment when compared to other traditional methods as it targets only the specific audience who is looking for a particular service at a particular time.
Easy to measure:
Digital marketing campaigns (digital ads) can be very easily measured when compared to traditional methods. It is very difficult to measure the effectiveness of a campaign advertised on television. In the case of digital marketing, we can start seeing the data immediately which is more effective.
Ad flexibility:
In digital ads, we can immediately modify them even while it is running. In the case of traditional methods, once the ad gets published, it is not easy to modify.
Brand awareness:
Digital marketing plays a vital role in creating brand awareness in a shorter period. It includes setting up a website, creating social media accounts, getting online reviews, writing blogs, etc contributes a lot in creating brand awareness.
Engagement:
Digital ads possess greater engagement when compared to traditional ads. For example, a reader might miss reading the newspaper ad about the property but the fewer chances of missing an ad triggered while browsing the internet.
Faster communication:
Digital marketing facilitates quick communication between the seller and buyer very easily. A customer can’t communicate with the newspaper ad very quickly but can easily interact with social media profiles.
Still, there are many more benefits of digital marketing, not only for real estate but for all businesses. This is how digital marketing is very important for real estate.
How to do digital marketing for real estate in India?
There are various methods of digital marketing to consider for different businesses. A realtor can make use of a combination of various methods to generate leads for his real estate business.
Here I’m discussing a few methods that are helpful for the real estate industry.
User-friendly website:
This is the very first step to consider in the digital marketing space for any business type. It is a strong fundamental strategy for building any business online. And also a website increases brand awareness and builds trust.
A realtor can easily list the properties and specify all the necessary details on the website which helps the buyer to find the required information. It is highly important to make the website mobile friendly as more than 45% of traffic comes from mobiles these days.
Create social media profiles:
Alike a website, creating social media profiles is something a realtor can’t neglect. People nowadays are very engaging in social media networks. It has an incredible effect on the real estate business.
Posting content on social media and maintaining accounts is very important. It is always good to have an account on all the major platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Youtube, etc.
A realtor can post pictures on Facebook and Instagram, upload videos on the Youtube channel, and create short videos on Instagram which are trending and very engaging nowadays.
Content marketing:
Creating valuable content for the user is one of the important tasks for any realtor. Content can be anything an SEO optimized blog articles, videos, etc. Home buying is a big decision and no one can easily make a final decision.
There are a lot of questions and answers that need to be clarified. As a real estate professional, you likely know the possible questions that a customer can ask. Prepare the content that answers all the possible questions.
Pay-per-click (PPC) Advertising:
PPC is one of the great digital marketing strategies for a real estate business in India. PPC algorithm gets triggered when a user searches a particular query in the search engine and costs only when the user clicks on it.
When a user searches to buy a home and a realtor is running an ad for it, the PPC algorithm triggers and appears in user search results. If a user clicks on it then it costs a realtor for that particular click.
Email marketing:
Emails are one of the most conversion factors in the digital marketing world. An email is a valuable tool for connecting to new leads and being in touch with existing leads.
Statistics say the email opening rate of a real estate business is 27%. Always provide content that is more relevant to the customer so that the opening rate will be high.
You can also set up a drip marketing sequence so that the lead goes on getting cold emails continuously but don’t make it too annoying.
Invest in Search Engine Optimization (SEO):
Adopting SEO techniques will help to rank a website on the search engine results page. It is always very important to invest and spend more time on SEO as this is free traffic and levies a great impact on users and search engines.
Optimizing the website and blogs for particular keywords plays a prominent role in SEO. And it is always recommended to stay updated in the SEO industry as the algorithms keep on updating day by day.
List on real estate portals:
There are many real estate portals exclusively for listing various properties. It is always recommended to list on those platform-oriented portals and explore more potential buyers.
Influencer marketing:
People always wanted to look for real experiences. They wanted to hear it from the actual person. There are so many influencers out there in the market. Connect with the right influencer who can bring you the right customer.
Google My Business (GMB):
This is a free technique that any business can make use of. List your real estate company in GMB and provide all the information about the company and services. This will be going to help a lot when it comes to local SEO.
Online Reviews:
It is always a good practice to have a high rating and positive feedback about your properties from old customers. Don’t be shy in asking about the reviews. It creates social proof and builds trust in a new customer.
Virtual tour:
Make use of technologies and set up a virtual tour of a property. Create a high-quality video, use the actual footage of the property, and if possible create 3D views. It is very beneficial to get the sales done.
Chatbots:
People always love to chat. Integrating the chatbots on the real estate company websites and trying to answer site visitor queries. Another main advantage of chatbot is, you can collect customer information like name, age, email Id, etc.
This is how digital marketing generates leads for real estate. And still, there are many more methods to utilize digital marketing for real estate in India in 2022.
Conclusion:
Real estate in India is a booming sector. It is always good to go adopting digital marketing techniques and methods to achieve sales goals in a shorter period. Digital marketing for real estate in India has immense benefits over traditional methods.
Digital marketing is not just how much a real estate broker or agent, or company spends money on ads but how well the utilization of strategies and techniques. It solves many problems and answers the questions of both the buyer and seller. This is why marketing is important for Realtors.
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