# Market Entry Strategy

### **Before entering the industry, a company should consider the following factors:**

1. **Knowing the Audience-** Understanding the target audience is the basic and most important step to all marketing efforts. Not only it will enable the real estate company to understand what their potential buyers need, but also tweak certain aspects of their product or service to fulfil those needs. These are the foundation steps for Real Estate Marketing Strategy too.
2. **Professional Website-** Outdated or unprofessional looking websites can turn away even a serious home buyer. Not only are older websites hard to navigate, but they also put a question mark on the trust factor with the organization. A real estate company’s website is a key tool for all of their marketing efforts. It represents the brand and its values, so the website needs to portray them clearly and concisely. Visitors must find it incredibly easy to find information and navigate through different sections. Prompting visitors to take action and requesting to "get in touch" with the company is also an effective way to push visitors down the lead funnel.
3. **Join Hands for Success-** Joining hands with channel partners, Joint Venture partners, etc. is not necessarily a bad idea. Today’s real estate market is fiercely competitive. The only way to succeed in sales consistently is through collaboration and partnerships. Such partnerships and business connections will earn companies better qualified leads, access to referrals and also build strong bonds within the fraternity.
4. **Professional Photographer-** While this may seem like a basic one, many real estate companies don’t realize its importance. Photographs are a critical part of the home buying decision process. In fact, 89% of home buyers believe that professionally shot photos helped them make a more informed decision. Professional photographers use advanced equipment, lighting techniques, and processing to give a picture-perfect look to homes those customers love to look at before taking the final decision.
5. **Virtual Reality and 3D Scans-** Innovative methods of marketing are a great way to get an edge over competition. While professionally shot still pictures are important, a Matterport 3D camera will prove to be a cutting-edge visual weapon for a company. It combines all internal and external pictures of a property and creates a 3-dimensional representation. Using Virtual Reality (VR) headsets, customers can get the actual feel of walking through a home, from any part of the world.
6. **Power of Analytics & Insights-** Analytics & measurable data is core to all marketing strategies. They help a company get an improved vision of the investment and the returns. With Google Analytics and Facebook Insights, a company can track a variety of metrics related to its website content, social posts, re-targeting efforts, etc. over time. Number of site visitors, average session duration, bounce rate and goal conversions are just a few of the endless metrics that can be defined and tracked. Actual data can help a company improve & improvise its marketing strategies.
7. **Email Nurturing Strategy-** An email marketing strategy is a critical component of a real estate marketing funnel. Very frequently, potential customers visit a company’s website or an exhibition kiosk, and then got busy with something else. Companies do not want to miss out on this opportunity and stay on their mind. With a lead form, companies can get their email address and send them emails with relevant, helpful information about their particular home buying requirement. Personalized emails which will help them take the appropriate next steps.
8. **Target a niche audience-** Having a one-size-fits-all approach is not a good idea in a highly competitive real estate market. Choosing a niche audience – e.g., kid-friendly homes or women-centric houses – will help a company establish itself as a category expert. The right buyers will come looking for the company, instead of the company hunting around. An important step to doing this is also sharing lots of useful content via website, blogs, social channels, etc. based around the target niche audience.
9. **Drone Videos-** Aerial drone videos are a highly effective strategy especially when it comes to real estate. Very few real estate businesses in India use the power of drone videography, which means it’s a great opportunity to stand out from the crowd.
10. **24x7 Availability-** Customers appreciate when businesses are available round-the-clock. The always ready-to-help attitude can go a long way in fostering a strong relationship with your prospects. Implementing chat bots on a company’s website is a great way to help visitors answer some of their questions then and there.
11. **Client Testimonials-** Potential customers trust and relate to reviews from existing customers rather than brands talking about themselves. Definitely more than any creative ad campaign one can imagine. Genuine customer testimonials increase brand credibility and encourage potential customers to purchase the product.
12. **Optimize for Mobile-** Ever since the rapid acceptance of smartphones, the way people browse the internet has changed drastically. 52% of users browse websites on mobile devices. Contrary to what one may believe, mobile optimized websites allow visitors to find what they need rather easily than the desktop version. People can continue their hunt for a new home at any place and at any point of time directly from their cell phones.
13. **Maintain a Blog-** Blogs have been very trending in India lately. Over time through blogs, a company can deliver a lot of value, build a loyal readership base, and reap the benefits for a long time. The key here is to consistently post new content which helps customers with relevant and useful information about real estate.
14. **Content Marketing-** Content marketing is one of the most effective marketing strategies in today’s time. In fact, it is the essence of inbound marketing. Identifying prospect's pain points, making them understand the need to solve their problem and then providing them with the solution(s) in the form of valuable content is what content marketing is all about.
15. **Landing Pages-** A landing page is vital to all inbound & paid marketing efforts. Hence, it's no different when it comes to marketing a real estate business. A landing page delivers precise information about a project in a systematic, efficient and easy way to the potential home buyers. A lead generation form placed strategically on the landing page will help the company coax the visitors to take action, which will further help in e-mail nurturing efforts later.
16. **Downloadable Offers-** When a company is expecting a website, landing page or blog visitor to share their email address with the company, they should get something in return. Only if a visitor sees genuine value in what the company have to offer will the person willingly share their e-mail address.
17. **Power of Video-** In the last few years, statistics say that video content provides the most engagement. In fact, 72% of all users prefer to learn about a product or service via video. Videos are easy to digest, combine the best of text, pictures, and diagrams, and make it easy to consume information. In fact, 83% of people who see useful videos share it with their friends and within their network. Videos are also beneficial to a company’s website's SEO.
18. **Emotional Storytelling-** As rational an explanation as a company may provide, home buying is an emotional decision for most people. One of the tenets of real estate marketing strategies is to unleash the power of emotional storytelling. Instead of statistical information like ‘We have sold 400 flats’, try flipping the same with a video showcasing 400 happy families living their daily lives at the project.
19. **Brand Identifiers-** Brand awareness is all about consistency. When a company creates and spread consistency about its brand, it sticks in the people's minds. Creating a brand identity, logo, font style, voice, tone, etc. that resonates with the company’s values and beliefs is important. The branding elements should be clear and consistent in all the communication collaterals, be it in traditional or digital media.
20. **Social Media Presence-** The power of social media marketing for real estate is largely untapped. Social media can help companies get closer to its customers, have meaningful one-to-one conversations and build rapport. It is important that the marketing strategy involves the use of social media channels.
21. **Referral Sales-** Potential customers trust existing happy customers. Creating a referral reward system for the existing customers to refer future home buyers to a company is very wise. If the existing customers are happy with company, they will anyway spread good word-of-mouth amidst their friends, family and colleagues.
22. **Giving back to Society-** It is no secret that people like to associate with businesses that care about the society and who are ready to help for a larger cause. Corporate Social Responsibility can create a very good impression about a company.
23. **CRM software-** Using a CRM and marketing automation software like Hubspot can help a company organize leads in an efficient manner. Additionally, such softwares have in-built tagging, filters and host of other features for customer segmentation, tracking, etc.
24. **Golden Circle Theory-** In real estate, every company is selling a flat or commercial space or luxury villa, but a few are differentiating that product via a true unique selling proposition. Only a handful of companies actually know the purpose of their company’s existence – one that transcends beyond their products & services, a greater cause or belief that the company stands for.
25. **Staying in Touch-** Staying in touch with old customers is an emotional & highly effective real estate marketing strategy. Sending them a sapling on their birthday with a greeting message, or chocolates on their anniversary can be one of the few ways to give that personal touch. Especially in India, due to its culture, this might leave a very positive impression. in Touch- Staying in touch with old customers is an emotional & highly effective real estate marketing strategy. Sending them a sapling on their birthday with a greeting message, or chocolates on their anniversary can be one of the few ways to give that personal touch. Especially in India, due to its culture, this might leave a very positive impression. in Touch- Staying in touch with old customers is an emotional & highly effective real estate marketing strategy. Sending them a sapling on their birthday with a greeting message, or chocolates on their anniversary can be one of the few ways to give that personal touch. Especially in India, due to its culture, this might leave a very positive impression. in Touch- Staying in touch with old customers is an emotional & highly effective real estate marketing strategy. Sending them a sapling on their birthday with a greeting message, or chocolates on their anniversary can be one of the few ways to give that personal touch. Especially in India, due to its culture, this might leave a very positive impression. in Touch- Staying in touch with old customers is an emotional & highly effective real estate marketing strategy. Sending them a sapling on their birthday with a greeting message, or chocolates on their anniversary can be one of the few ways to give that personal touch. Especially in India, due to its culture, this might leave a very positive impression. in Touch- Staying in touch with old customers is an emotional & highly effective real estate marketing strategy. Sending them a sapling on their birthday with a greeting message, or chocolates on their anniversary can be one of the few ways to give that personal touch. Especially in India, due to its culture, this might leave a very positive impression. in Touch- Staying in touch with old customers is an emotional & highly effective real estate marketing strategy. Sending them a sapling on their birthday with a greeting message, or chocolates on their anniversary can be one of the few ways to give that personal touch. Especially in India, due to its culture, this might leave a very positive impression. in Touch- Staying in touch with old customers is an emotional & highly effective real estate marketing strategy. Sending them a sapling on their birthday with a greeting message, or chocolates on their anniversary can be one of the few ways to give that personal touch. Especially in India, due to its culture, this might leave a very positive impression.
