In March 2020, the COVID-19 was declared to be a global pandemic. It was a new kind of respiratory disease that spurred out of Wuhan, a province of China, and spread across the world shaking up almost every sector related to human existence. In order to curtail the spread of the pandemic, governments around the world imposed lockdowns and social isolation measures which almost paralyzed the social interaction-based businesses such as the real estate industry. A global economic crisis was inevitable. The effectiveness of businesses to market their products was limited. The real estate marketing, mortgage, and brokerage—too—received the blow. Buyers could not visit remote locations to view properties due to COVID-stricken travel bans and stake holders halted investing due to uncertainty brought about by COVID-19. However, every entity learns to adapt to changing situations, and the real estate industry did the same by adopting virtual marketing techniques.
Even before COVID-19, real estate was well aquatinted with the concept of virtual offices. Virtual offices allow business owners to enjoy all the comforts of a physical office without actually renting or buying a physical luxurious space for their business. Virtual offices are important in the sense that they cut overhead costs and save time and money by allowing the workforce to perform their duties from the comfort of their home. However, before the COVID-19 pandemic, the prospects of virtual marketing in real estate sector were still questioned as experts argued that the implementation of virtual reality in real estate industry required huge amount of money so it will never find a space in the real estate sector. But the COVID-19 pandemic changed this as well along with many other things. Real estate moved close to digitalization, and virtual marketing got traction. Virtual site visits, video walk-throughs, and virtual staging became common as tools of marketing in real estate. Similarly, buyers who feel afraid to go out in fear of the pandemic preferred virtual platforms to look out for their required properties, making virtual marketing more successful.
Marketing through Social Media Platforms Became More Common
Until before the COVID-19 pandemic, main source of information on real estate sales for potential customers and stakeholders were the traditional outlets such as advertisements in newspapers and marketing pamphlets. However, lockdown forced people to stay at home and
spend a larger section of their times on their cellphones, especially on social media. This led to the consciousness among real estate brokers that advertisement using social media platforms can provide great opportunity to attract attention of potential buyers. Hence, real estate sector is currently adopting techniques such as paid ads and video conferencing on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to target customers and investors by launching carefully designed content.
Adoption of Virtual Reality in Marketing
Those real estate businesses who adopted virtual reality in marketing and sales have gained a lot. The main virtual reality tools include virtual tours, virtual staging, and drone shoots. Similarly, agent to client interactions via video conferencing apps such as Zoom and Google Meet allowed realtors to schedule meetings with clients without the need to commute, this saving both resources and time. Virtual tours makes clients’ visits to views their preferred properties easier, and virtual staging provides developers to show fully furnished properties to their customers without actually furnishing those sites. Hence, the task of both the clients and realtors is made super easy with virtual modes of marketing.
Introduction of Referral Schemes via Virtual Platforms to Increase Sales
When the pandemic made the task of getting new clients difficult, real estate industries moved towards referral schemes to prompt their old clients to renew their contracts. Additionally, getting referrals on and off digital platforms from existing clients was focused on. Many companies adopted the strategy to send mails and offer discounts and deals to their existing clients if they referred their services to their friends and family. Many businesses saw a 20% increase in their sales after implementing this strategy. This strategy might prove influential in meeting the operational costs of real estate businesses till the markets return to normal after the pandemic is passed.
Digital Advertising of Discount Offers
Offering heavy discounts has been a traditional strategy to attract potential buyers. However, the digitalization of marketing has given it a significant boost. From offering freebies to cash discounts and refundable tokens, the modes of discount marketing vary. Moreover, offering easy terms and conditions to buy a property prompted many buyers to purchase properties
during the pandemic. A larger section of these buyers is composed of first time purchasers trying to get a home of their own on easy terms.
It is certain that COVID-19 has changed marketing in real estate sector like any other business. Viewing the convenience and profitability in virtual marketing, we can say that this change is not very bad. Moreover, such adaptation was inevitable to protect the robust real estate sector from collapsing in front of the merciless onslaught coronavirus pandemic.
