Thoroughly beating real estate competition in 2021. Here is a good look at available marketing options.
Are you having these challenges?
1. Not
having enough customers
2. Unable to
identify prospective clients
3. Failing
to provide for the family
4. Unable to pay back a loan
About The Author
Cain Ndhlovu is a Digital Marketing Agent at Sunrise Consultancy and a Property Blogger on Property Matters News. Cain helps
I understand your pain …
In 2007 a friend called Thando helped me to get employment as
a sales negotiator. The remuneration wasn’t desirable because it was a
commission only arrangement that meant no sale no income.
A national economy that was nose diving, competition and the
company’s poor marketing conspired to hit hard on my sales. These moments were difficult
because I was just a school leaver without any relevant training. The only
thing I knew best was writing poems a high school passion and my master piece which
was titled Wilderness Wanderer talked
about a beautiful girl in search of true love. But surely how could I write
love poems for prospects? With the passage of time somehow I managed to turn
poem writing to property article writing.
My generous friend noticed this new development and the
great marketing potential it had especially when the articles were exposed on
the world wide web as a result my blog Property Matters News was born in 2012.
The Results
The year 2014 was a turning point because I earned Usd 1
000.00 through my new real estate blog. It all started when I wrote an article
titled, “ Financial consequences of
purchasing property from a seriously-ill seller and other purchases to avoid ”. The post found resonance
in the heart of a Harare lady who after reading it decided to sell her land in Madokero Harare. The lady had an outstanding
balance on a Msasa house she bought from a seriously ill seller. She decide to urgently
settle the balance after reading the post.
Earning this kind of money is something I have not gotten
over for years imagine Iam still writing about it. You know the difference
money can make – buying some new clothes and other choice items. I have not only preserved the winning formula but it
has also evolved such that I teach and help enterpreneurs in other sectors not
real estate through cost effective generation of leads through digital
platforms.
In March 2020 just before the first lockdown I taught stem cell distributors affiliated to Phyto Science Zimbabwe about how they can harness digital marketing. This workshop is what I call Own Boss Enterpreneurship Workshop. Real estate however, is where I polished digital marketing and I love helping estate agents, negotiators, property managers and even conveyancers. Lets therefore, get started through a general look at both off line and online (digital) marketing options a real estate player can use to generate leads that in turn become customers in term of sales, immovable property mandates and valuation clients.
Thoroughly beating real estate
competition in 2021! Here is a good look at marketing options available.
1. Word of mouth marketing
Word of
mouth marketing happens when another person (e.g satisfied customer) influences
others through word of mouth to buy from you. This person is called a center of
influence. The idea is good because it leverage trust. However, offline word of
mouth marketing is too slow and may not be good enough to help an agency quench
ferocious competition.
2. Print newspaper classifieds
This way of
advertising involves placing property adverts in leading print newspapers’
classifieds section. This way of marketing has been used by real estate agents
in Zimbabwe for decades. Success was determined by the fact that the print
newspapers generated a lot of human traffic because print used to be the only
source of information. This is no longer the case because of (1) the rise of
digital media e.g blogs, search engines, social channels and (2) changes in
society as millions of Zimbabweans are now domiciled in the diaspora. It is
common knowledge that the Republic of South Africa alone is home to at least 3
million Zimbabweans. The shift of larger numbers of human traffic from print
media to digital media should advise on best marketing options.
3. Cold calling
Basically this involves knocking on doors unannounced
and stating your case. This can work but it has serious problems associated
with the physical space like the Covid 19 restrictions. Other disadvantages
include the fact that its hard for introverts and that its not cost-effective.
If you are to move knocking doors from one end of the CBD to the other it will
cost you lots of energy plus time. This may not be necessary.
4. Online
Classifieds
These are print classifieds gone digital. No wonder
why it is popular with many players because the concept is something people already
knew from somewhere. Credit can be given to online classifieds for helping many
estate agents reach the diaspora. However, their biggest disadvantage is that
they are too basic. For example they do not have a search engine but you have
to scroll page after page in order to find what you want. Though classifieds
can help a real estate agent find buyers of immovable property it doesn’t do
the same for mandates. If it happens its rare.
5. Digital
Marketing Agency
This is outsourcing digital marketing to an expert so
that you focus on what you know best. If you are a father and you tell your
high school going age children that you are good at all subjects you are lying.
Wise parents outsource children’s education by getting a tutor. Real estate
agents’ education offered by the Real Estate Institute of Zimbabwe (REIZ)
doesn’t include digital marketing. Maybe its because digital marketing on its
own require certain talents like creativity that are not necessarily found in
everybody. So you need to outsource this function. Basically, a digital
marketing agent generate easy to close leads for mandates, sales, valuation and
property management on your behalf. Digital marketing saves time by reducing
the number of time wasters through pre-qualification of leads.
4 Common Digital Marketing Mistakes
1. Not marketing your website or blog
Many believe that once a site is live it will market itself
and visitors will flock to it in their millions. This is fallacious of course.
Why ? Because without real efforts to distribute your site’s content especially
on social media and search engines your site is wasted resource. There are over
1 billion websites on the internet today so what are the chances of someone
stumbling upon yours?
2. Having unrealistic expectations
Sometimes this is caused by the assumption that online
initiatives have overnight results. Yes there are cases of exceptional success
but these are rare at best. If you are wise you don’t base strategy on
exception but on rule . The rule is that online success is built upon hard work
not shortcuts.
3. Engaging in shady practices
A programmer once told me he could improve my blog’s ranking
on Google for certain key words. When I asked him to explain how I discovered
that his methods were what Google Inc call SEO spam or black hat methods that
may involve tricking the search engine into giving you a better search ranking
for certain key words. Google has invested millions for combating SEO spam that
is why they have developed Google Penguin a software dedicated to punishing
websites involved in what it may deem black hat methods. Being penalized by
Google is something difficult to fix.
4. Marketing to everyone
Many companies (estate agencies included) erroneously measure a website’s success by the quantity not quality of visitors. For start-ups, micro, small to medium enterprises (MSMEs) successful marketing is usually niche marketing. A site require the right visitors because at the end you need visitors who will convert to customers.
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