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Real Estate Marketing Strategies in India

Posted on May 31, 2018May 24, 2021 by Vivek

Reading Time: 6 minutes

The past decade has witnessed digital marketing surface as a key player in the advertising and branding of an organisation. Apart from uplifting the brand image and being the winning formula to generate more B2B leads, going digital also helps organisations reach their target audience which, in turn, leads to enhanced sales.

One such industry that has accomplished significant growth in digital marketing is the real estate industry. From enhanced sales to heightened outreach, the online space has proved to be a game changer for the property sector and is guaranteed to transform the real estate industry in 2018. Here are some of the effective real estate marketing strategies that you can apply for your brand as well.

Landing Page Designs

As we all know, a landing page is a one-stop formula to transform your lead generation. In order to get the best out of your landing page, make sure the website is engineered for top performance. Opt for tailor-made designs which are beyond the recent sub-par and patience-testing crawl that current websites exhibit on current browsers. It is also important to optimize your website for different platforms as almost everyone uses a smartphone, tablet or desktop of some kind. When they need information online, you can make it quick and easy by showcasing your landing page containing all the information needed for your product or service. Listed below are few of the advanced features you can implement on your landing page for profound results:

Sticky Contact Forms

Sticky contact forms eliminate the need for users to scroll up and down the page in search of a respective call-to-action like a “Contact Us” or a “Book Now” button. Pages with sticky contact form implementation have recorded a 30% higher rate of lead generation and conversions.

Sticky Call/Contact Option at the Bottom for Mobile Pages

You can now integrate your mobile landing pages with a ‘Call Option’ and a ‘Request Call Back’ button at the bottom of the site. This avoids a long form taking up screen on the website which, in turn, leads to the improved user experience.

Apart from enhanced navigation, you can also track the performance of the page and retrieve the list of users who have clicked on the button but not filled the form with Event Tracking. This will help you in aggressively retargeting the users till they ultimately convert to loyal customers.

Click For Price on Landing Page

Upgrading your landing page with a “Click for Price” call-to-action will not only increase the number of lead enquires but also generate more quality leads for the project. This feature is particularly useful for developers who are showcasing multiple developments. It helps them direct the potential clients to the projects that fit their budgets and preferences. This way, developers can also brilliantly categorise their affordable projects by placing them under a tab of “Lesser than Rs 60 lakhs”, for an instance.

The magic of Google Display Network

Google Display Network is a ground-breaking marketing strategy that can effectively increase the lead generation and conversions of your website through elaborate retargeting. Let’s take a look at how a real estate company can leverage this phenomenon to market their brand in the digital space.

Aggressive remarketing to intent visitors

Linking your Google Analytics account to your AdWords manager will give you a closer insight into the content consumption pattern of your website traffic after an ad click. This data will help you analyse how much of your online leads are generated from AdWords which will, in turn, enhance the performance of your site. You can also categorise your audience into search, display and direct audiences.

Check out our comprehensive guide to AdWords Smart Display Campaigns for more insights.

Search Network

The search network helps you reach people who’ve interacted with your business by retargeting. These audiences will have a very strong intent to buy your property and are most likely a few clicks away from conversion. These are the visitors who have landed on your page through an organic search with the sole aim to purchase.

Display Network

The audiences generated through the display network are targeted based on their consumer behaviour. Due to this, they are usually bigger in number with a lesser probability of conversions.

How to segment the data in analytics

Now that you know the type of audiences you can target in order to market your brand or advertise a property, let’s find out how to segment this data in Google Analytics. Read on to know more.

Step 1: Go to ‘Analytics Property’ and select ‘Audiences Definition’ to create a new audience.

Step 2: Select the Source as ‘Direct’ for direct or organic visitors and select ‘Search Campaign Name’ for search visitors

Remarketing strategy

The main objective behind this strategy is to remarket aggressively to users visiting your website from the Search Network and allocate high budgets to this list instead of running a remarketing campaign on the entire cluster of visitors.

Remarketing page scrollers for microsites

The most effective strategy when it comes to remarketing your property to the online audience is to target only the viewers who have scrolled down your microsite. Since a majority of the users may exit the website from the first fold, it does not make sense to remarket to the set of users who have not engaged with your product.

Marketers can leverage the power of Google Tag Manager (GTM) to capture events in Google Analytics for page scrollers. You can choose a scrolling rate of 25%, 50%, 75% or 100% and set the goal in Analytics to track the performance of your page. For example, you can create an audience based on the engaged users who have scrolled to the second fold of your microsite to target them back efficiently. The main objective here is to remove non-engaged users from the cookie pool and utilize bids and budgets to remarket to engaged users only.

Creating custom affinity audiences based on competitors

By creating a Custom Affinity Audience, real estate companies can reach out to individuals browsing for similar projects in the online space and have most likely filled a lead form with your competitors. This audience can be retrieved with the help of the Thank you Page URL. However, we recommend using this strategy only for the domestic market for a narrow reach. This will also help in effectively communicating the USP of the property in the regional ads.

To reach out to the international market, marketers can create custom audiences based on the competitor’s URL. Nevertheless, the rate of conversion will be low due to the wide audience.

Google display network (GDN) for premium projects

With the help of Google Display Network, property builders can exclusively reach out to audiences who are actively looking to purchase premium developments.

For instance, if you want to engage audiences in booking a test drive with BMW, you can target the users who are looking to purchase a Rolex. Start by visiting each site and capturing the test drive page or the test drive confirmation page to set this up. Then, create the Custom Affinity Audience and vigorously target them till they ultimately convert.

With these strategies, your brand is guaranteed to reign over the online space with a wider reach and enhanced lead generation. It is time you implement these cutting-edge concepts in your digital marketing game plan and take your business to towering heights. You can check out our detailed case study on how a real estate company grew via digital marketing and the social media trends for real estate for better insights. Contact Social Beat for more details.

How to improve the quality of leads generated via digital

Posted on May 18, 2018May 24, 2021 by Ayesha Rafeeq

Reading Time: 7 minutes

In today’s Internet-driven age, it is safe to say that if digital marketing is a game, leads are the prize. No matter what vertical of business your brand belongs to, one of the most important quantifiable dimensions that can measure the success of your online campaigns is the number of leads they generate. With so much emphasis given to customer acquisition and lead generation, it is a no-brainer that the marketing team of your firm needs to focus on increasing the quality of leads for a higher rate of conversion. Let’s take a look at few of the fool-proof methods you can incorporate in your digital marketing strategies to increase the quality of your leads, which, in turn, can effortlessly help you grow your business.

Having a quick response time

As the saying goes, it is always better to strike the iron when it’s hot. This quote is particularly true when it comes to following up on leads just when they have shown interest in your product or service. It is a matter of concern that a lot of digital-savvy companies focus on a plethora of lead generation strategies but do so little when it comes to converting the leads to valuable consumers. According to a recent survey, only 37% of companies respond to their leads within a time period of one hour. Furthermore, only 16% of companies responded within the first 24 hours. These staggering statistics add weight to the fact that organisations need to focus on reducing their lead response time to enjoy high-quality leads. Customer Experience (CX) is critical to success and response time is one important part of that.

Cloud Telephony for better attribution

With cloud telephony its easy to not only record and do a quality test on the conversations but also understand which channel and campaigns are giving better results. With tools like Knowlarity and Exotel and integrations with your CRM, you can improve the quality of leads by attributing success to the correct digital channel. For example, by having separate virtual numbers for each channel you can understand which channel is getting better leads and better cost per sale or cost per customer.

Effective lead nurturing techniques

As the name suggests, lead nurturing is the process of developing a strong connection with potential consumers at each step of the conversion funnel. This is actively done through well-targeted content marketing, multi-channel nurturing approaches, and many other techniques discussed below.

Thinking out-of-the-inbox:

Email marketing is the first thing that comes to mind while exploring lead nurturing. However, with the fast-evolving online space, using just this method to nurture your leads will not get you anywhere. It is time to think beyond the constrained dimensions of their inbox and target them through other methods like social media marketing and dynamic website content.

Targeted content marketing:

Targeting your leads till they convert to long-term consumers is one of the biggest challenges faced by digital marketers. However, showcasing your product or service to the right audience at the right place and the right time might sound difficult, but it is not impossible. Start by studying your leads and understanding their needs and preferences in order to trigger their interest in your brand. Personalised emailers are one of the top digital marketing trends of 2018 and are here to stay. Target your audience with personalised emails that are triggered by their online behaviour to hit bull’s eye. Another targeted digital marketing trend is that of personalised home pages, which is considered as the secret ingredient to lead conversion.

Lead scoring based on content consumption:

In an attempt to nurture leads, organisations are resorting to the new-age technique of lead scoring. In this method, leads are rated based on how valuable they are to the organisation. The score is calculated based on how interested your leads are in your product or service and their position in the conversion funnel. These leads are then prioritised as cold, warm or hot leads and targeted accordingly, giving you a better idea of which leads are of high quality and which are not.

Effective follow-up:

Vigorous follow up is the base of lead nurturing. It shows that you care about the interest a potential client has shown in your organisation and are willing to go the extra mile to cater to their needs. It is one of the fool-proof ways to increase the quality of your leads. The best way to track your follow-up is to create a table of all the leads generated, with their contact details and the status of the follow-up process. You can also colour code the different stages of follow-up to make sure you are not missing out on a good lead. While calling back, it is a good idea to delve into the behaviour pattern of your lead to understand what is stopping them from converting. This is also a great time to analyse your marketing approach and check if the glitch is in your sales team, targeting or the medium of communication. Finally, low-quality leads that still do not convert in spite of these efforts can be disregarded as junk leads to clean up the database.

A step-by-step lead nurturing plan to convert leads to customers

Lead nurturing is a slow and steady process that is guaranteed to boost your business since the leads have already shown interest in your services. The process can be kick-started with an intensive blend of activities over various digital channels for a period of a few months, based on the type of business you run and the nature of the audience you are planning to target.

You can begin by sending out emailers to the leads that explain your services with gripping content in the form of blogs and short reads. They can also be targeted through Whatsapp messages, testimonials and relatable videos on Facebook and Instagram. The following month, you can focus on engaging the leads through interactive contests and polls that will indirectly help in word-of-mouth marketing of your product. These contests can be run on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram or even Youtube, depending on the type of audience you are planning to target. The high-quality leads generated from these contests can later be targeted with irresistible offers that are guaranteed to close the deal and convert your leads to valuable consumers.

Ads with optimal messaging

Google and social media ads are a great way to generate leads. However, when it comes to producing high-quality leads, it is best to pack your ad with as much information as possible about the product or service you are trying to sell. For example, if you are a real estate developer running ads on a ready-to-occupy project in an upcoming area, it is a good idea to showcase all the USPs of the development in your ad. From the starting price range and amenities provided to the infrastructure of the location and the number of bedrooms, make sure your ad provides much-needed clarity on the project, so your targeted customers will have no reason to not click on them.

We ran the above Facebook ad for Ceebros – one of the most sought-after real estate developers in the nation. It covers all the information a potential customer would need to show further interest in the project. From the details about the location to the starting price range, it provides top-notch clarity on the project. This will, in turn, result in generating high-quality leads.

End-to-end messaging in regional content

There is no doubt that regional content is the future of the online space. With more than 450 million active Internet users in the nation and the steady growth of digital marketing in tier 2 and tier 3 cities of India, advertising your brand in regional languages is the only way you can engage with India’s next billion Internet users. Leveraging the reach of regional content is a good strategy to add to your marketing approach in order to improve the quality of your leads. You can start with a well-optimised landing page which is a sure-shot lead generation technique that works wonders for all brands, whether you cater to the FMCG industry or the finance sector.

In order to make sure you do not lose out on high-quality leads, it is a good idea to take up an end-to-end messaging approach with regional content. Begin by understanding your audience and opting for a survey-oriented strategy to target them accurately with ads in the language they prefer. Right from the messaging in the ad and the content on the landing page to the medium in which telemarketers speak to the leads, make sure the entire cycle is in the same language. Communicating in a language that a prospective lead will be comfortable in provides much more clarity and adds a personal touch to the process.

Additionally, it is a good idea to ensure your landing page is AMP optimised. An Accelerated Mobile Page (AMP) takes much lesser time to load, making it a great tool to grasp the short attention span of a potential consumer. Viewers spend more time understanding the product rather than waiting for the page to load. Moreover, accelerated mobile pages are exclusive to pages viewed on mobile. Considering the fact that a large portion of online users in India access the Internet through mobile, accelerated mobile pages are your best bet to maintain and improve the quality of leads generated via your landing page.

We leveraged the lead generation strategy of landing pages in vernacular content for Shriram – one of the leading real estate giants of the nation. The approach resulted in an increase in overall click volume with a spike in leads. You can also check out our detailed Google case study on how this multilingual approach helped in 90 percent growth of leads for another leading brand.

Attracting high-quality leads and nurturing them into valuable customers is the backbone of digital marketing. Featured below, is an infographic that summarises the above-mentioned points, so you can implement these techniques in your marketing strategy and grow your business.

Increasing the quality of leads is one of the biggest challenges digital marketers face in today’s day and age. It is time you add these simple techniques and tips in your digital marketing strategy to generate hot leads and boost your sales.

For a step-by-step guide on how to create the perfect lead nurturing strategy for your brand, be sure to check out the video below.

Will Facebook’s updated terms and data policy affect brands in India?

Posted on May 9, 2018May 24, 2021 by Rhea

Reading Time: 3 minutes

After the Cambridge Analytica controversy, Facebook has taken several important steps to tighten their data security. The multi-billion dollar social media platform recently announced a new set of amendments to their data policies. The question that has arisen is whether or not the recent changes in policies will affect brands and their advertising strategies. However, most of the new terms involve reiterating existing ones, which is unlikely to affect brands’ marketing strategies. Here are some of the most important announcements Facebook has made about their revised data policy and the impact it is likely to have on brands.

Revoking permission to dormant apps

One of the most significant policy changes Facebook is making is to revoke access to user information for third-party apps that haven’t been used by them in over three months. There will also be a more visible button on the news feed which will allow users to restrict access to certain apps by themselves.

Impact: This change will only improve privacy and safety for users with zero impact on brands and advertising. Since apps that users consistently engage with will not be affected, brands will still have access to their main target audience.

Transparency about data-sharing

Facebook has reiterated their commitment to protecting user data by tightening their data-sharing policies. They will no longer sell private user information or allow partners to use this information in ways that violate their privacy policy.

Impact: This new policy is a step in the right direction towards better security for users. The improved privacy settings will help users be more confident about actively participating on the platform. For brands, this is a positive change as it means that their consumer base on Facebook will remain largely the same.

Closing third-party data providers

Earlier, through a feature called Partner Categories, advertisers on Facebook could target consumers based on very personal insights provided by third-party data agencies. But now after details of these providers exploiting private user data has come out in the open, Facebook is shutting down Partner Categories.

Impact: The Partner Categories feature allowed brands who lacked an existing customer database to find a target audience. While brands can continue using Facebook’s database as well as their own customer data through the Customs Audience tool, the exact impact of this change is yet to be seen.

Greater control over ads

Users will now be able to decide which ads they want to see appearing on their newsfeed. This is also an important step towards personalisation of a user’s newsfeed.

Impact: This feature has always existed on Facebook, the only difference now is that it will be more prominent. As long as brands are using the right targeting, they will be unaffected by this change as users will be interested in their ads. Brands with inaccurate targeting, however, are very likely to be negatively impacted.

Exact reach not shown for custom audience

Advertisers who upload their existing database onto the custom audience tool will not be able to see the exact reach of their targeting. This is to prevent advertisers from being able to see exactly how many of their customers are on Facebook.

Impact: While advertisers will not be able to see the exact reach when using the Custom Audience tool, they will still know how many customers were in their database. This will give them a reasonably accurate idea of how big their reach is.

Facebook still rules the digital marketing landscape

The revised data policies are unlikely to have any significant impact on the way people are using the platform. Currently, India is Facebook’s biggest market with 240 mn monthly active users, overtaking even the US which has 230 mn. Far from decreasing anytime soon, these numbers are only going to grow. By 2020, there will be around 250 million new smartphone users and 100 million new internet users. A significant portion of these users will also start using Facebook.

For brands, Facebook is and will continue to be one of the most effective ways to reach out to their consumers. Despite the new terms and conditions, the number of Facebook users in India has not shown any significant decline, nor is it expected to. With their customers still active on Facebook, brands need to maintain a strong presence on this platform in order to build brand awareness and encourage customer loyalty. Advanced social media analytics tools, can also provide detailed targeting for brands. As the number of users will only continue to grow from here, Facebook remains one of the most important platforms for brands to engage with India’s next billion internet users.

As our Digital Marketing Industry Insights for India 2018 also points out, Facebook is one of the best-performing platforms to help brands meet their business goals. Through Facebook, we have even been able to generate a 190 crore revenue for Casagrand. The recent privacy changes Facebook has implemented is a positive step towards protecting a user’s personal information online. Brands in India are unlikely to face any negative impact over this decision as the number of Facebook users are only going to grow from here.

How to retain talent at startups – Our Story

Posted on May 3, 2018May 24, 2021 by Vikas Chawla

Reading Time: 5 minutes

Getting your business off the ground is a challenge faced by all startups. The key to a successful business largely depends on the kind of talent you hire which will eventually make or break your startup. But apart from finding good talent, the challenge for most startups is how to retain them, so they continue to contribute to the company’s journey. As a five-year-old company, we at Social Beat have a vibrant team of talented members from diverse backgrounds. This has helped us establish a handbook of basic hacks which helps us ensure we are retaining our top talent.

Know what you are looking for

As a company, the first step to hiring good talent is figuring out what your definition of talent is. You don’t necessarily need another ‘you’ onboard no matter how likeable that obviously makes a candidate. Instead, you want to look for complementary strengths which will help in driving your company forward.

Before interviewing, identify the challenges you need this talented individual to solve. This can be achieved by using role-wise assignments or tests for the candidate so you can understand their skill set. To assess the depth of their expertise, you can look into the day to day work they have completed in previous roles. You can also ask them a set of questions that will give you a good idea of where their strengths and interest lie. Some of these can include:

1. What decisions were you accountable for in your previous role?

2. At what point do you pass on your work for inputs and approval?

3. What assignments do you enjoy the most and which ones do you find difficult or boring?

Position your Brand

Not everyone will be comfortable with the ambiguity and the lack of structure that can exist in a growing company. This is why, we at Social Beat always insist on giving a brief about our company to help the candidate understand our company, its values, and the goals we stand for. We encourage an open discussion on how the structures in place at their previous organisation compare to our company.

Every conversation is a dialogue, where the candidate receives as much information as they are sharing with us. A candidate’s decision to join our company is just as important as yours to make an offer, and therefore they should be well-informed!

Culture is the key

We cannot stress enough on how important the culture of an organization is for a team member to decide their future with the company. Defining your culture, the values you stand for and how they are inculcated within the team should be your first task. An organisation’s culture goes beyond what the leadership says they want the culture to be. Culture is created, perceived and passed on by the team members of the organisation through their interactions with managers and other team members. Their experience with the processes and workflows the organisation has put in place also contributes to their perception of the company’s culture. At Social Beat, we ensure we take our new team members through a proper onboarding process with a well-designed induction process. A major focus of this session is on “Social Beat Values“, which is taken by the Founders. We also welcome them onboard with a customised welcome kit comprising of a few goodies and office essentials. This contributes to their understanding of our company’s culture.

One of the most important factors for attracting talent is cultivating an atmosphere that makes your team members happy to come to work. This can only be achieved when they believe in you and the values you stand for. This is why we are very stringent in our hiring process. A great candidate with the right skills but not the right culture fit will never be our final choice. We believe if we find the candidate with the right culture fit, we will be able to hone their skills further. For us, the values they stand for make or break a deal.

We recently made the below video to showcase our culture – to give prospective team members a quick glimpse into our lives.

Create an attractive work environment

Your top talent will choose to work with you only if they believe they will be offered a role where they can learn and grow. Social Beat prides itself on ensuring we maintain transparency with our team members regarding their roles and responsibilities. We also take our team members’ satisfaction at work very seriously. This is why we provide flexi-hours, work-from-home options and a well-balanced leave policy (which includes perks such as a 6-day block leave) to ensure that our team members’ welfare is at the centre of our policies. We also encourage more women in leadership roles to ensure that our work environment promotes equal representation.

Team Member engagement and development

The famous saying: All work and no play, makes Jack a dull boy stands true to this day. Fun@Work is a must if you want to ensure your team doesn’t burn out from stress. This is why we have Game Nights planned very often along with Chit Chat sessions every alternate week where we share the latest trends in digital marketing and some of our success stories. Apart from this, regular team outings like our Diwali lunch, anniversary celebrations, birthday celebrations with personalised cards, etc. are things we conduct on a regular basis. We also ensure we enable the scaling-up of our team members by having training sessions on alternate Saturdays and inviting guest lectures/trainers to interact with our team. By demonstrating that you respect the development of your staff and are invested in nurturing their talent, your leadership style will naturally catch the interest of top performers.

Build your employer brand

If you have a good employer brand, you might not even need to post job openings -top talent will come to you. What’s involved in an ‘employer brand’? It’s simple: having a reputation as a good place to work and providing value to your team members rather than only asking for value from them. Stop being a ‘best-hidden secret’ and get yourself noticed. Conducting seminars in colleges, publishing papers and books and participating in conferences arranged by top companies across the globe is something our leadership invests in heavily. Social Beat’s participation in the NASSCOM Content Marketing Masterclass, at the I-CANN-ISOC Round Table on Security in India and our Social Beat’s participation in the NASSCOM Content Marketing Masterclass, are some of the examples of how we actively participate in the digital marketing space. We also encourage our team members to actively take part in the same. Find small ways to stand apart from the rest and your brand will immediately gain recognition.

Team Member recognition, career growth and benefits

One of the most common reasons people give for leaving a company is that they feel unappreciated. That makes team member recognition measures one of the best ways to ensure your talent remains loyal to your startup.

As a startup, you’re in charge of a relatively small team of team members. This gives you a chance to connect with your team members on a personal level and get to know them better. Use the information you know about your team members to make sure the recognition you give them for their efforts is personal. We at Social Beat have always believed in providing a personal touch while recognising an achievement of an individual. Being a startup also allows us to maintain flexibility regarding enabling career growth and fast-tracking our top performers unlike the rigid timelines followed by the big companies. We ensure we are flexible with our policies and keep them in line with the values we stand for. Our flexi-policies around promoting talent and providing career growth to our top performers ensure that we give them the right opportunity, at the right time instead of making them wait for the fruit they have so rightly earned.

As quoted by Henry Ford – “If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself.”