The challenges faced by property investment and property development companies stems from the industry and market that they operate in.
This includes:
High transaction value - the price per property is a significant price for prospective clients
High-profit dollars - the profit dollars are generally high
High leverage - there is a high leverage on both time and money
Large potential market size - everyone needs housing.
These all combine to make the property development market extremely competitive. Everyone wants to be involved and everyone has an opinion.
Over the last few years, the market in Australia has become more and more competitive with the influx of overseas companies both in the development and marketing of properties.
Capturing the interest of prospective clients has become harder.
Clients are able to access sales history, owners details, market comparison, commission rates, building costs and trends easily through various websites and apps.
The access to information has suddenly made everyone an expert and clients are easily able to evaluate different offerings without having to initially contact anyone involved with the property.
Faced with changing nature of the market and customer knowledge Property Investment and Marketing Companies face some key challenges.
Challenge 1: Clearly Defined Target Market
Most companies when asked who is their target market respond with “Anyone looking to buy a home”.
No wonder they find the market difficult.
Consider the restaurant business. You have McDonalds and your Favourite Restaurant.
Do they target the same type of customer? Do they offer different products and service? Are their price points similar or different?
The same applies to the Property market.
Does a young couple in their 20’s looking for their first home have the same desires and needs as a couple in their 30’s with 2 - 3 children who are looking to upgrade their home to cater for their growing family.
Different desires and problems are driving customers.
When you understand and know your target market then you can direct your marketing message to your potential clients.
Clarity is a powerful driver.
Challenge 2: Qualified Lead Generation
Once companies have identified their target market they need to attract qualified clients.
Every market and industry have tyre kickers. People just out checking what is happening, gathering information.
Everyone has different goals and desires and are at different stages in their personal buying cycle.
Your lead generation activity must allow you to easily identify what stage your client is at so that you can tailor a message for each stage.
Segmentation is as important as ever.
You will have prospects who are keen and able to buy today, but you will have other people who are further back in your sales funnel.
Your system needs to be able to segment your prospects and keep them moving through your funnel.
A person who is just looking today may become a definite prospect in 6 - 8 months. What steps do you have in place to keep them informed and part of your prospective clients?
Then, when someone buys what steps do you have in place to keep that client engaged so that they become a reference for you or maybe even an advocate, or they buy again.
It is surprising how we are keen to secure a client, then when the transaction is over we forget them and move onto another prospect.
How large would your business be if every client that had purchased from you was still a customer?
Remember we all go through different sales cycles in our life.
Having a system of segmenting your leads will allow your staff to solely focus on keen or hot buyers, they are not wasting time on tyre kickers.
Imagine how more efficient and effective your sales team would be.
Challenge 3 - Differentiation
What is your point of difference with your competition?
What separates you from your competition?
Why would a client do business with you instead of your competition?
There are 5 key areas of differentiation:
What sets you apart?
Having a good understanding of your target market will help you determine what area you need to differentiate your business on because your customers will tell you what is important.
In fact clearly defining your target market will give you an advantage over your competition.
Challenge 4: Long Sales Cycle
The property market has a long sales cycle.
The transaction value, taxes and charges, financing requirements, customer inertia all combine to make a long sales cycle.
Your client is exposed to many different influences and pressures in their life. The daily news regularly talks about the state of the property market, a relative always has handy advice on what to do, a friend of a friend is involved in property. These all can combine to slow down or hinder the sales cycle.
A property investment company not only has to contend with other options in the property market they compete against other investment options.
Shares, bonds, term deposits, gold, precious metals all offer a different alternative to a potential investor. Plus the sales cycle is much, much shorter.
Add the accessibility of the internet and an investor can easily invest in overseas markets.
Challenge 5 - Leveraging an Effective Marketing Campaign
With any market, there are different size players in the market.
Everyone is trying to find an effective marketing campaign that can feed them a consistent flow of qualified leads to fuel their business.
There are large companies that dominate any market. They are able to saturate the market with advertising because of their size, they have been operating for a number of years, they advertise heavily, and they attract clients because of their name not necessarily because of the quality of their service or product.
On the other end, there are the smaller companies that do little or no advertising. They rely upon contacts, referrals, or simply hard work in getting out there and being known.
There are a number of tactics that can be implemented to attract leads:
1. Referrals
You can receive referrals from partners or clients.
Referrals are great and should be a major driver for any company. No advertising is better than someone else recommending you.
Referrals can be inconsistent, though.
We always believe that referrals should be a part your marketing campaign but not the only part.
2. Networking
Networking is something that you love or hate.
There are many ways to conduct your networking through industry conferences, seminars and trade shows.
Today many people use the power of the internet and social media to network.
Don’t just network within your own industry. Touch base with people outside your industry so you can learn from other people. See what they are doing, what problems they are facing and how they attract new clients.
3. Speaking at Events
You can offer yourself as a speaker for industry events, trade shows.
You can run your own event or team up with business partners to provide your audience information on a variety of different topics.
TV, Radio and Printed media.
With local newspapers and Pay TV you can tailor your message to a select part of the market. The problem is though you are communicating to a mass audience.
5 Telemarketing
Telemarketing can be very effective because you can cover a large number of people very quickly.
The problem is the growing dislike of telemarketing by the general public. With the DNC register, more and more people are opting out from being contacted.
6 Online Marketing
Online marketing is an attractive option.
The internet and social media offer a number of attractive options for lead generation.
A huge benefit of online marketing is its immediacy.
These advantages mean that online advertising has become more and more competitive.
Importantly if you really know your target market, understand them, know where they hang out then you can have a lasered approach to your online campaign.
Addressing these challenges will allow you to clearly define the key points of your business.
By developing a systematic lead generation system will give you the time to focus on serving your clients and building your business.
What We Do
We develop and implement lead generation systems for a select number of companies involved in the building, property investment and property development markets.
By having such a system then they are able to focus on building their relationships with clients and business partners.
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