Effective advertising and marketing tools for the retail and real estate industry
Advertising and marketing are inevitable parts of any business across verticals, and yet extremely dynamic and topical. They are undoubtedly amongst the best ways to communicate with your existing as well as potential customers. Assisting in creating widespread awareness along with brand building is advertising’s primary role, while marketing tools are necessary for creating the preliminary grounds for any new product or service launched in the market. Backed by intense research and strategic planning, these activities are maneuvered tactically with distinct goals. These goals however vary for different brands, different situations, and the bandwidth of the business at stake.
With changing times in the real estate realm, we have witnessed the simplest of activities evolving into crucial initiatives. Innovation has certainly been the highlight to address the expected transforming times. Starting from the traditional means like radio, with gradual additions of television, tele-calling, on-ground activations, and mass SMS, until the ongoing digital era, real estate, along with other segments, have experimented and reaped fruits from all such media. The numerous marketing and advertising media have revolutionized the trade and commerce of the globe, bringing people together and making the product basket much larger.
The commercial real estate sector is also no exception to the ground rule of marketing and advertising that’s identifying the desired goals. Needless to say, one common goal for every retail business that always remains constant, is to drive sales, which in turn is directly proportional to traffic and conversion rate. In addition, brand building is another added goal with drawing attention towards the brand and its offerings along with its USPs. Aligned with the current scenario of digitization with the expected active users on the Internet in India to reach up to 635.8 million by 2021 end, going digital would be the most beneficial decision. While retaining the buzz of certain traditional media, digital marketing has marked itself as one of the top promising industries of the future, building a bridge between buyers and sellers thereby bringing in a balance between the expectation of the consumers and the value propositions of the businesses.
Even in these difficult times, online marketing and advertising have turned out to be the most effective tool to study and cater to the customer, with the additional benefit of creating avenues to tailor the services, as per the customer’s needs and the current market trends. Case in point, technology’s role in an almost paralyzed world in 2020 is impossible to overlook. Technological advancements have made it easier for malls and other commercial points to adopt and drive a more focused and targeted approach. Ranging from digital ads to digital campaigns, it is considered as one of the most effective tools in today’s date to attract the masses, thereby becoming one of the favorite tools for malls.
Shopping malls generally try to draw the attention of the people living in a radius of 5 -7 km to increase footfall. It also helps in knowing more details about the customers such as their likes, dislikes, choices, associations, and much more. Hence, this enables the retailers to mold their strategies in accordance to convert traffic into sales. With certain improvements, it has also become easier to track impressions and footprints of the people engaged in a particular campaign that enhances its market awareness and helps create a better value proposition for the customers.
‘Geo-targeting’ advertising is the digital communication targeted towards a selective audience, based on their geographic locations. This is yet another crucial facet of digital marketing, as it helps to reach out to a filtered, targeted audience, based on category/ age-group/demographics/geographic location and interests. This makes it a more precise and definite set with higher probabilities of conversion.
Second, in line is on-air advertising; the TV commercials mainly. Aiming and garnering maximum eyeballs, since most TVC is national, it also extends the choice of time – prime or non-prime, thereby allowing you to also target the right user and make it more effective and efficient. Followed by radio that has its share of a captive audience. Just like online advertising, radio comes with the facility of micro-targeting your audience after identifying the niche customers for the product. While TVCs can create a stronger connection with known/popular faces, while on radio, the listeners develop a special bond with the radio personalities aka RJ, and their style of presenting, thereby extending a more personalized touch for the listeners. Presently the role of on-air advertising, in general, is on a gradual rise with industries like e-commerce, FMCG, real estate, etc.
With the advent of digital marketing, it would be a misnomer to conclude that the traditional ways of advertising have lost their spark in contemporary times. As mentioned earlier, goals play a vital role in the choice of media and defining the entire communication strategy.
Traditional media such as print ads also offer certain tweaking and filtering. If a story needs a wider reach, it’s best to advertise in the main edition. However, when a campaign is specific to a region then supplement ads work as an effective medium. Irrespective, if the goal is reached and catchment is bigger then print ads also work their magic. They are also considered to have a higher recall value and a much better call to action. Major Industries like FMCG, automotive, real estate, banking, etc. continue to invest heavily in the traditional advertising media as well, for a lasting impact on the readers.
On a concluding note, while acknowledging the benefits of traditional marketing and advertising tools, the current times only reaffirm the potential of growth and importance of digital media with what it has to offer to the forthcoming businesses, industries, markets, and most importantly, the consumers.
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