Four ways Project Sales and Marketing teams can drive greater results for Property Developers

Four ways Project Sales and Marketing teams can drive greater results for Property Developers

A young basketball player scoring a slam dunk.
  1. Lead in market expansion

Did you know that in the March 2021 quarter, the ABS recorded that 104,100 people moved interstate, this is 19% more than in the March 2020 quarter.

Queensland gained the most people from net interstate migration (+7,000), while Victoria lost the most (-4,900), closely followed by New South Wales (-4,500).

The market is expanding for off the plan sales as migration hits a high for regional centres and the sunny states are experiencing increased demand from those relocating from Victoria and New South Wales.

What this means for Project Sales and Marketing teams is that there is a need to capture this market effectively through both scaled and targeted marketing, as well as lead in market research and evaluation to capture buyer demographic and geographic spread.

  1. Sales Process Optimisation

Following on from the discussion above, as Project Sales and Marketing teams identify a large and geographically spread customer base, through both interstate and regional migration, as well as internal migration as homebuyers move further afield, it is vital that prospective buyers have an opportunity to participate in a sales release, or multiple, from their location – without the need to travel for every sales release or be disadvantaged or excluded from participating based on geography.

Some Project Sales and Marketing teams, particularly in states most affected by lockdown restrictions, have had a stab at incorporating some digital methods into their sales process for buyers to participate in a release or conduct a sale from home. However, many of the processes currently used, such as event ticketing sites or ballots to secure a phone appointment with a consultant can pose problems of their own. Not only are these processes delivering poor customer experience, but they are time consuming, clunky, and still pose disadvantages for buyers who cannot be ‘first-in-best-dressed.’

The solution? Release.Me – end-to-end online release management.

Customers want a seamless and fair experience when participating in a sales release, and when you consider that many prospective homebuyers may be wanting to participate in more than one release, it is important that they have the opportunity to do so, with the same chance to secure a property as all other participants.

The online platform allows buyers to participate from anywhere in the world and allows Sellers to capture the breadth of their target market simply, without increasing their peak workload at the time of a release.

  1. Sales and Market Knowledge – i.e Data

Traditional sales methods, and online ticketing and ballot draws, prevent Sales Consultants from gaining fundamental sales knowledge and data that assist Property Developers in planning and pricing future stock and developments.

When using Release.Me buyers can select multiple property preferences, within an allotted time frame, an algorithm allocates the property without bias, and sales consultants can sit back and watch the sales activity in real-time on a dashboard.

Not only does this create a more trusted, PR worthy buyer experience, it allows Project Sales and Marketing teams to create significant value for Property Developers in delivering all-inclusive buyer preference data.

Consider this, you could be releasing 20 lots of land and have 80 interested buyers, however if the model is ‘first-in best-dressed’, you will only attain limited preference data from 20 buyers. By allowing all interested parties to place preferences on the available lots, Sales Consultants have comprehensive market data to ensure Property Developers can further supply what stock is in demand, understand what isn’t, and make necessary adjustments to pricing in future staged releases.

  1. Post-Sale Experience

Any sales or marketing professional worth their salt will be aware that the traditional marketing funnel has expanded over the last few decades, as it has become more apparent that the inverted stages of the funnel are key to improved experiences and growth.

Those stages happen after the sale, and those stages include: Support, Loyalty and Advocacy.

Whilst I’m sorry to say it, activities at these stages are largely overlooked in the real-estate world. We imagine it comes with the size of the transaction, off the plan homebuyers are unlikely to have a need to repeat buy, there’s very little up-selling or cross-selling that can be done, so naturally agents put less attention and resources to the post-sale experience.

The buyer experience should not stop at the conclusion of a sale.

As a customer, particularly when the product purchase has a high price tag, we value a little bit of TLC, and when we encounter an exceptional buyer experience, we tell people about it.

We tell friends, family and our social networks how great our experience was and we tell them that if they want a great experience, they should look to YOU – the Sales Consultant.

This is called WOM, or Word of Mouth marketing and it’s five times more effective in driving sales than anything else you’re spending money on, including those paid ad campaigns.

A few WOM statistics courtesy of SEM Rush:

  1. 23% of people talk about their favourite products with friends and family every day.
  2. Furthermore, 78% of people rave about their favourite recent experiences to people they know at least once per week.
  3. 90% of people are much more likely to trust a recommended brand (even from strangers).
  4. 88% of people had the highest level of trust in a brand when a friend or family member recommended it.
  5. Out of the top five popular ways to recommend a business, word-of-mouth comes first, followed by Facebook, Google, and Twitter.

    selective focus of african american man screaming while holding megaphone

Now now, we know there is only so much budget to go around,  and time for that matter, so how can Project Marketing and Sales teams justify dedicating more dollars to the post-sale experience?

Refer to point number 2. When you adopt a seamless, digital, end-to-end release management platform, the significant time and cost efficiencies gained can be redistributed more effectively.

By using Release.Me, your sales consultants no longer need to spend the better part of a week calling every single customer that was unsuccessful in a release. Your sales consultants do not need to conduct meeting after meeting going through available lot options, only for the customer to realize their ideal parcel is no longer available. No longer do you need to put on extra staff, security or provisions for line of frustrated families waiting in the cold at the sales office.

It’s worthwhile doing the math on these needless expenses.

The bottom line for Project Sales and Marketing teams

The bottom line is that Project Sales and Marketing teams have an opportunity, and responsibility, to deliver the best results possible for the Developer. The best part is that it has never been easier to improve those results.

Thanks to the advance in smart business solutions, delivering improved sales, comprehensive data and a seamless buyer experience can happen pretty much overnight.

With Release.Me you can create a live release in under ten minutes, and with the share of a link, your buyers can participate online, from the comfort of their homes, while sales consultants can watch all the action on the sales dashboard.

What are you waiting for?

Book a demo to see just how simple it is. 

 

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