Only one percent of people who walk into a condo project sales office will agree to buy on the first visit. Buying a condo is a big commitment, a long term relationship of sorts. How many people do you know who would say yes to a proposal on the first date? For that matter, how many people propose on a first date? It surprises me whenever a condo project sales office is treated like the beginning and the end of condo project marketing outreach. Every different way that you introduce customers to (and, after, remind customers of) your company and your project is what I call a touchpoint. Sales office visits, appointments, advertisements, email campaigns, each of these is a touchpoint to maintain the interest of sales leads. I am briefly going to summarize what you need to know about touchpoints.
- In the last peak real estate year, you needed seven touchpoints. Back in 2005, that's how many touchpoints you needed between the first time prospects saw your marketing materials to when they actually signed contracts. Whether they were phone calls, ads, YouTube videos or emails, they were reminders to help you stand out from all the other ads that prospects were bombarded with every day. And even in a great market, you need at least seven of them.
- In 2012, you needed more than twice as many touchpoints. When the market is not so good, you need to up your marketing. We re-checked the statistics in 2012 and found that seventeen touchpoints were necessary to turn prospects into buyers. That was more than double what you needed in the peak year. You need to generate touchpoints in order to close a sale, but most developers have yet to realize this.
- Start by writing a touchpoint plan. If you go to work for a project sales agency or a developer, ask them to show you their sales process and how it breaks down the many varied ways they intend to reach out to prospective buyers. If you are lucky, they may have five ways. Even the National Real Estate Board will tell you that you need at least six touchpoints in order to sell anything. Today, I would suggest that you plan for seventeen.
If you want to know where to look for plenty of touchpoints, I recommend social media. It represents all the most effective touchpoints today. Targeted online ads can be anywhere from 400% to 1000% as effective as regular ads. Lastly, think of unconventional ways to reach your audience, such as running a contest that people will have to give you information in order to register for. You can read more about how I made that work in the ebook It's Not the Market, It's Your Marketing which is available on Amazon, but why not browse a free sample of it now? Click below for a whole chapter on marketing in the Digital Age.
