Digital Marketing in Real Estate

A couple of decades ago, properties were considered a luxury investment. Only the richest of rich could afford the exorbitant prices stamped on the various housing projects. Even the process of purchasing a property was a long and tedious one. Home seekers had to collect and sign an endless flow of documents while also searching for a broker who could strike them a good deal for the desired property.

However, this trend has changed drastically. A large portion of home buyers research online and find it convenient to check and shortlist apartments virtually before physically going to see it. In fact, data suggests that 92% of home buyers search online to find their dream home. Additionally, 82% of real estate market investors trust online agents as a reliable source of information, and 42% have resorted to the Internet as their first search medium.

Today, there are 450 million active users on the Internet, in India alone, and going by current trends, 635.8 million Indians will be online by 2021. These developments offer both a unique opportunity and a challenge for real estate developers. They need to make full use of the growing digital audience to engage with the next billion Internet users in India.

How can real estate developers engage with India's next billion internet users?

Indians are a sizeable presence across almost every major digital platform. Facebook is, by far, the most popular social media platform, with 240 million Indian users who are mostly accessing the platform through their phones. These numbers prove that the online space is a goldmine for developers to engage with their audience in the most impactful way. By effectively utilising the Top Tools For Social Media Analytics, property developers can understand their consumers better and create more targeted campaigns.

What has sparked this growth?

While Internet usage in India has been steadily growing over the years, there was a definite tipping point where the number of Internet users in India exploded. There are two main catalysts for this development: the availability of low cost smartphones and most significant of all, the launch of Reliance Jio. Jio started its services in September 2016 with a bang, offering its users free data. Even once the offer ended, the data plans for Jio remained much lower in comparison to other network providers. This sudden easy access to the Internet led to India having the highest amount of data consumption in the world. Of the 150 crore GB consumed by Indians, 100 crore GB was consumed through the Jio network alone. What is perhaps the most exciting part is that Internet penetration in the country currently stands at only 27 percent. This means that the number of Indians online is only going to grow from here, offering a huge advantage for real estate developers.