The slowdown of the Chinese economy has a consequent impact on the luxury real estate field. There are two main figures that are painting the present landscape of the Chinese situation.
The first thing, according to recent reports from Knight Franck Prime cities forecast, the growth price of this luxury real estate might slow down in 2016, dropping from 3% in 2015 to 1.7% in 2016. The second thing, the growth price of luxury properties might be decreased from 10% in 2015 to 4% in 2016. Due to the crisis in China, there is a huge phenomenon of “ghost cities”, about 20% of real estate are empty in China.
In this kind of atmosphere, one question remains, how can you promote your real estate company in this fierce competition? Here we will share with you some ideas and solutions.
1) Good image
When you are talking about real estate, you are talking about image. Depending on this, you are defining your brand awareness, your business, and if you will be able to attract potential customers or not. The idea is to make your audience dream but not by giving them a too-fake or pre-made idea. You have to give a compromise between both of them.
2) Work on trust – E-reputation
You are coming to the point to purchase your future dream house, which is not clothes, food, or beverages. Indeed, trust is one of the key elements,s, especially in this kind of sector. We have already seen it in the tourism sector, before any purchase, Chinese people like to do some research and find some feedback by comparing one website to another.
There is some main real estate website that is the most famous in China such as Ganji, 58.com, and Jiayuan.com. Those 3 websites are the most common and used ones in China.
Soufun can be defined as an outstanding website with a new idea for online real estate. This website is allowing each member user to share online information about their own properties such as the architecture, furnishings, and more information for each property. This is a big change for the Chinese market, where there is no real transparency. Above all real estate is really a personal and intimate thing.
3) Get leads online
The digital marketing process was not really developed in China in the real estate sector but it is on the way to becoming more and more developed. All the real estate field in China is starting to get familiar with the digital era.
How Real Estate Company can attract its potential customer target? Maybe you have already seen China a bunch of flyers for new real estate construction, even if this marketing trend is still working, real estate in China tends to be more and more digital. There are 3 main ideas:
– SEO optimization: Care about the habits of your customers. When Chinese people go through the Internet to search for potential real estate companies, they will focus on some local term keywords. The idea is to structure your local SEO that is matching with the leads. You have to care about your competitor’s position on some keywords and be more tactical. (Baidu is the search engine that most Chinese will use)
– Retargeting banners: working the same way for tourism. Those kinds of banners are suited perfectly for a real estate company, you can easily catch your audience with a nice picture and an attractive price that it’s fitting the size of a banner.
– Get your leads to take action: If you have success leading them on your website, you have to make them stay and take their phone to call you for a visit. You have to consider some extra details: acting as an expert in your field area, Chinese people trust people who know what they are talking about, and you have to become a trustworthy resource for them. If they are interested, be efficient in the process and get the opportunity to target them with personalized communication.
4) Good customer service
When you are a real estate company, you will have to take care of your customer service. You have to make your communication with your customer go in the right way and especially in China because “Guanxi” is really important for Chinese people, keeping good relations is leading to good business too. Show them that you are always here for them if they have any questions and make sure that your process is going on the right way at every stage. Take care of your customers by anticipating their needs and interests.
In China, they all use Wechat to contact, even if it’s not the official way to communicate like in the western part with emails, in china using WeChat is a way to interact easier with your customer if they need any help. Even when you will conclude the deal with your Chinese customer, it is better to keep in touch with them.
If you want more information, you have a project, and want to develop your Business with Chinese consumers… contact our Agency and ask for more information.
MarketingtoChina
3 comments
BenJAMIN
Marketing is the key to get into this real estate market in China. So hard to understand for INternational company man.
China has new foreign exchange controls in place , since this year. Understand banks in China are now very “diligent” in following these new rules before issuing any currency to Chinese investors.
The U.S. have been reporting delays in real estate transactions recently
Not surprisingly, many Chinese investors have become very concerned about these new currency control measures, and they have started looking more aggressively for other ways to obtain USD .
Some are indicating that the more controls the Chinese regulator is imposing, the more Chinese citizens will look for ways to get the money out of Mainland China.