The development of new communication channels and increasing customer demands mean that effective real estate marketing requires an ever-increasing investment in quality - this is just one of the conclusions reached by the participants of the panel discussion on real estate marketing, which took place as part of the June conference Future of Real Estate 2024 in Warsaw. The event was co-organised by Property Forum and RICS.
Chaired by Agnieszka Zaczyńska, Associate Director, Marketing, Communications & Partnership Development, Central Europe at SEGRO, the discussion concluded the entire conference but nevertheless attracted a lot of interest from the audience. The speakers emphasized the importance of understanding customer behaviour, identifying effective marketing channels, and tailoring messaging to different segments. They also discussed the challenges of marketing in a slowing economy and the potential of AI tools for automation and data gathering.
Asked if the behaviour of the customers has recently changed, Monika Rykowska, Head of Research & Marketing at AXI IMMO replied: “Yes, we are living in a very interesting times, because we have economic slowdown. In such difficult times, marketing teams have a lot of work. The current pressure is in my opinion, bigger than ever: to generate leads, to bring the clients, to build the brand awareness. But I think that something that is sometimes creative and nice is not effective at all. It's not something that our board members wanted from our marketing teams, our sales departments are expecting clicks. The decision process on the tenant or investor side is significantly longer, so the marketing teams now have to be even closer to the business”.
Mateusz Kowalski, Marketing Manager of AFI Europe Poland pointed out, that it is increasingly important to skilfully select channels to reach the end customer. "Some professor once said that, for a customer to be aware of your product, he needs to get in touch with your advertisement at least 10 times. Right now, in order for a customer to be aware of our product, he needs to get in touch with our advertisement at least 10 times at 10 different sources and in 10 different places. Today, people are much more picky, they want to dig into the product for the very details”, said Kowalski.
His opinions were shared by Urszula Matej-Bil, a Board Member responsible for Marketing and Communications at EPP. “Today, the visitors of the shopping malls are doing shopping with a mobile phone in their hands, constantly checking whether the given option is good or not. According to one of our last surveys, approximately 60% of the visitors are doing it. It means that they spend a limited amount of money - the home budget is not growing lately, rather the opposite. You have to target this person with the right message at the right time and in the right channel. And these channels are developing so fast. 10 years ago, nobody asked for advice when he was buying a TV. They went to the shop and asked the clerk there; at the moment, they are checking social media, Google, the producer's website and the opinions of their friends. We have to follow the customer, track and attract them”, said Matej-Bil.
Paulina Karpisz, Head of Marketing, Hamilton May has pointed out the growing importance of content quality. “In the times of post-pandemic, we can see an increased interest in high-value content. People are now more aware of which type of content they're consuming. They're now more into expert content, education and entertainment. This can be seen throughout social media and fast-growing YouTube podcasts, run by professionals sharing their knowledge about medicine, astrophysics, politics and also real estate. I believe that people right now are more aware of which type of content feeds their minds and which does not. The challenge is to be in the first group”, commented Paulina Karpisz.
The panel also addressed the topic of ESG and its growing role in real estate marketing. According to the discussants, many market participants still do not know exactly what ESG is and therefore marketing departments must continue to play an educational role. “We have the tenants and we have the investors. The latter are quite advanced in the ESG journey. This is the top priority for them - to have a better quality of the product and better financing. The office tenants are a much different story. They often require convincing that for the prime, sustainable office space, there is also the premium price for it”, summed up Sylwia Kaczmarek, Corporate Marketing Manager at Skanska.
