A new approach?

With Dussehra kick-starting the festive season, developers are going that extra mile and thinking out-of-the-box while marketing their projects.

On the eve of Dussehra this year, the market is getting ready for various out-of-the-box strategies to get noticed. There is a paradigm shift in the marketing strategies and the project offerings across the budget segment of housing.

Lining up with freebies such as home furnishings and gold coins, offering cash discounts or sending on a vacation, will no longer work.

Hence, on the eve of Dussehra and the long line of festivals ahead, most of the real estate companies are evaluating their marketing formats to touch base with the end-users and make the most of the festive spirit. The focus of the festive season this year, has suddenly turned on to inventory rather than new launches.

Buyers in the market who are mostly end-users are in no mood to go for the pre-launches or new launches, even if the offer promises discounts, add-ons or a foreign trip in exchange.

Advantage buyers:

The home-buyers in Mumbai's market, are today negotiating for a ready-to-move property as it is easier to evaluate the probability of appreciation, the reasonability of the imposed rates by the builder and the exact specifications being met or not. With the festive season ahead when most of the bookings happen, they are betting their last penny on the 20:80 scheme to beat the slowdown and invoke confidence in the psyche of the buyers. Does it mean that the tried-and tested marketing formats over the years have failed? Shajai Jacob, head marketing, Jones Lang LaSalle India, says the type of marketing strategies that Indian developers employ to sell their products in a tough market, may often seem strange to property marketers in other countries. Nevertheless, these marketing strategies are based on a deep understanding of their target clientele, which is as variegated as the Indian real estate market itself."In India, the inspirational quotient cannot be under-estimated and can in fact, often be capitalised upon. Certain add-on offerings or freebies often appear to have no logical connection to the actual consideration property buyers would have. However, the builders in fact, address well-researched `points of attraction' within their targeted customer base," says Jacob.

Out of the box ideas:

Some developers have overtly displayed their marketing strategy much in advance, while others are doing it tactfully with the effective use of the right sales channel. Yet the fact remains that Mumbai's realty has learnt to experiment with the tried-and-tested marketing formats and sales innovations. For first movers, the strategy has paid well in advance and the sales graph is just indicative of the thought process that has been put into the same.

Diipesh Bhagtani, executive director, Jaycee Homes says the selling strategy is different from developer to developer and the developers with inventories are offering attractive unique selling propositions to the buyers in their own way. Some are offering white goods and furniture along with modular kitchens; others are offering free international holidays. These incentives are based purely on the policy of their individual business and cannot be generalised.

"Yes, the developers are optimistic of the property market and feel that the market will show vibrancy during the festival season. This is the right time to buy a property as the rates are quite stable now and are in fact expected to go up after the festival season. Also, there are a lot of attractive offers by the developers during the festival season as well," says Bhagtani.

Hiral Sheth, director, marketing with Sheth Creators agrees that there would be phenomenal bookings this Dussehra and the festive fervour this year, will be witness to a tremendous transformation as compared to last year. This festival period from Dussehra to Diwali is expected to garner sales and has definitely encouraged more people to come and invest into real estate. "The special schemes offered by developer would definitely assist the fence-sitters in taking a decision to invest in the sector. This season has witnessed a change in demand and is going to stay till December and we expect the sales will go up significantly during this period. The home-buyers have been watching the property market on the side-lines for long and have now understood the fundamentals of realty quite well. Hence, they feel that the time has come to invest as the market is evenly balanced for both the developers as well as the buyers now," says Hiral.

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