Nigeria’s Real Estate Sector: Barriers To Effective Public Relations

As communities in Nigeria become more urbanized, the real estate industry is reeling on all sides. Environmental change, shifting political climates, volatile markets, rising mortgage rates, oppositions, and evolving technology trends are just some of the challenges real estate agents are facing everywhere. Also, we have frequently witnessed how public sentiment regarding a real estate project can easily go bad, get ugly and turn sideways.

Growing your real estate business can be tough. Public relations for real estate firms is one of the most important facets of a strong marketing campaign. However, this sector is faced with challenges that affect their PR & marketing capabilities directly.

These challenges slow down the sector’s marketing initiatives, reduce their revenue growth, tamper with marketing ROI, and hamper overall growth. To stay ahead of the competition and thrive through tough market conditions, real estate firms must recognize and tackle the following barriers to their public relations activities;

Time-Consuming Process

Buying a new home isn’t like going grocery shopping. Buying a new home requires a lot more thought compared to the latter. The whole process of making sales is a time-consuming one

Since the results in real estate aren’t acquired overnight, the public relations department should implement & execute their marketing superpowers accordingly.

Understand Your Customers — Home Seekers/Buyers

Home-seeking is often a cumbersome process. Most people who buy houses are not repeat customers until at least 10–20 years after.

While continually focusing on delivering the best products & services in the best possible way, PR needs to get the best of the business in front of the best audience as much as possible.

Managing Real Estate Market Volatility

Keeping abreast with the market conditions is one of the major issues with real estate. Although the market condition is something that cannot be changed, you can make your business thrive, even during such times.

These may include offering incentives to buyers, educating your audience more effectively, or marketing more creatively. Good PR will keep your target audience interested, even in the most fragile market environment.

Profit Turn-Around Time

Profits do not come easily in this sector. Huge sums of capital invested to create/construct projects from scratch do not yield profits until years later.

The average turn-around time is usually 2-to-3 years after beginning construction. During this time, there are a lot of other expenditures to cover — Salaries, Maintenance, Materials, Transport, including PR and Marketing.

Stay Ahead Of Public Relations Techniques

In today’s technological and digitally-connected world, real estate firms are discovering new ways to increase visibility. Also, the customer journey is continually evolving simultaneously.

Your PR functions must be flexible enough to drive customers to your endpoint.

Tracking Success

It is essential that your PR team measures success, to understand what works when engaging your target customers. As the customer journey evolves, the best PR tools, techniques, and strategies are likely to evolve, too.

Make The Right Hires

A good PR team will sustain momentum throughout your business cycle, ensuring that you sustain sales and strengthen your market position.

Early assessment of barriers and proactive development of public relations strategies to deal effectively with these barriers can significantly enhance the success of real estate projects, reinforce positive corporate reputations, and favorably position projects in the marketplace.

With decades of experience creating engaging content for real estate brokerages, real estate developers, investors, and others in the commercial and residential real estate industry, our experts at Bora Communications can position your firm and project for success in a way that intrigues the press, target audience and other decision-makers in your industry.

While you’re busy closing deals, we’re working tenaciously to get you noticed!

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