Firms add an emotional touch

The interior of a living room at Life by Asian Property Development. The firm has launched schemes to attract customers, such as offering free health check-ups.

Due to higher operating costs and lower spending power of buyers, property companies are turning to emotional-marketing strategies more aggressively to boost sales in the second half of the year.

Many property developers are concerned about an economic slowdown in the country in the second half, following prolonged political turmoil, higher operating costs due to rising oil prices, high costs of living and stagflation.

As buyer behaviour in the property market is different from general consumer products in terms of purchasing frequency, regular marketing strategies are not enough to sustain business performance amid fierce competition. Emotional marketing plays a larger role in boosting business competitiveness and approaching customers.

Emotional marketing is a strategy that focuses on managing a customer's expectations rather than selling a product's functions. However, property companies need to use emotional strategies carefully because they can risk losing their credibility if a strategy is improperly executed.

Several property firms have tried to get close to their customers by opening information centres in potential areas. Preuksa Real Estate, for example, has opened an information centre on the fifth floor at CentralWorld.

To make it convenient for buyers and to expand its customer base, SC Asset Corp has opened the SC Asset Information Centre on Sathorn Ratchapreuk Road, which is its first one-stop point offering details of its property projects.

To create product value and meet a buyer's emotional needs, developers should pay attention to product development, marketing strategies, service and customer-relationship management.

Property firms have created several strategies to communicate with their customers, such as hosting events or granting special incentives through privilege cards.

For example, several developers -  including Plus Property, Sansiri, LPN Development and Asian Property Development - in cooperation with Siam Commercial Bank launched the "SCB Home Loan Service More" campaign to attract home-buyers.

The campaign will grant loans with no interest and provide an automatic-payment service for 30 utilities.

Besides, Asian Property Development has signed contracts with hospitals to provide health check-ups to its customers for free.

Although some of the campaigns do not directly relate to a housing sale, they play a part in bringing property developers closer to their customers. This, hopefully, would speed up a customer's decision to buy a house.

At a glance

-- Emotional-marketing strategy focuses around managing a

customer's expectations.

-- Property companies try to reach out to customers through events and special incentives.