- Real estate development after the arrival of the pandemic; What changed in your marketing strategies?
- Covid-19 brought with it a crisis in real estate development, due to the low influx in shopping centers, offices, etc.
- Merca 2.0 spoke with Alexis Ellstein, Marketing Director of Thor / Urbana, one of the most important investment and real estate development companies in Mexico
The arrival of the pandemic caused – and continues to cause – innumerable crisis scenarios around the world: health crisis, political crisis, social crisis, economic crisis, labor crisis, business crisis … Anyway, if we go over the list, we probably won’t finish. One of the most affected sectors was that of real estate development companies.
Of course, for the least developed countries, the effects were more severe, although, in reality, no one was prepared for a situation of this magnitude; no company could have predicted a scenario like the one we began to experience last year and that, now, continues to leave some havoc.
The recovery or the exit towards a better stage is still distant, especially when it comes to living with Covid-19 for a long time until, finally, we overcome it and it ceases to be a constant threat.
Given this, and glimpsing the outlook for the post-pandemic era, life must begin to resume its rhythm in all sectors. Although we are only just beginning a new normal, there is still a long way to go to achieve a certain level of stability in all aspects of everyday life.
The pandemic and its implications for real estate development
To talk a bit about this and the importance that, during this time of pandemic, the space of social networks has taken on as a marketing strategy, Merca 2.0 spoke with Alexis Ellstein, Marketing Director of Thor / Urbana, one of the most important investment and real estate development companies in Mexico.
As we have seen, after the arrival of Covid-19, shopping centers, the flow in work offices, had a radical change: little or no assistance in physical spaces. It is one of the most affected sectors, especially shopping malls, taking into account that in these centers various types of businesses converge, such as restaurants, etc., which, as a result of the health emergency, lived through a very difficult stage .
On this panorama, Alexis Ellstein commented:
“When the pandemic comes, by the government decree, the flow of assistance to shopping centers and offices is low. Before the pandemic, people used to go to their favorite shopping malls and the office real estate industry continued to grow aggressively.
We have offices in Guadalajara, in the development of The Landmark, in the Andares area, which is an area that is growing very strongly, and the same with the residential part in the Andares area that continues to grow, but, obviously, when the pandemic arrives, the flows decrease.
After the worst part of the pandemic passes, people return to shopping centers, continue looking for a space that is, preferably, like ours, which are outdoor spaces, where there is recreation and healthy distance can be applied ; spaces also where there is entertainment, gastronomy; there are concerts, artistic activities. These are the spaces that we develop and that people, as the issue of the pandemic progresses, began to return.
Recently, we went through a small bump again, due to the complication of the pandemic, but as soon as possible they will completely return and the industry will continue to grow ”.
Of course, the return or, rather, the beginning towards a new normal will come sooner or later. The strength of the human being is to adapt to the situation and make the best of it.
Of course, it will not be easy and, in fact, we will be living a new era with respect to some activities that were previously unthinkable to be carried out without leaving home.
Human contact, the essence of real estate development companies
In some countries, even the home office will continue to be the priority for some companies, while others will use a hybrid model. But what is clear is that, ultimately, some aspects will change and it will be necessary to adapt to them.
On the other hand, there will be those who will not stop pursuing human contact (so essential in all forms of learning and interaction), for which it will also be necessary to take certain measures as we move towards a life with Covid-19 hanging around.
Alexis Ellstein is one of those who consider human contact vital to grow the industry:
“The pandemic has made us see that human contact is very important, the foundation of many companies in talent and the people who work for them, and that is generated through spaces where you live together on a daily basis, during a certain period of time. hours a week, and that’s something people are going to really appreciate.
Personally, I have been most of the time at home; We started going to the office a few days and, the truth is, I do miss being inside my office, working as a team and in contact with people, and leaving aside the issue with Zoom that works for certain things, but for It is essential for me that people are working in a space, all concentrated and dedicated to the good of companies, and I assure you that the offices will continue to grow and will continue to exist for many more years.
The most important part of all companies is the people who form them, and when the people who form them are at home, well, it is not the same. It does not work the same.
Possibly, initially, when we come out of all this, there will be a hybrid scheme; We already experienced it in this period and we saw that it worked and perhaps there is more openness to that. But the offices will continue and I think that the large offices will even put more spaces, which will probably be more open, more convivial and teamwork. “
In these times, the recovery of companies, although it may seem a slow process, is happening, and is largely due to the support of social networks and the strategies that have been established on them.
The importance of digital marketing strategies in the pandemic for real estate development companies
Currently, social networks such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram have served as a great boost for their marketing campaigns and strategies.
For Ellstein, in addition, MADE’s support during this period of pandemic was essential to achieve the goals set:
“Like all companies, when the pandemic arrived, we had to stop some strategies because they were developed for people to attend shopping centers, which, at some point, had to reduce their influx.
We never close our shopping centers, but we do lower the influx percentages in accordance with what the government dictated.
Initially, the first two or three months of the pandemic we implemented a strategy through personalized and digital shopping called “Door to Go”, a tool that we created so that customers could receive their merchandise at home.
One of the advantages of Thor’s shopping centers is that they are outdoors, they are open, so the flow that was had was better, because people did not feel enclosed in a box, which is the traditional format of this type of store. establishments.
We also emphasized this in our strategies and we also invested in new spaces so that people could spend more time in our shopping center, but in open spaces.
Then, we made a change in our strategy where the projects we had were more focused on sales, because the flow decreased and the tenants had to continue selling, and we adapted that change to launch different promotions. One of them was that we gave away cars; Through the amount of purchases, we gave people tickets to participate in the raffle.
We did a lot of activities with the tenants, where we offered people who came in to buy gift cards from most of the brands that are in our shopping centers.
Now, for two years, MADE has been our advertising agency and since we started with them, we saw the need to make a change in the institutional and corporate communication part of the company.
We changed the slogan, we changed the designs of the web pages, the materials. All this structure and all this vision that our owners wanted us to capture, we did it in a creative and strategic way with our partners, which are MADE. That in terms of the corporate and institutional part.
Subsequently, we take the opportunity to launch institutional campaigns in each of our shopping centers that we have in operation. But also, in all the campaigns that we did of all our activities, we also implemented them through MADE, which helped us with promotional campaigns, activities; We did a Christmas one, among others.
We have seven commercial dates a year (February 14, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, etc.) and we also develop all these campaigns through MADE. “
Undoubtedly, these are still complex times and of great uncertainty in all senses. Given this, real estate development companies, such as Thor / Urbana, are determined to launch all kinds of strategies to provide the best experience to people.
For this reason, it is necessary to implement effective strategies and use the resources at our disposal to achieve the objective, which is to initiate a new normal that allows a return to human contact.
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