Advertising and marketing are part of the key elements of getting leads and converting them into sales which would lead to immeasurable revenue. Like other real estate markets in Nigeria, our analysis has shown that developers in the Ibadan real estate market are not leaving any stone unturned towards lead acquisition and eventual revenue generation. Our analysis indicates that the developers are employing incentive marketing strategy to woo prospective homeowners and investors, with interest in having land for home and office construction, and buying completed houses. The developers are also targeting those who have substantial finance to buy completed houses in areas like Challenge, Bodija, Mokola among others.
Incentive marketing is not a new practice according to a number of experts and academic scholars, our analyst spoke with. They agreed that over the years, it has been the tradition of businesses to add one or two materials which would motivate prospective buyers to initiate first stage of the purchasing process. In some cases, the approach is being effective because of the people’s love of worldly possessions. In other words, “people behave in a way they believe will result in a reward and avoid actions that may entail punishment.”
Exhibit 1: Use of Incentive Categories by Location of Real Estate Products [Land and House]
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Our check reveals that discounts, free product and services are the most effective types of incentive. The argument has also been that incentives are being used to eliminate barriers to communicate with consumers. For instance, incentives such as good roads, stable electricity, recreational centres and other facilities, which are non-materials, are used by the developers to market lands or completed houses our experts say prospective homeowners’ and investors’ lack of information in the locations of the lands or completed houses is being filled.
Exhibit 2: Use of Incentive Categories by Products
Source: Real Estate Companies’ Marketing Materials, 2019-2021; Infoprations Analysis, 2021However, when incentives such as buy a plot and get a ram, a bag of rice and a keg of vegetable oil are being employed the developers are only appealing to the motivational void and exploiting socioeconomic status of the prospective homeowners and investors. Our analyst examined these insights further with the analysis of 46 real estate marketing materials, focusing on land and house products in the Ibadan real estate market. Analysis shows that between 2019 and 2021, material and non-material incentives were used to market lands more than completed houses.
Exhibit 3: Use of Incentive Categories by Price
Source: Real Estate Companies’ Marketing Materials, 2019-2021; Infoprations Analysis, 2021Our expectation is that the use of the incentive material types will manifest at the scale of 2 in the marketing materials of the developers. With this, we only found that non-material incentives are being used to market lands and houses in Ido, Ona-Ara and locations that were not specified. Analysis also reveals that the type is being appropriated for marketing of the products in Oluyole local government area, one of the choice locations of prospective homeowners and real estate investors. From our analysis, there are a number of surprising insights. For instance, we discovered that using material incentives significantly connected with the socioeconomic status of prospective homeowners and investors [see Exhibit 3 and Exhibit 4].
Exhibit 4: Use of Incentive Categories by Completed House and Land Size
Additional reports by Mubaarak Abdulhameed [a Builder and Quality Engineer] and Mariam Akanni [a Real Estate Marketer]