Do you sell houses?

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 In one of the last meetings with the sales team of a low cost- social housing project we were discussing the effectiveness of advertising and marketing efforts made by the company. The result was unsatisfactory: there was really no indications that our  media efforts were helping us to attract people and there was even less information about what tools were effective in order to close sales.

The sales team, made up of several middle-aged women, had been doing a great work in the field for awhile: they did not expect sales efforts to reach customers, unlike applied a variety of "guerilla marketing" strategies themselves going to the cruises, markets and convenience stores, implemented information delivery stands, contacted middle managers who were working at the banks and lending institutions and they had enough contacts to be able to access government offices and canteens in companies. The result was impressive: it was a vending machine.

This resulted in a couple of important insights:

a) That the field work and traditional marketing is still essential when selling your products. In an age where digital advertising has taken a lot of strength, traditional marketing critics predicted the latter's death in a matter of time: They could not be more wrong.

In a market as affordable housing (social interest) in Mexico, where the Internet service penetration in the population is very low (almost nonexistent) digital marketing does not work: no one buys a house of 200 thousand because because they saw it announced in a page on Facebook or it was found through a search on Google. The property market in Mexico is far from finding a mechanism in which the marketing and advertising to be truly effective (even in higher socioeconomic levels). Buying a home is an important part (in most cases the only) of household wealth. Therefore the effort and the sales strategy is still a 90% emotional.

b)  When talking to the vendors and see their field work as I am aware that they have transformed their operating model. Looking for clients who do not understand that they are entitled to a housing loan through Infonavit (the Mexican agency that supports the acquisition of the property), who have enough empathy and ability to communicate in the educational level of their customers (often low) and are able to explain, in simple terms, financial concepts and credit and payment terms that often people from middle school and higher education lever find extremely difficult to understand them fully.

The latter allow sellers to offer services tailored to the clients . As a result they surely find a credit scheme that fits your own needs.

As salespeople said: "We are  not dedicated to selling houses, we sell opportunities." That was right: they do not sell homes, they  sell financial products and services, the houses are only the means to do it.
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