EXCLUSIVE: Thailand property developers and real estate agents are being urged to do more global marketing or risk missing out on valuable business from overseas.
The message comes from the Chief Executive Officer of one of Europe’s largest overseas property portals on the back of his company’s November monthly ‘Top of the Props’ survey (below) which lists the most-searched overseas countries by people intent on buying an overseas property.
Commenting on Thailand’s one place drop last month (November) to the 12th most-search country, Dan Johnson of www.themovechannel in an exclusive statement to Dot Property Group, said: “A change of one place in one month is not significant movement because a strong surge of advertiser activity can cause countries to jump by several places.”
As recently as June Thailand was the fourth most-searched country in the same survey, although the Kingdom still remains the most attractive destinations for people from Northern Europe searching for property to buy or invest in Southeast Asia.
But in adding words of advice Johnson cautioned: “It’s fair to say that developers in Thailand are missing out on huge levels of appetite for affordable property in Southeast Asia among Western and Northern Europeans.
“The world of international property is a crowded, competitive market where demand has to be stimulated. If you sit back and wait for people to find your development, then you’re likely to see a trickle of buyers at best.”
Johnson added that publishing property listings to property portals is a perfectly valid part of any strategy, but these days, prospects spend time on a range of other digital media such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn. and websites where adverts are powered by Bing and Google AdWords.
He said: “Push marketing enables developers to reach potential buyers in multiple channels and solicit interest in their product.”
“Failure to do this allows attention to be grabbed by competing markets, and as a result clients spend their money elsewhere. Thailand as a market needs to shape up and start competing to win more business,” he warned.
