Real Estate Marketing: What is the Best Way to Reach Wealthy Investors in the Middle East?

According to Knight Frank’s Wealth Report (2021), real estate is set to be one of the 3 driving forces in investment for the wealthy in the Middle East. The report states that private capital has been undeterred by the pandemic and wealthy business people from the Middle East continue to invest in real estate around the world. This is great news for the real estate industry but a challenging task for real estate marketing professionals. 

In general terms, creating a visible digital presence and powerful social media marketing strategy is vital for the real estate industry. However, when it comes to marketing for the wealthy Middle Eastern market, marketers need to understand their audience, tailor campaigns to suit different regions and create content for a culturally diverse audience. 

As is true in all industries, no digital marketing strategy can be successful without a great understanding of one’s target market. And when trying to reach wealthy investors in the Middle East, marketers need to research language, terminology, relevant topics, popular platforms and regional differences to be successful in their endeavor. 

Below, we take a look at the best ways to reach wealthy investors in the Middle East through powerful digital marketing tools and tactics. 

Digital Marketing Tips For Reaching Wealthy Real Estate Investors in the Middle East

Consumer preference and online behavior varies significantly across the Middle East as online conversations differ between the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar etc. To understand the target audience, you can use digital transformation tools to accurately measure and track the difference in each region's online behavior. This is where Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tools become useful.

Customer Relationship Management and Audience Insight Tools

Digital marketing refers to reaching your target audience via online channels and tactics, from your website and blog content to social media and search engine marketing. To implement your digital marketing successfully, you need to use digital analytics and tracking to examine your audience and campaigns. With this technology you can learn more about how your audience in each region interacts with your campaigns - allowing you to identify new opportunities and amend existing campaigns. 

Customer Relationship Management systems are designed to help you in this process. For example, the HubSpot CRM provides a single location for all your digital marketing efforts, digital lead generation efforts, lead and customer data collection as well as analytics, automation and audience segmentation. With such a fully rounded tool at your disposal, and one that integrates with all your digital platforms, your marketing team is able to target your ideal audience in the Middle East while measuring the success of campaigns.

By using CRM tools you are also able to give your creative marketing a data-driven foundation which ensures a scalable and profitable strategy. Think about it like this: digital analytics show you the facts. And when reaching wealthy investors in the Middle East, you need all the insight you can get. The target audience is niche, yet diverse, and analytics will help you reach the individuals you need to reach. 

Now that you have an understanding of the importance of analytics, let’s take a look at the marketing tactics and related metrics per tactic.

1. Website Creation and Website Analytics

When creating a website for your Middle East target audience, it is important you create a real estate website made up of powerful Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and informative, helpful content. Your SEO needs to be localized to specific areas, using language, tone and region targeting to help it rise up the search engine ranks and reach your audience while they are actively seeking a real estate investment opportunity.

Language is also a vital element to consider when it comes to website creation and audience targeting. As you are targeting a diverse, niche audience, it is important you create an informative website and blog content in your audience's language, Arabic. This does not mean that you shouldn’t focus your efforts on an English website - you can create both websites and target them to your Middle East audience, ensuring you don't miss out on any opportunity.  

You can create your website and manage your website content through a CRM platform such as HubSpot. And through this software you are able to track website visitors, generate leads, monitor campaign performance and analyze your target audience. These analytical tools will help you understand wealthy investors in the Middle East in greater detail which allows your marketing team to create successful and highly targeted real estate campaigns. 

Below, we outline the key metrics you can use when monitoring the success of your website and the online behavior of your niche target audience:

• Visitor Metrics: As the name suggests, a website visitor is an individual who visits your website. A CRM is able to track a visitor's behavior and engagement on your website.
• Page View Metrics: This is when a person loads a page on your website and views it in their browser. With web analytics, you can see which pages a particular lead visited, and how they moved through your website. 
• Traffic by Channel: This will show you where your visitors are coming from. For example: if they found your website through the search engines, landing pages, social media etc. 
• Bounce Rate: You can view the percentage of visitors who didn't take any actions or view other pages on your website compared to the total number of page or website visitors. 

So, how do these metrics actually help in reaching wealthy investors in the Middle East? It’s simple: they show you what is working and what is not - and you will be able to see if you are reaching the right audience, with the right message, through the right platforms at the right time. This is not exclusive to industry or audience - but is particularly important when understanding such a small, niche target market.

Now that we understand the importance of website creation, language and web analytics, let’s take a look at the importance of website content and content distribution for lead generation purposes. 

2. Content Creation, Lead Generation and Metrics for Lead Magnets

As stated previously, Arabic is the primary language spoken in the Middle East and it is important to include Arabic in your content strategy. By doing this, you will show your audience that you respect their culture and you are able to engage with them in their language. 

Outside of language, your real estate business needs to create content that speaks to the audience in a tone they appreciate. And it needs to provide helpful, insightful and informative information that will help direct the potential investor through the awareness stage to the decision making stage - and beyond. 

By creating thought-leader content, you prove to your wealthy audience that you understand their reservations, and can solve any possible hesitation they may have regarding a real estate investment, which in turn builds trust and deepens relationships. However, this is not all your content should be designed for. It is all well and good to reach your wealthy audience through insightful content, but you need to capitalize off their interest to generate their data. And this is done through lead magnets.

A lead magnet is a digital marketing phrase used to describe a free service or offering that is given away via a landing page or website, for the purpose of gathering contact information from potential leads. For example: your real estate website may offer a free e-book that outlines the process of real estate investment. This kind of content benefits your target audience and drives them to take a specific action. However, to read your beneficial content, they will have to fill in what is known as a “lead form” by supplying their contact details.

This kind of strategy builds trust while creating a database of high quality leads. Lead magnets and lead forms can be created using HubSpot, and the platform will store your lead data in a single location - and segment and prioritize your leads at the same time.

Below, we outline the key metrics you can use when monitoring the success of your content, lead magnet and lead generation tactics:

• Call-to-Action Click-Through-Rate: This metric will show your marketing team the percentage of clicks on a particular Call-to-Action as compared to the number of site or page visits.
• Submissions: This refers to the total percentage of people who filled in and submitted a lead form.
• Conversion Rate: This is the number of actions a visitor takes on your lead magnet compared to the total of lead magnet visits. 
• Ratio of Leads to Marketing-Qualified-Leads: This refers to the total number of quality leads collected from your lead magnet compared to leads generated. In this case, this will show you how your lead magnet is working in relation to targeting wealthy Middle East investors. 

So, how do these metrics actually help in reaching wealthy investors in the Middle East?  Just like with website analytics, these metrics show you what is working and what is not in terms of reaching your target audience. Again, this is not exclusive to industry or audience - but is particularly important when successfully reaching such a small, niche target market.

Now that we understand the importance of content, lead generation and lead analytics, let’s take a look at the importance of email marketing for the lead nurturing of wealthy investors in the Middle East.

3. Lead Nurturing, Email Marketing and Email Analytics

Now that you have successfully targeted your audience and collected their data, your marketing and sales teams need to put together a strategy to nurture your niche leads. This is important because you do not have a wide net of individuals to target. You have collected invaluable information, that of the 1%, and you need to use this information wisely. Wealthy investors are not quick to give away their information, and you need to make use of all the data that you have to turn these leads into investors. 

With a CRM like HubSpot, you can use analytics and data to segment your prospects and current real estate clients so that they only receive content that is relevant to them. Thanks to email automation, you are able to schedule your newsletters or email campaigns to be sent at certain times so that you do not have to perform these time consuming tasks manually. 

Another great feature is that you can set up automated responses to popular inquiries - ensuring your leads receive the communication they require as soon as possible. This close attention to detail is needed to build trust - especially in the luxury property industry. Investing in property is a long-term commitment and it is important you nurture prospects with the right message, at the right time - driving them through the buying process effectively and without being pushy. 

With lead scoring and audience segmentation you can create email campaigns that vary based on your audience and where they are within the buying journey. With HubSpot, you can track where each lead came from (social media, lead magnet, website etc.) and by understanding their interaction with your business, you can tailor your email content accordingly. With a CRM you are also able to segment your audience and send out automated and personalized email campaigns based on where specific leads are at in their journey - this eliminates error and ensures your leads receive the right information, at the right time - with the right messaging. 

Below, we outline the key metrics you can use when monitoring the success of your email nurturing campaigns:

• Open Rate: This refers to the percentage of opened emails in proportion to the total number of emails sent out.
• Click-Through-Rate: This is the percentage of total clicks on an email link or email cta in relation to the total number of email opens.
• Bounce Rate: This refers to the percentage of emails that were undeliverable.
• Unsubscribe Rate: The percentage of prospects who unsubscribed to your email list over a period of time.

The above metrics show your marketing and sales teams what is working and what is not in terms of lead nurturing. Again, this is not exclusive to industry or audience - but is particularly important for successfully nurturing a high income target audience. 

Now that we understand the importance of lead nurturing, let’s take a look at the importance of social media for reaching wealthy investors in the Middle East.

4. Social Media Marketing, Influencer Marketing and Social Media Analytics

90% of High Net-worth Individuals use social media however, they are selective when  offering personal information to brands via social media. Essentially, they are an audience that is more guarded online than any other audience. However, there are a variety of ways to break through this problem. Essentially, you will need to attract your wealthy Middle East audience through aspirational brand content and influencer marketing that is designed to assure your audience “bragging rights” if they are associated with your brand. 

In fact, according to a recent survey, 94% of marketers in the UAE believe that social media influencers play a large role in the success of brands. This comes down to aspiration brand content as mentioned above. Research from YouGov Omnibus and BPG Cohn & Wolf states that 49% of brands in the Middle East are currently working with influencers, and for brands still looking to operate in the region, one key consideration to make is ensuring that you work with the right influencers to bring your brand message across to local audiences. As you are targeting High Network Individuals, you will need to focus your efforts on working with influencers that play a role in the luxury living space. 

While you work with influencers in the social media space (particularly Instagram if you want to show off stunning, luxury images), you also need to share informative content across your social platforms. From LinkedIn to Facebook, you need to provide your target audience with content that informs and interests them - this all links back to creating quality content and lead magnets for lead generation. 

There is great potential in the Middle East for real estate businesses who are looking to find investors in the region. Not only is your target audience online and actively engaging with each other on social media platforms, social media itself provides a place to learn more about your customers, encourage engagement and foster trust and loyalty. With the right social media strategy in place, as well as having the right monitoring tools, you have the power to reach the right audience and increase real estate investments and sales.

Social Retargeting Ads are important, because as stated previously, most wealthy online users will be reluctant to give out their personal information which makes the above point difficult to implement successfully. By investing in retargeted ads (that is, ads that reach users who have previously interacted with or engaged with your brand through social media), you are offering relevant messaging to affluent buyers without asking them for too much information. This tactic subtly nurtures leads , builds brand awareness, grows followers among this audience segment and increases the click-through rates to your brand website.

A CRM like HubSpot integrates with all social platforms and allows your marketing team to create and launch campaigns in a single place - across multiple social platforms. The platform also provides measuring tools to ensure your social media efforts are optimized to their potential. 

Below, we outline the key metrics you can use when monitoring the success of your social media marketing campaigns:

• Engagement Rate: This refers to the total number of engagements on your social media posts (per channels)
• Follows and Subscribers: The total number of people who have engaged with and showed interest in your content and choose to receive updates when new posts or pages are published. 
• Shares: The number of times a post or page has been shared across social media.

It is important to note that social media analytics and metrics are not just about having high numbers - in fact this counts for nothing if your content is not reaching your desired target audience. Essentially, your social media campaigns should consider all of the above strategies, from language to lead magnets to be successful. 

In Conclusion

There is a common thread that runs throughout this article and that is Customer Relationship Management Software. To ensure every part of your digital marketing strategy is working (especially when trying to reach such a targeted audience), you need to invest in a powerful system that is able to capture, analyze and measure every potential lead and marketing campaign.  

With years of experience in digital marketing and an unparalleled understanding of the Middle East target market for the real estate industry, Nexa is here to help real estate professionals reach their target audience online, generate quality leads and convert those leads into customers. 

Our experience in Real Estate marketing stems from our work with leading industry players CBRE, JLL, Savills, Berkeley Group, Northacre, Sotheby's, DAMAC Properties and countless other agencies and real estate developers. Contact Nexa for all your real estate marketing needs, today.