Real Estate · 6 min read · 30 Sep 2026
A 90-day marketing plan for a residential project launch
Pre-launch EOI, launch week and sustenance: what to run in each phase, what to measure, and where launches usually lose momentum.
A residential launch has a short window. Interest peaks in the weeks around launch, and inventory sold early sets the price expectations for everything after. This plan breaks the first 90 days into three phases, with what to run and what to measure in each.
Phase 1: Pre-launch (weeks −4 to 0)
Goal: build a list of qualified, interested buyers before the launch date, usually through expressions of interest (EOI).
What to run:
- Teaser creative around location, connectivity and lifestyle, not just price.
- Meta and YouTube campaigns targeted at the micro-markets your buyers live and work in.
- Google Search on locality and builder-name searches, which pick up in the weeks before launch.
- An EOI landing page with a short form, a clear refundable-token process and the RERA registration number.
- WhatsApp follow-up that confirms the EOI, shares the brochure and keeps prospects warm with updates.
What to measure: EOIs, cost per EOI and the share of EOIs that match your target budget and configuration.
Get RERA right before launch. Advertisements for registered projects must show the project's registration number and the regulator's website.
Phase 2: Launch (weeks 1–2)
Goal: convert EOIs and new demand into site visits and bookings while attention is at its peak.
What to run:
- Launch films and walkthrough reels from the sample flat or site.
- Higher budgets on what worked in pre-launch, not on new experiments.
- Personal outreach to every EOI holder: a WhatsApp invite to a launch-day slot, then a call.
- Self-serve site-visit booking, with confirmations, reminders and a location pin.
- Portal packages timed to go live on launch day.
What to measure: site visits per day, visit show rate and bookings. Check lead-to-visit rate daily. If it drops, follow-up is the bottleneck, not the ads.
Phase 3: Sustenance (weeks 3–12)
Goal: keep a steady flow of visits at a falling cost per booking after launch buzz fades.
What to run:
- Always-on Meta and Google budgets, shifted towards whatever produces site visits most cheaply.
- New creative angles every two weeks: construction progress, amenities, resident stories and offers.
- Re-marketing to everyone who enquired but didn't visit.
- Referral offers for early buyers.
- Offline conversion feedback so Meta and Google optimise for visits, not form fills.
What to measure: cost per site visit, cost per booking and the trend in both.
Where launches lose momentum
- Follow-up can't keep up. Launch weeks produce more leads than sales can call. Automate the first reply and visit booking so no one waits.
- Creative fatigue. The same launch film for eight weeks gets more expensive every week.
- Portal and ad leads in separate places. Duplicates get called twice, and others not at all.
- Reporting stops at CPL. Budget drifts to the cheapest leads instead of the ones that visit.
A simple launch scorecard
| Phase | Primary metric | Supporting metrics |
|---|---|---|
| Pre-launch | Qualified EOIs | Cost per EOI, EOI quality |
| Launch | Bookings | Visits per day, show rate |
| Sustenance | Cost per booking | Cost per visit, creative freshness |
A sample budget split by phase
Every launch is different, but most well-run launches shift money between phases rather than spending evenly. An illustrative split of a 90-day budget:
| Phase | Share of budget | Where it goes |
|---|---|---|
| Pre-launch (4 weeks) | 25–30% | Teasers, EOI campaigns, landing page, launch film production |
| Launch (2 weeks) | 30–35% | Peak media, portal packages, launch-day events, EOI conversion |
| Sustenance (10 weeks) | 35–45% | Always-on campaigns, fresh creative, re-marketing, referrals |
Production costs for the launch film, walkthroughs and photography mostly fall in pre-launch. Budget for them separately so they don't eat into media. To work out the total, start from the bookings you need. Our real estate budget guide shows how.
Creative that works in each phase
- Pre-launch: location stories, connectivity and the developer's track record. The question buyers are asking is "why here, and can I trust you?"
- Launch: the sample flat, views, layouts and amenities, shot as short vertical video for Reels and Shorts, plus a clear launch offer if you have one.
- Sustenance: construction progress, resident and buyer stories, comparisons with nearby projects on facts like carpet area and connectivity, and limited-period offers to create urgency without discounting the brand.
Refresh creative every two to three weeks in sustenance. Costs rise steadily when audiences see the same ad too often.
Getting sales ready before launch day
Most launch problems happen after the lead arrives. Before launch, make sure:
- every lead source, including portals, flows into one CRM, de-duplicated;
- the first WhatsApp reply and visit-booking flow is tested end to end;
- relationship managers know which leads are theirs and the response time expected;
- the site team can handle the visit volume, with enough slots and a clear check-in process;
- there's a daily launch huddle to review leads, visits and bookings by source.
A launch that produces 3,000 leads and 100 visits is a sales-process problem, not a marketing one. Fixing it before day one is much cheaper than fixing it during the launch.
Frequently asked questions
How early should pre-launch start?
Four weeks is a practical minimum for building an EOI list through paid media. Larger projects, or those in new micro-markets, benefit from six to eight weeks of awareness first.
Should we run portals in pre-launch?
Usually the launch phase is better for portal packages, when listings can show full details. In pre-launch, focus on owned landing pages where you control the story and capture EOIs directly.
How do we keep sustenance from stalling?
Fresh creative, re-marketing to past enquirers, referral offers for early buyers and construction-progress updates keep momentum. Above all, keep judging campaigns on cost per booking so budget follows what's selling.
Reporting during the launch
A launch moves fast, so reporting needs to be simple and daily. A single shared view should show, by source and by day:
- leads received and leads contacted within five minutes;
- site visits booked, completed and no-shows;
- bookings and token amounts;
- spend and cost per site visit.
Review it in a 15-minute huddle each morning with marketing, sales and the site team. The goal isn't a perfect report. It's spotting yesterday's bottleneck before it costs today's buyers.
Planning your launch
Every city behaves differently. A Kokapet high-rise in Hyderabad, an OMR project in Chennai and a Dwarka Expressway launch in Delhi NCR need different audiences, creative and budgets. If you have a launch coming up, our real estate team can build the 90-day plan with you, including the launch creative and WhatsApp flows.