Courtesy of: VREB Virtual Real Estate Brokerage

Courtesy of: VREB Virtual Real Estate Brokerage

Why Go Mobile? In today s world almost every industry is becoming more mobile friendly because of the huge increase in tablet and smart phone usage. The industries that ignore their mobile presence will lose market share and are likely to become obsolete over the next few years. Consider these statistics for just a second: 45% of households own tablets and 16% plan to buy one. 69% of consumers own smart phones. 73% of mobile searches are followed up with an action within 1 hour. The average mobile phone owner looks at their phone every 6 mins! 98% of text messages are read, compared to 22% of emails. 96% of smartphone users use SMS 60% of consumers use mobile exclusively to make purchases. Mobile Marketing Could Have Its Largest Impact On The Real Estate Industry. The statistics above should be enough to show you that the world is moving towards the use of mobile devices and as a real estate agent you are going to need to move with it. If you give me just a few minutes of your time I ll share with you exactly why the real estate industry could be in line to benefit the most from the mobile marketing movement. There are numerous ways that you can take advantage of mobile marketing and I ll cover a few of them below. To maximize exposure, your best bet is to implement a combination of the strategies for each property that you list. If you have any questions at all, my contact information is at the end of this document. 2

Text Message Marketing Text message marketing for real estate agents is extremely beneficial. Not only does it get the information about the property to a potential buyer immediately, it also helps you as the realtor build up a database of potentially interested people for similar properties that you may have. For example, let s say that a potential buyer sees a home advertised that they are interested in. They glance at the house and notice a rider that says to text A2002 to 75768 for the specs on this home and they pick up their cell phone and send the text. They immediately receive the information about the home along with a URL to your company page. Now, these potential buyers have the information about the house in front of them along with a URL that links to your site where they will find even more information. The best part is that as soon as the potential buyer texts the code to your property their mobile phone number will be captured and placed into your contact list. The majority of text message platforms will also provide the ability to forward information of new subscribers to either the realtors mobile device or to an email address. This information is invaluable to the realtor as it generates leads that the agent can then immediately follow up with. Once the necessary preparation has been made it is simply a matter of maintaining your housing information and keeping it updated for the text campaign. You will also need to make sure that you follow up with all of the leads that you generate in a timely fashion. If you do this, mobile & text marketing can be an extremely powerful tool that can be used to efficiently provide you with leads that can generate even more sales. 3

QR Code Marketing Implementing QR codes into your marketing strategy is highly recommended as most people have their cell phones with them wherever they go. There is no other form of marketing that can fulfil the need for instant gratification quite the way a QR code does. Mobile phone users are used to being able to get the information that they want as soon as they want it simply by clicking a few times on their mobile device. A QR code will allow a consumer to follow you on Facebook, to browse homes on your website, or to simply gather information about any listings that you may have. When creating a QR code for your real estate business you are going to want to make the code offer and content irresistible to them as they will actually have to scan the code with their phone in order to get the offer, website, URL, or whatever you have coded. It is a good idea to add a short URL to the QR code as there are some people that would rather visit your website directly while others simply will not be able to scan the code for some reason or another. If you place a URL on the QR code anyone will be able to participate in the offer no matter what. If using a QR code to direct traffic to your site, make sure that the site that it links to is mobile. A traditional website that has not been optimized for a mobile device will take longer to load and if a person has to wait for the site to open they are more likely to simply click out and move on to another property and someone else s company. Remember, the goal is to make it as easy as possible for the potential buyer to get to the information that you want them to have. This is the main goal of the QR code. 4

5 Video Marketing Video marketing is one of the best ways for you to attract potential home buyers & sellers. Video has become the preferred method of absorbing information online and it gives you the opportunity to interact with potential home buyers in a much more engaging way. It gives you the chance to make a first impression and set yourself apart from other local realtors. You can post a video on your website or Facebook page introducing yourself to potential clients and explaining the advantages & benefits of working with you. You can also create video tours of your listed properties to increase their exposure and demonstrate to your sellers that you re doing everything possible to sell their house. Creating video is much easier than it may sound and there are a couple of different ways that you can create video tours of your listed properties. You can record an actual video of you walking through the house highlighting the amenities of a particular property or you can create a virtual video using a nice set of pictures in a slideshow format with some soft background music. Video tours are a great way to enhance the marketing that you re already doing. The first thing you should do is post your video tour on YouTube with all of the accurate listing information. When doing this, it s critical to use keyword-rich descriptions that will increase the chances of the video tour appearing in the Google search results. The goal should be to have your video tour appear on the first page of Google when someone searches for that property. This will help maximize the exposure for the listing and will also impress the sellers. The second way a video tour can help drive your marketing is to use it as an opt-in offer. Basically, use it as a reason to capture the contact information of someone that s interested in the property. If you re trying to collect cell phone numbers for text message marketing, you can advertise Text 123Main to 73737 for a video tour of this property. Or if you re trying to collect email address for an online campaign, you can

advertise with a QR code that says: Scan this QR code to receive a video tour of this property. The QR code would then direct the potential homebuyer to a mobile-friendly site that would collect their email address (and any other pertinent information that you choose) in exchange for the video tour. Video tours are also great for additional exposure on social media sites. Most sellers enjoy sharing nice videos of their property with their family & friends and that s free advertising for not only the listing, but also for you. Without a doubt video presents real estate agents with a great opportunity to distinguish themselves and their listed properties from other local competition. 6

Re-Marketing Potential The best part about mobile marketing for a real estate company is the remarketing potential. When you use text message marketing, QR codes, and other forms of mobile marketing you will be creating a large database of potential buyers and sellers. The database that you build from your mobile marketing campaign can be used in many different ways. One of the ways is to use the mobile phone numbers and email addresses to send out information about future open houses, any price reductions on the home that they were interested in, as well as information about properties that are similar and located in the same area. Remarketing is a very powerful way to stay engaged with a targeted audience. Not only should you use text messages and emails, but you should also use advertisements on your site to direct visitors to different properties that you have listed. It is important to make sure all of your pages on your site are tagged so that they keep track of every visitor. This will help you design advertisements to match what they are each looking for. Using the list created from your mobile marketing campaign is the best way to increase your sales as you know these people are interested in purchasing a home otherwise they would not have texted about the property or used the QR code to learn more about the property in question. 7

Final Thoughts & Free Trial Offer Without a doubt, effective use of mobile & text message marketing will give you an advantage over other real estate agents & companies in your area. If you would like more information about exactly how mobile marketing can help you reach more buyers & sellers, or would like to see some samples of our work, please contact us via the information below. Is there something we can help you with? Give us a call! Virtual Real Estate Brokerage http://virtualrealestatebrokerage.com/ Tel: 416-645-0766 8