Many real estate agents put in a significant amount of time, money, and effort into traditional marketing methods that are declining in effectiveness. As a result, they ignore new-age ways to help them compete based on current consumer habits. Not only does this hinder their growth, but it sends more of their business right into the arms of their competitors who are adapting their marketing efforts to meet the demands of today’s consumers.
With competition tightening up in almost every market, local businesses are finding it extremely difficult to keep their existing customers and to bring in new ones. One severely overlooked method that is keeping many companies from reaching further success is Mobile Marketing.
In this post, we will discuss why Mobile Marketing should be a part of EVERY real estate agents strategy, as well as the different options available to them.
Continuous Growth in Consumer Mobile Usage
Consumer mobile usage has grown tremendously over the past decade. Everywhere you look, you can find consumers glued to their mobile smartphone devices. However, most real estate agents are still ignoring the fact that this increase in mobile usage calls for a change in the way they market to local consumers.
People today are attracted to convenience, and that is exactly what smartphones and tablets offer. Research suggests that 95% of smartphone users have searched for local products, services, and businesses on their mobile devices.
In fact, mobile search has grown substantially over the past few years. This means that people are now choosing their mobile devices over desktop PCs when it comes to finding local companies that have what they are looking for.
Further research has found that most of these mobile consumers cover a significantly large variety of niches when searching for retail stores; from fashion and beauty to electronics and cars.
This is why mobile marketing is such an important marketing strategy for ALL types of businesses today. Businesses that have already caught on to power of mobile marketing have seen an immense increase in leads and sales.
In fact, it was reported that $3.3 billion was spent in 2011 on mobile advertisements. This amount is predicted to be around $20.6 billion in 2015. This is a major increase in ad spend over the course of four short years.
Why are businesses willing to invest so heavily into mobile?
It’s because they finally understand that mobile marketing is key to eliminating any distance between them and their target audience. Mobile devices are as close as you can get to any consumer; everyone keeps them within reach at all times. No other form of marketing can claim this when it comes to reaching your target market effectively.
Reaching your customers and potential customers via their mobile devices offers a lot of benefits, such as the fact that mobile users are quick action-takers vs. people who find out about your business via printed advertisements, TV ads, newspaper ads and other traditional forms of marketing.
Furthermore, mobile marketing can lead your business to success simply because new forms of media are known to grab the attention of any consumer. Although different forms of mobile marketing have been around for some time now, it is still a “new” form of media because, as mentioned earlier, many businesses have yet to take advantage of it.
Here are some benefits of utilizing mobile to grow your local reach, generate new leads, and increase revenue.
Benefits of Having a Mobile-Friendly Website For Real Estate Agents
A vital part of targeting mobile consumers is to have a mobile-friendly website. In fact, before you do any type of mobile marketing, this should be a priority. Viewing a PC version of a website on mobile devices is extremely frustrating as it fails to offer an optimal viewing experience. They load slowly (if at all), require a bunch of pinching and scrolling, and most of the time, the user simply cannot find what they’re looking for.
Unfortunately, this is a huge turn-off to the mobile user, who will abandon your website immediately and move on to a competitor’s mobile optimized site. As a result, you lose a potential sale.
On the other hand, a mobile-friendly website will load fairly quickly on mobile devices and will have an outstanding user interface that will give your visitors a hassle-free browsing experience.
There are two options available when setting up a mobile-friendly website: a stand-alone mobile site and a responsive mobile site. Both of them provide similar experiences to a mobile user, but possess different characteristics.
Stand-Alone Websites – A stand-alone mobile website is a brand new website specifically built for mobile devices. When people try to access a site from their mobile device, they will seamlessly be automatically redirected to the mobile version if there is one.
This is a good option for most businesses. While it is a different site, your logo and other branding information will all be kept to match your main website.
Stand-alone mobile sites are great because they are clean and only provide the information a mobile user would be looking for, such as your phone number, address, product and service information, etc. They do not contain a lot of content, such as long text content or excessive graphics.
One of the most powerful features of mobile sites is that they contain large, thumb-friendly buttons that make navigation a breeze. This includes buttons to go to other pages on the site, as well as “click-to-call” buttons to help your visitors effortlessly get in contact with you.
Therefore, they help you convert mobile users into customers more easily because they’re concise and to-the-point.
Mobile Responsive Websites – A responsive design helps your main website adapt to whatever mobile device it is being viewed on. Whether it’s a PC, a smartphone or a tablet, your website will automatically be resized to fit that particular device.
If you do not want a stand-alone mobile site, you should at least make sure your website is mobile responsive. This is still much easier for the visitor because they can view and navigate your site more comfortably than a site that is not optimized for mobile viewing at all.
If your website is still not optimized for mobile, pull it up on your mobile device and see what happens; this is exactly what your potential and existing customers are going through. Can you see how this is costing you business? In fact, 40% of consumers turn to a competitor’s website after a bad viewing experience and most of them vow never to return.
Benefits of Text Message Marketing For Real Estate Agents
A valuable tool to have in your marketing arsenal is Text Message marketing. Predicted to be one of the most vital marketing strategies in the coming years, many businesses have decided to jump on the bandwagon.
However, a lot of businesses that could increase revenue via text message marketing have not even considered it yet.
There are several reasons to implement text messaging into your plans; the major one being that it’s highly cost-effective.
- The costs associated with text messages to your target audience are relatively less, compared to the costs of setting up a billboard or a TV ad.
- Text messages are delivered at the speed of lightning, with the average time being 7 seconds between sending and receiving.
- They are highly flexible and can be extremely targeted; you can either send a specific message to a small target audience or send a large amount of text messages to the entire local audience.
- The convenience of opting in or opting out of a text message subscription is simply wonderful; it is much easier to do so, compared to other media subscriptions.
- As stated previously, mobile phones are always in proximity to their users, making it easier for them to take action from a text message. This increases your conversion rates incredibly.
- Text messages are much more reliable when it comes to delivering it to users, compared to e-mails which include spam filters, restrictions etc.
- The abundance of mobile phones in U.S. alone gives you access to unlimited markets because mobile phone users represent all kinds of demographics. Regardless of his or her age, culture or hobbies, almost everyone owns a mobile phone.
With all these benefits, text message marketing can definitely help you keep your existing customers, as well as attract new ones. It is highly recommended to implement it into your business if it fits your type of company goals.
Benefits of Using Quick Response (QR) Codes
Perhaps the most recognizable additions to mobile technology are QR codes; these are two dimensional bar codes that represent data viewable on mobile devices. They have been around for a while and were first used to identify different car specifications. Now, they are so robust that they can hold a wealth of information and can send users to various digital locations – making them an extremely powerful asset for any marketing funnel.
- A major benefit of QR codes is that they are easy to use for both businesses and mobile users. With a quick scan of with their mobile device, your audience can be re-directed to ANY online destination you choose.
- They are great for bringing more awareness to any type of marketing you may be doing. For instance, you can use them to send people to your website, coupon offers, online videos, social media profiles, email opt-in forms, and so much more.
- The possibilities are endless when it comes to where you can put QR codes to get them in front of consumers. You can place them on any of your marketing materials, your product packaging, inside your establishment, and so much more.
- QR codes can store huge amounts of data, which can be easily scanned and stored onto any mobile device. Remember, convenience is vital to most consumers.
- Businesses can reduce their marketing costs by allocating a QR code to their website – or any other online property. They can instantly send more attention to those properties without the high costs involved in normal advertising methods.
- Creating a QR code is ridiculously inexpensive; that, coupled with the ease of tracking their results, aids in even further cost reduction for any marketing campaign.
- The versatility QR codes can provide is a major feature; they can store anything and everything when it comes to information. In addition to sending users to specific locations, QR code can help consumers store your contact information, store your address, dial a phone number or even send an email, simply through a quick scan.
- QR codes help businesses build a subscription list (email or text marketing) fairly quickly, increasing their overall profitability.
As you can see, QR codes can help you get more eyes on your business and help your audience take action much quicker than any other form of marketing.
Benefits of Having a Mobile App
Arguably, mobile apps are extremely powerful in the world of mobile usage. However, many businesses have yet to consider a mobile app because they don’t think that it’s something that would benefit their audience. They also don’t realize that mobile apps can help them ultimately boost customer loyalty and sales.
- Mobile apps will help you build a healthy relationship with your customers, who would find it far more convenient to access your company’s information through his or her smartphone than a website.
- Having an app reinforces your brand image, letting the consumer know you are a well-established company that has invested in technology in order to perpetuate growth and provide convenience to consumers.
- Effective customer support is an essential service every business must have; a mobile app will help you provide customer support efficiently and quickly.
- Mobile apps can also help you collect certain demographics such as location, gender etc. from your app users. This will help you analyze the kind of offers you can promote to your customers and services you can introduce in order to increase overall satisfaction.
The Value of Mobile Marketing
Overall, mobile marketing is continuously growing as several businesses, from small town shops to local magnates, are slowly adjusting their marketing strategies to fit the needs of mobile users.
There is enough research to support the fact that the number of people who frequently use their mobile devices to engage and interact with local businesses is at an all-time high. This is evident by the number of mobile users who are now habitually searching for products and services through their smartphones.
This is because most users find it a lot more convenient to use their mobile devices instead of computers, which normally takes time to start up and load. Not to mention the fact that most consumers are no longer sitting in front of the computer when they are in need of your services.
Half of all mobile searches result in some type of immediate action, meaning they either call you or visit you soon after having contact with your brand via their mobile device.
We are currently living in a generation that is innovative; it aims to provide people with comfort and reduce time consumption while accomplishing their goals and desires. Mobile marketing is a major catalyst that is helping today’s generation achieve its goals.
Almost everyone owns a mobile phone and this is what makes mobile marketing so effective; it connects your business on a personal level with the users. Not only does this strengthen your brand, but it increases conversion rates as well.
Tracking your mobile marketing efforts is easy compared to other forms of marketing; which is another reason to use it. Whether it’s a mobile website, text message marketing, QR codes, or mobile apps, you can track activity to see where you are winning as well as where you need to make improvements.
Getting involved with mobile marketing will pose a major threat to your non-mobile competition once implemented. Due to all of the reasons mentioned in this report, mobile-friendly businesses are in a position to reach more prospects, as well as convert more prospects in to paying customers. On top of that, mobile marketing provides a wealth of tools to keep your existing customers coming back.
Need you any more reasons to add mobile marketing strategies to your business? The diversity it offers, at such low costs, is a must-have for any company. Whether you are looking to start up a brand new business, which targets a specific market, or you currently operate a well-established company that is well-known to local audiences, it is necessary to realize the impact mobile can have on your success.
