Reduce your marketing budget AND sell more real estate – Capture leads from all of your marketing programs

Wherever I go these days I am asked the all-important question by agents and brokers. What can I do to make the limited marketing dollars I have available much more effective? In order to thrive, REALTORS® need to find breakthrough ways to unleash the power of the localized marketing tools available to them, beyond using the internet.

How do you know if your real estate advertising is working?

Many “offline” marketing tools like newspaper ads, magazine ads, real estate TV shows and even yard signs are used by many REALTORS®. Unfortunately most REALTORS® have no method for measuring the effectiveness of these tools. Tracking the response rates of off-line media has always been more of an art than a science.  Both “impressions” in the off-line world and “hits” in the on-line world suffer from the same problem of anonymity.  An agent may know the circulation of a real estate magazine or the click through rates of a banner ad, but they have no idea who has read their ad and may be interested in the property.

Which real estate marketing programs are working hardest for you?

Agents also have choices of different publications.  Knowing stated circulation and number of distribution locations is not necessarily an accurate measure for tracking response.  Often racks don’t get refilled or they are in mass market locations that are not very targeted.  A method to track actual responses (with name & phone number) from offline marketing channels can help real estate professionals execute more effective marketing campaigns to build their brand, invest marketing wisely, as well as sell more real estate.

Without any market intelligence about which tools are working hardest, many agents continue to use ALL of the marketing tools they have always used, employing expensive marketing budgets to sell a listing. If a real estate professional knew which advertising tools were working hardest she could potentially eliminate some of her marketing programs and still generate significant interest in their listing.

New Method for tracking the effectiveness of real estate advertising

Thanks to a new concept called Mobile Search, REALTORS® now have a much better method for measuring the effectiveness of each of their advertising programs.

By employing Mobile Search, an agent can track the leads being generated by each of the marketing tools they use. They can see that they received 5 calls from the yard sign, 2 calls from the real estate magazine ad and no calls from the newspaper, for example. If they see a consistent pattern for where their leads are coming from, they can eliminate one type of marketing tool and reallocate the funds to another marketing tool.  In fact, an agent can track up to 11 different media sources to measure which tools are the most effective for promoting a property.

What is Mobile Search for real estate professionals?

Mobile Search is based on a technology which allows a consumer to do an IDX search using audio commands instead of a website.  It allows a consumer to search the entire MLS property database from any cell phone. All they need to know is the street number or MLS number of a property.

VoicePad® MobileIDXTM Audio Search, for example, takes active, updated listing information available now to consumers at real estate websites and converts the information to professional-grade speech and allows property searching from virtually any telephone.  Consumers can simply call a phone number and gain access to listing information for one or more properties at a time. Through a set of voice prompts and touch-tone entries, they can perform a search by street number or MLS number and gain instant access to basic listing information. They can also request more detailed information via email or text message.

While the consumer is listening to property information on their phone in either English or Spanish, the system is contacting the listing agent (via text and email), providing them with the contact information of the inquiring party and letting them know that the consumer is on the line and is interested in learning more about the property. The real estate professional can then call the potential client immediately, answer questions and schedule a showing appointment. In addition the real estate agent will receive an email with the interested party’s contact information for follow-up at a later date.

Mobile Search for the Real Estate Industry – Capture leads from mobile real estate consumers

WAV Group has recently released a White Paper called Mobile Search for the Real Estate Industry – Property Buyers go Mobile which discusses this new concept called Mobile Search which greatly enhances a REALTOR®’s ability to grow their business using traditional, “offline” marketing vehicles.  Mobile Search provides real estate professionals with an affordable method for dramatically improving lead capture and conversion rates while significantly improving the return on investment of proven advertising vehicles like print ads, yard signs and real estate television shows.