Tipping point (sociology), a term in sociology referring to the moment when something previously unique becomes common. Taken from Wikipedia.

We have been attempting to market (keyword "attempting") our multi-media text services to realtors for  several months and I am absolutely dumbfounded with the response we are recieving from real estate brokers, agents and independents.

I have been in marketing for over 20 years. Worked in Corporate America for companies including, Apple, IBM, Intel, Fidelity Investments, DST Systems and several others. I also was the Director of Sales and Marketing for a national lifestyle publication and under my direction their annual revenue went from $750k to $1.6M in 3 years.  Lastly I developed and launched a new business unit for the publication that generates over $45k per month.

I share all this not to gloat, show off  or inflate my ego with self importance, but in hopes of your consideration as a peer in the business world.

There is no question that anyone with a real estate licence is a business owner whether they work independently or are part of an established firm. Marketing is a very important part of their business. They are tied in economically with interest rates, foreclosures, presidential campaigns and I am sure so much more. We all fight for the attention of potential buyers, cold call and constantly prospect.

I have spent months pouring through hundreds of real esate forums, blogs, and social networks. The forums that seem to have the most activity are:

• SEO
• Google-Yahoo-Search Engines
  
• Linking
• Getting Attention to Blogs
• Marketing Ideas
• Website design and Dev
• Social Networking

All are great areas to pay attention to, but the single most important piece of the puzzle that I think is being overlooked is MOBILE.

Here are some of the leading objections I hear from real estate agents, brokers and industry pros:

• I use my phone for phone calls not to text chat
  
• I only use text messaging to communicate with friends and family
• I have a client that uses it all the time and I hate it.
• I do not have text messaging on my phone and never plan to add it.
• NOT INTERESTED don't call me again.
• My clients would never use it so why should I?

You get the idea.

Here are a couple of statistics you may find interesting.

• The average age of someone who searches for property on the internet - 38
• The Median Age of a text messager - 38
• 86% of of users who have a cell phone have used text messaging

A quote about the text messaging industry:

"These numbers are not unlike what we saw in e-mail response during the mid-1990's as the Web emerged an advertising medium," said Will Hodgman, CEO, M:Metrics, who also founded AdRelevance, the global standard for advertising measurement on the Internet. "The growing adoption of major brands using SMS and the substantial consumer response rates indicate a couple of important trends: mobile as a commercial medium is on steroids; and multimedia convergence is real."

Marketing Test with 1,000 FSBOs. Guess what we found.

First we found a busy neighborhood with a few homes for sale and offered to pay for a sign and give them our premium package free...Great advertising. Within 3 days we had 4 clients from the same neighborhood and 2 from another all together.

We then ran a telesales test program and 6 out of every 10 people we contacted about the service was very interested and ultimately our average close rate was a bit over 30%. Not bad...The packages we offered them started at $99 and topped out at $295 which included a free sign and or rider. The up-front price point was much higher than our realtor product but we almost never had a price objection.

Here is a sample of the comments we recieved after we sent a demo listing to their phone.

• Are you kidding me? Anyone with a cell phone can send a text message and you guys send them photos and description....wow
• I could use this for the apartment that I have for rent.
• I could send this to the guy who keeps emailing for photos?
  
• Hell of a lot easier than playing phone tag.
• I wonder if the real estate agent I am thinking about listing with knows about this.

Hmm...a bit different than we expected. We have even had a request from HGTV for more information.

Based on the positive reception from the FSBO market we are looking at refocusing our marketing strategies.

This entire post is not to promote our services. It is my sincere hopes that the real esate professionals take a long hard look at the changing market place and step out of the box.

There are several organizations out there that provide similar service offerings and in my opinion, it is only a matter of time before these kinds of services become conerstone tools to help you grow your business and claim your fair share of the marketplace.

 

Unlocking Google Base’s Potential for Realtors.

I have spent many hours searching for real estate forums, blogs and link sites as we provide lead generating text and mult-media messaging for real estate agents and one of the most consistent areas of discussion are search engine ranking and optimization. As part of your web strategy these areas are important but will fall short in driving huge amounts of qualified traffic to your site in a timely manner and we all know that time is money. Here are some technologies we use to put our listings at the top of the list without paying a dime for Adwords or Paid Placement

Google Base:

Google Base has tremendous benefits for both large and small firms. If you perform a search for a house for sale the first information you see is the sponsored result..ie paid placement and then the Google Base Search. Because Google is a search engine their results are always first. Here is where the magic comes in. If you add location information Google will perform a search and present you with listing information, web site source (your website), property locations via Google Maps and other advanced search options. Free, targeted exposure.

Pros: Free..sort of..time is a price we all pay.

• Free sign up – You also have to sign up for a free Google Account.

• Google does not charge to upload property listings to their database.

• Your properties will usually show up in about 24 Hours.

• Instant qualified traffic to your listings.

• Increases your search engine ranking.

• You can add properties one at a time or in bulk.

• Your properties will also show up in localized searches.

Cons:

• A bit of a learning curve.

• Time consuming to add listings one at a time.

• Yet another site that requires that you maintain the content.

• Bulk listings can be a challenge to set up unless you have a developer in your pocket.

• XML Format – Good and Bad as Googles' engine can be very finicky.

For all of our clients we have created feeds that post directly to the Google Base application. The property details are pulled directly from a MySql database, converted to XML and tada!! They go live instantly. As I said the process can be a challenge as Google is very picky on the XML format used and if it does not like something in your listing the update will fail. Yet another reason a developer comes in handy. After all you are Realtors not computer nerds.

Shane Corliss,

Jera Media-4MLS Mobile

http://mls.jeramedia.com

What we do:

 

In a phrase..Set you apart from your competition. We work with some of the highest earning agents and brokers in the country to provide instant information and pictures of their listings direct to a potential buyer's mobile phone.

Benefits:

• Provide immediate access to property information 24/7
• Information is received via a buyers mobile phone (no pen/pad necessary)
• Nothing to install - works with any mobile phone that can recieve text and picture messages
• Receive precise feedback, via detailed reports, about interest on your home listing
• Saves time and money on printed flyers for flyer boxes
• Sets you apart from agents/sellers who are not offering this service

How it works?

A user simply sends a text message with keyword 4MLS and your property number and they will receive information about the property on their mobile phone with detailed specs, pricing, and your contact information.

• Step 1. Your potential buyer sends the TEXT MESSAGE 4MLS and the Property Number to 41411
  

• Step 2. 4MLS sends a reply with property information and a web link to view more details and photos with web (WAP) enabled phones.
• Step 3. 4MLS sends available photos and your contact information directly to your buyer's mobile phone.

How to get started?

What we need from you is property information, photos and agent/agency contact information and we take care of all the rest. We literally can publish all of your properties and have them available for potential buyers in as few as 5 working days. To maintain properties you can go to our user friendly website and update your listings instantly.