Online Real Estate Technology

Mobile Marketers Most Interested in Apps, Barcodes

Mobile apps (43%) and mobile barcodes (41%) rank highest as mobile marketing strategies companies would be interested in deploying in the next 12 months, according to [pdf] a December 2011 survey from AT&T. Data from the survey indicates that banner ads (40%) follow closely as a potential strategy, with mobile web (35%) and SMS messages (34%) not far behind and digital signage (17%) appearing the least desired.

According to a November 2011 study from the e-tailing group, sponsored by Bronto, SMS marketing tactics are far less likely to be used by marketers than other mobile capabilities such as mobile commerce sites and mobile applications. Just 14% of marketers currently collect SMS opt-in from customers in all channels, while only 7% text to send out marketing messages, and 6% text to send out transactional support messages such as confirmations and order status. Between one-quarter and one-third of respondents plan to employ these capabilities in the next 12 months.

By contrast, 29% of respondents said they currently use a mobile commerce site, with a further 42% planning to employ one in the next year. 19% reported currently employing a mobile application, with 27% more planning use in the next year.

Mobile Programs To Increase

88% of respondents to the AT&T survey expect their mobile marketing program to increase in the next 12 months, while 52% reporting use of mobile marketing as part of their overall marketing strategy. Of those who do not currently have a mobile marketing strategy, more than half plan to implement one in 2012. Meanwhile, of those who do use a strategy, 51% say they are still trialing mobile marketing, while 46% say it is an integral aspect of select marketing initiatives.

Consumer Demand Will Determine Barcode Adoption

87% of marketers say that consumer demand is an important or very important criterion for them to increase their use of mobile barcodes, followed closely by the proportion who cite cost structure (84%) and security (83%). Perhaps marketers should look to mothers first for demand: according to a November 2011 joint study between BabyCenter and comScore, just 4% of mothers say they would not use a QR code, compared to 19% of the general population.

Overall, two-thirds of marketers responding to the AT&T survey agree that mobile barcodes will drive innovation in mobile marketing in the next year. 44% of respondents believe barcodes can help brands engage with customers, while one-third believe they can increase awareness of products and services.

Brands that include photos and calls to action see higher engagement rates with those posts

Companies on Facebook and other social sites are always trying to determine what to post to get fans engaged. While each brand is different, and its fans will respond to different things, there are some common threads that companies can keep in mind when planning social media posts and status updates.

Digital marketing agency Web Liquid analyzed 16 brands and more than 1,500 brand posts from March to May 2011 to see which Facebook posts saw the most engagement, such as comments and “likes.” Web Liquid found that Facebook posts with photos saw a 0.37% engagement rate, higher than posts with videos (0.31%), text only (0.27%) or links (0.15%).

Momentus Media, which provides marketing software for use within Facebook, came up with similar findings, even when analyzing the top 20,000 Facebook pages and between 10,000 and 250,000 posts overall. Facebook posts with photos saw a 0.21% engagement rate, while videos saw 0.11% engagement rate and links saw 0.07% engagement.

Within the text of a post, companies can encourage action by asking fans to “like” or comment on the post. Momentus Media found that Facebook status updates that contained the word “like” saw a 0.38% engagement rate and those that said “comment” saw a 0.14% engagement rate. Text updates without “like” or “comment” saw 0.11% engagement.

While these statistics are interesting, brands should determine which tactics work best for their Facebook page and their fans. Additionally, the upcoming changes to Facebook’s Timeline feature and brand pages will change the way consumers interact on the social network.

Facebook’s new Timeline relies heavily on photos, so it seems that posts with photos and videos will continue to perform well for brands. And as Facebook introduces more verbs beyond “like,” companies could develop interesting ways to increase engagement on their pages. By testing different types of posts and continuing to learn what spurs a reaction, marketers can keep up with what content fans prefer on their brand Facebook pages and keep engagement up.

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Swatting down recent rumors that it’s launching an e-mail killer, Facebook today unveiled a new messaging system that will envelope e-mail, instant messages, Facebook messages and SMS.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg launched what he calls a "modern messaging system" to handle the convergence of different kinds of messages and bring them together under one social umbrella. The system, which has been in the works for about 15 months, is designed to save all messages for five years, meaning users will have a history of their communications.

Although people will now be able to have a facebook.com e-mail address, Andrew Bosworth, a software engineer at Facebook, noted that the new system will work with other e-mail systems, such as Gmail and Yahoo mail.

"People should share however they want to share," said Bosworth. "If you want to send me an e-mail and I want to get it in a text message, that should work."

At this point, the messaging system — code-named Titan — will not include voice chat. Zuckerberg said that should be coming down the road, but offered no timeline.

More than four billion messages are sent every day on Facebook, with the vast majority of the messages between two people, according to Zuckerberg. And about 350 million people use Facebook to message their friends and family members.

He said he started thinking about those numbers after talking with a group of high school students who told him that they rarely use e-mail. It’s too slow, they told him. "I was kind of boggled by this," Zuckerberg said. "I remember having a similar conversation with my parents about why e-mail was good and regular mail was slow…. At Facebook, we’re all so used to using e-mail. It’s interesting to see that all kinds of folks don’t see it that way."

So Facebook decided to create a new messaging system that would include e-mail, expand on the concept and tie in other means of communication as well. "It’s not e-mail," said Zuckerberg. "It handles email, in addition to Facebook messages, and IM and SMS. People are going to be able to have facebook.com email addresses but this won’t be the primary way people use this system."

For the last three or four days, the Internet has been abuzz with speculation that Facebook was getting ready to launch an e-mail killer. Zuckerberg kicked off today’s news event by saying that’s not the case.

"There was a lot of press leading up to this saying this is an e-mail killer," he added. "This is not an e-mail killer. It’s a messaging system that has e-mail as one part of it. I don’t expect people to wake up tomorrow and say, ‘I’m going to shut down my Yahoo account or my Gmail account.’ We expect that more people will IM and more people will message just because it’s simpler and easier and it’s more fun and valuable to use."

The next social media training day, this time for real estate agents will take place in The Great Northern Room, Ellerslie Event Centre, Ellerslie Racecourse Auckland New Zealand on Wednesday the 6th of October.

The morning session is now fully booked, so the only session now available is the afternoon session commencing at 1:30pm.

You can download the flyer with all the information on the sessions Social Media Training Day New Zealand Registration Form or you can book by faxing the completed registration form to 00617 5534 1046, you can also email your registration form to amazing@iangrace.com.au.

The afternoon session is filling very fast as room is limited, so the earlier you register, the more likely you’ll reserve yourself a place.

Your speakers for the day will include Ian Grace and Mike Andrew

I’ll look forward to working with you on the day.  

I first wrote about Augmented Reality applications back in October after I had returned from the Inman Technology conference in San Francisco, if you’d like to read that article, here’s the link to refresh your memory Augmented Reality What is it? 

I’ve been patiently waiting for the technology to start to be implemented here in Australia and now its finally arriving with news the Commonwealth Bank have announced the release of their new Augmented Reality iPhone application.

Here’s the media release from the bank:

“Building on Commonwealth Bank’s vision of banking in 2013, the Group is announcing its next digital innovation with the release of its iPhone augmented reality application for anyone buying or selling a home, or simply looking to keep on top of the property market.

The new iPhone application will take property search to a new level, revolutionising the way home buyers search for a home allowing them to make smarter property decisions with virtual reality insight in to any Australian home anywhere, anytime. 

The technology is supported by two industry leaders realestate.com.au, the nation’s number one property portal and rpdata.com, Australia’s leading property information and analytics company.

The core functionality of the application utilises ‘augmented reality’ where rich data including past sales history (on more than 95 per cent of properties in Australia), current property listings and recent sales, is mapped on to a real world view through the iPhone’s camera.

Users can also switch to a list or bird’s eye view to pull in insights on properties matching their search criteria. Home hunters can then track their ‘dream house’ in their favourites, send to a friend and make informed decisions with access to detailed suburb profiles revealing demographics, median price, property hotspots and capital growth trends.

According to Mark Murray, General Manager Consumer Marketing, “We are leveraging new technology and continually innovating to deliver convenient, relevant and real-time services to make buying a home easier.

“As Australia’s biggest home lender we have teamed up with rpdata.com and realestate.com.au, to help Australians make an informed decision when it comes to making their biggest financial commitment.

“The new iPhone application will be an industry first in Australia.  Home buyers and sellers can easily access a host of customised information, tools and insights on every home in Australia – for free.

“The application is a significant milestone in our 2013 vision of banking, bringing virtual reality property search to customers right here, right now,” added Mr Murray.

A video demo of the iPhone augmented reality application will be available next week with the application available for download from the Apple App Store, coming soon.”

If you can’t wait to see how the application will work, you can take a look at the video here.

As I mentioned in the opening paragraph I can’t wait to be able to download this application and start playing with it, this hopefully will be the start of more Augmented Reality applications like this, and I’d also like to see the use of GEO Fencing technology and location based applications being employed by business here as well, the use of this technology has many benefits to the end consumer.

Whilst this application is aimed at the real estate buyer, this opens up the potential of this technology to all types of businesses, imagine the impact this type of technology has for restaurants and tourism.

Being able to access prices, menus, consumer reviews and book a table or a room directly from your phone opens up a new world of opportunities for business in this country.   

Well done Commonwealth Bank and I hope this is the start of more of these applications being widely adopted by both business and consumers.

I recently received an email from the author of this post Chris Thorman about the potential that Geofencing technology has for the marketing of real estate in the future, and after reading his article I totally agree with him. This technology has huge potential in this country as we are mostly car bound and mobile, so you can imagine the impact of technology that reaches out to prospective buyers and virtually taps them on the shoulder. I hope you enjoy the article and if you’d like to read more on this you can visit Chris’s blog here

It’s Saturday morning. Joel and Rebecca are walking their dog through a neighborhood in Austin, TX. As they walk, they chat about the movie they saw last night, what they’re going to make for dinner, and the big trip they have planned for next weekend. You wouldn’t know it by listening to their conversation, but the couple is also house hunting.
They cross Brodie Lane when Joel’s cell phone buzzes in his pocket. It’s a text message that reads:

Joel says to Rebecca, “We’ve got a match from our real estate company. It’s only four blocks away. Let’s go see what the house looks like.”

Within minutes, the couple is outside the 714 Longview Rd. home. It happens to be exactly the type of home they wanted, in the exact neighborhood they wanted to live in. They call their real estate agent to set up a viewing.

How did this happen? How was the couple instantly notified of the opportunity, perfectly merging buyer requirements, location and timing? The answer involves a combination of “geo-fencing,” mobile phones and GPS technology.

If you’re a tech savvy real estate agent or property manager, this powerful combination of technology represents a great opportunity to gain new clientele. Many real estate buyers do not have the time to review new listings online, travel to viewings or patrol their desired neighborhoods for opportunities. But the vast majority of real estate buyers do have mobile phones they carry with them nearly all the time.

This technology would help real estate and property management companies capitalize on business that may otherwise slip through the cracks. Software Advice would like to see this type of mobile marketing become a permanent feature in today’s property management software systems to help advertise real estate and rental properties.

Let’s see how that could be done.

Geo-Fencing + Mobile Phones = Powerful Real Estate Marketing
What if a buyer looking for a place to live didn’t have to do anything beyond choosing what features they wanted in a home? What if a buyer was automatically alerted to nearby properties that matched their needs?

This is what we’re talking about with the next generation of mobile real estate marketing.

The use of “geo-fences” surrounding properties really drives the location-based marketing engine. A geo-fence is a virtual boundary surrounding a geographic region. When a person with a mobile phone crosses a geo-fence boundary, a notification is automatically issued to that mobile phone. Traditionally, geo-fencing has been used to send alerts when users exit a certain area, instead of entering one.

Geo-fencing has been used in conjunction with GPS technology for a while now and for a variety of uses:

• Tracking senior citizens with Alzheimer’s;
• Ensuring mobile employees don’t travel outside of certain areas; and,
• Monitoring hazardous cargo, to name a few examples.

We’re confident that someday, we’ll be able to add “Market real estate” to that list. Here’s how we see this new form of mobile marketing working in the real estate industry:

Create geo-fences. Before real estate and property management companies set up their online portals, they’ll need to create geo-fences around all of their properties. This will ensure that if a qualified user crosses the geo-fence with their mobile phone, that user will be notified about that property.

We’d like to see geo-fencing modules built into today’s property management software, allowing companies to quickly create geo-fences around their properties by drawing them on a digital map.

Collect buyer needs online. Real estate and property management companies can create online portals on their web sites, where prospective tenants and buyers set up notifications tailored to what they want in a property.

For example, a user could create an alert based on square footage, number of bedrooms, pet friendliness, special amenities, and zip code, to name just a few of the myriad of options available. Once they’ve entered their cell phone number and submitted those housing preferences, all they have to do is carry their phone with them to receive notifications.

We’d also like to see today’s property management software vendors integrate these online portals into their systems. Many property management software vendors offer web site design and hosting packages to their customers. A geo-fencing module could be another module that’s presented as an option to a management company when they purchase the software.

Let the notifications begin. The notifications are where this entire concept of location-based mobile marketing comes together. The geo-fences have been set up. Users have entered their housing preferences online to receive notifications. All that is left is for the users to go about their normal lives, with their GPS-enabled mobile phones, of course.

When they get close to a property that matches their wants, they’ll be automatically notified on their mobile phone. Property management software can then integrate all of these contact points with customers into their CRM system, to track the effectiveness of the messages and review properties with clients.

House hunting couldn’t get much easier than that, could it?

The Benefits
Hopefully by now, the benefits of this unique marketing method are clear.

First, since the user opts in to receive these marketing notifications, there is no feeling of intrusiveness or annoyance as with unsolicited messages. This type of marketing is perceived as a service, not an intrusion.

Second, from a marketing standpoint, notifying the right person, at the right place, at the right time about your product is powerful.

It’s the holy grail of marketing:

• You have a desirable product;
• You have identified the person that wants your product; and,
• You can automatically tell that person that your product is nearby.

Finally, this marketing method is scalable. A real estate or property management company could theoretically have dozens (or more) of users taking advantage of this service at any given time. Beyond taking calls to schedule viewings, it wouldn’t require any extra labor on the part of the management company.

Conclusion
We don’t expect this spin on mobile marketing to be installed in every real estate and property management office tomorrow. But whether through geo-fence triggers or other GPS-centric methods, the real estate industry will undoubtedly continue to make a huge effort over the next few years to connect with buyers and renters through their mobile phones.

The technology is too compelling to ignore.

Real Time search on Google

Ok, if you been putting off starting a blog or using social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter, it’s time now to think again and very seriously. With the launch yesterday of Google real time search, it opens up a world of opportunity for bloggers and social media users to get their efforts at the top of the search rankings, Google now pulls information as it happens from sources such as friendfeed, Twitter and Facebook as well as blog posts and news feeds.

This is essentially Googles answer to Twitters and Facebooks search engines which provide up to the minute updates on trending topics, and it was a natural extension for it to be applied to search engines, after all they are trying to give you the best response to your search query.

Real time search will enable information to be delivered as it happens, by clicking on “Latest results” or selecting “Latest” from the search options menu to view a full page of live tweets, blogs, news and other web content scrolling right on Google.

You can also filter your results to see only “Updates” from micro-blogs like Twitter, FriendFeed, Jaiku and others.

Latest results and the new search options are also designed for iPhone and Android devices when you need them on the go, be it a quick glance at changing information like ski conditions or opening night chatter about a new movie — right when you’re in line to buy tickets.

So there you have it, create your blog and start writing, and by creating good quality content on your blog or social media network, you might just end up in the number one spot on Google.

It’s the freshness factor that is also important when it comes to getting your information ranked high on Google and now with real time search, you can get fresh up to date information on trending or newsworthy stories as they happen.

If you’d  like to start a blog and don’t know where to start, visit Blogging for Business Packages and get started today.

Last week during a webinar that I participated in with Michael Sheargold and the Real Estate Results Network, I suggested that every real estate office should create a digital media strategy that covers at least the next 12 months. Technology is changing so rapidly for real estate agents and without a plan or strategy in place you’ll find it very hard to keep up. I’ve had some agents talk to me about what should be in this digital strategy, so to help you lets go through the basics of what you should include in your document.

1. Web site SEO – First and foremost in my mind is having your web site search engine friendly. Local search queries continue to increase as does 3+ word keyword searches.

Yellow Pages book usage is decreasing and Internet searches increasing, so that makes it vital that your site appears on the first page of Google. You need to also consider how your site performs, Google are planning to use site speed as a ranking factor and therefore how quickly your site loads will be a consideration. Image heavy sites without alt tags and optimising your pages for relevant keywords needs to be considered.

During the webinar, one industry specialist wrote a comment ” Do you really think that principals or agents actually write their own copy?”  No I don’t, but they need to make sure that what is written on their behalf is search engine optimised and written for the web, not copied from a newspaper. Make sure that you get access to the coding on your site as well, you pay for it, you own it, not like I have encountered recently with one web company attached to the number one real estate portal, they have a very arrogant attitude to you the customer, so if in doubt walk away, there are plenty of web design companies that will help you.

Search Engine Marketing should not replace your web site SEO, use SEM wisely and don’t double up, if you’re on the first page or rank highly for a search term, don’t waste money on Adwords,use them in areas that you don’t rank, remember, Google ranks pages not web sites so you can effectively optimise each page on your web site for keywords.

2.Social Media – Include this into your 12 month plan, small business is lagging behind their big brothers in using and integrating social media into their business. Your customers have embraced social networking and it is becoming the trusted adviser, so you can’t afford to neglect it any longer.

One of the reasons slowing the integration is a lack of knowledge about social media by small business owners, in my mind you are better to try and work with social media than to ignore it, so jump in and have a go. Plan it slowly and use the major sites such as Facebook and Twitter to start with, you can use this as your guide, POST. This stands for:

• People – What is your target market?

• Objective – What do you want to achieve from using social media?

• Strategy – How will you go about communicating with your customers? Status Updates, Coupons, Discounts etc

• Technology - What are the main sites you’ll use to communicate your message? Facebook/Twitter

That at least will help you plan your strategy, also remember, Podcasting, Vlogging and YouTube are powerful tools in getting your message across, plus Google loves video, so use this to your advantage

3. Blogs – Create a blog and add it to your web presence, it allows you to add the personal touch to your on line marketing. ComScore’s research indicates that blogs reach over 48% of the online population in the Asia Pacific region, social media 56.1%.

Blogs are a great way to communicate with your customers and are a great customer service tool, remember though you need to make sure that your content is fresh and relevant to the target market you are aiming at. Google loves blogs because of the constantly updated information they provide and will index them very quickly as well as give them a high ranking, sometimes even over a higher authority site. WordPress provides a great platform for you to use and I’d recommend the self hosted option as you can use your own domain name and you have much more flexibility.

4. Internet Marketing – Make sure that you have your office details listed with Google business, use different keywords or categories so that you rank on different search pages in your area. Be very selfish with where your links go, you might think its great that your business comes up number one under a realestate.com.au listing in your area, but think where the customer goes when they click on the link, to you? no they go to the portal so make sure your web site ranks on that first page.

Audit your listing on the portals and start to implement good keywords in your copy, remember you’re writing for the web not a newspaper, so think about how people search and what keywords they use. Get those from your own office, you have a wealth of information at your disposal, so ask your staff what words or phrases consumers use when  they contact your office, find the most frequently used and start to weave those into your articles or listing copy.

Don’t leave out of your listing valuable information, Google uses a completeness filter on Google real estate, so the more information in your listing the higher the rank, makes sense really doesn’t it.  

5. Technology – Make sure you stay informed on technology that impacts on how your customers find you, Augmented Reality and QR codes are examples, be aware of the impact they are having and factor these into your strategy.

I hope that helps you in planning for the next 12 months, having this in place is a good start in improving the way you market and communicate with the online consumer, it also improves your businesses “Future Fitness”  for digital marketing.

When I was at the Inman technology conference in August, the subject of Augmented Reality was being bandied around during the technology sessions and I thought it time to have a look at how it will impact not only the working real estate agent but also the consumer.

Firstly, what is Augmented Reality?  The concept has been around since the early 90′s, but it’s really only been in the last 12 months that the technical world has gone ga ga over it and if not for the onslaught of Twitter, you’d probably have heard a lot more about it by now.  So here is the technical explanation for what it is:

Augmented reality (AR) is a term for a live direct or indirect view of a physical real-world environment whose elements are merged with (or augmented by) virtual computer-generated imagery – creating a mixed reality. The augmentation is conventionally in real-time and in semantic context with environmental elements, like for example sports scores on TV during a match. With the help of advanced AR technology (e.g. adding computer vision and object recognition) the information about the surrounding real world of the user becomes interactive and digitally usable. Artificial information about the environment and the objects in it can be stored and retrieved as an information layer on top of the real world view.

Ok, there it is, simple really, but what does it do and how can you use it in your real estate business. The easiest way to explain how the technology will work is this, Imagine a consumer being able to stop in front of a house for sale and simply point their smart phone at the house and within seconds being able to view as well as save all the information about the listing. From there the consumer can look at the pictures, watch a video, email the information and even contact the agent direct.

To watch the technology in action here’s a video from Layer, an Android-based application that uses your handset’s GPS location, digital compass and accelerometer to call up geotagged information and superimpose it on the world around you.

The iPhone application for this technology is now available for download from the Itunes store, so  you can imagine the potential this has for the future, and it’s not just real estate that will benefit.

Any business can and will benefit from this technology, lets imagine you’re walking down a street looking for a good place to eat, you hold up your mobile phone so the screen shows what’s in front of you. What you see are things you couldn’t see before, brightly coloured makers that show restaurants and bars, turn the corner and you’ll see the new view on your screen, click on any of the markers and you’ll see customer reviews, menu and price information.

This is just a small part of what this technology can do, so I hope I’ve opened the door just a little for you.

There’s one lesson in this for the real estate industry, don’t get left behind, make sure you keep up with developments and new technology such as this as it emerges. Your very future may well depend on it.

I’d suggest also reading the post on using QR codes for real estate