Showing posts with label blog meme. Show all posts
Showing posts with label blog meme. Show all posts

Thursday, May 14, 2009

REALTOR Marketing With Mobile Messaging

I attended an online seminar today the topic of mobile messaging. My purpose for attending was to look for ways to promote our expired listing lead service. The data presented was pretty compelling; especially if you have a list of prospects that you are challenged to stay in contact with. The technology has moved to the point that you can now offer your prospects a way to stay continually in touch with you and the services that you provide. The technology is not completely new. There have been online companies that provide listing data in response to a specific mobile text numbers that you can post on your listing. Unfortunately, these systems usually provide a one-off communication with your prospect, and some rudimentary contact information from which to follow up.

This approach which is well known to most real estate agents is completely different than what was presented. The example that was provided was a communication that was sent out from during a concert to those who had registered to receive mobile updates. The communication included a coupon code and an invitation to forward that coupon on to each of the recipient’s friends which essentially made the message viral. Now I know that you are not putting on large rock concerts, and probably don’t have that big of a budget; also, real estate is a completely different animal. However, the strategy remains the same.

As a marketer, here is how I would recommend real estate agents use this technology:

1) Getting leads: contract with a SMS text service provider so that you can put different text codes on different listing signs and advertisements that you place. There are a number that serve the real estate industry, but make sure that they have an autoresponder system so that after the first text is sent, the textee is sent a follow up requesting permission to provide additional updates. You want your list of leads to opt in to the communication.

2) Sending a list of listings may be trite, let’s face it, we all do it as a standard of practice with little differentiation. Instead, send out data that is both useful to your prospective customer and unique to you. If you tie the text numbers to a specific advertisement, you can at least assume some things about the individual who requested the data. From there, you can create follow-on texts that may suite the prospect’s interest. These may include new listings that are similar to what originally prompted the text. For differentiation and the viral spin, you may want to send local updated on local events. You may also go as far as approaching some of the advertisers in the local clipper magazines and mailers and request permission to forward their offer to your target list. Let’s face it, when was the last time you received a free pizza or 20% off dinner at your local Chinese restaurant from your Realtor?

Friday, July 27, 2007

A Little Friday Afternoon Fun

It’s Friday and I have reading about viral promotion all week. I’m a little burned out and it is time for a distraction. Therefore, it is time for a Friday afternoon meme with a twist; it’s all about your peers and online activity. Instead of tagging bloggers, the tags are part of the meme. The rules are simply that if you get tagged by the meme, complete the questions with one word answers on your own blog. For an added level of interest, hyperlink each of your answers.

The questions are:

What blog do you read most? Bloodhound

What’s your best source of online news?
Digg

Which blogger do you ping most often?
Tomato

Which blogger would you like to be?
Seth

Which blog do you look to for inspiration?
RSS

What’s your favorite online network?
ActiveRain

What’s your favorite widget?
Mybloglog

What’s your middle name?
Alan

Who do you “see” online most often?
Brian Brady

Who do your friends talk about?
Zillow

Where do you post your tags most often?
Technorati

Your favorite blog software?
Wordpress

The blog software that you started with?
Blogger

What is your first daily read?
Mashable

What Web 2.0 tool are you least impressed with?
Twitter

When do you blog?
Day

What’s your industry?
Marketing

Last book you read:
Thunderstruck

What do you do when you are not blogging?
Sail