Mobile Advertising: Should Real Estate Agents Use It?
More and more these days people are using mobile phones to search. They jump on the web to check out reviews, compare prices and even make purchases. Research supports this trend:
- 60% percent. That’s the percentage of customers who will review a product via their mobile before purchase (Digby Mobile Commerce and Engagement Stats)
- 51%. The percentage of smart phone users who will buy if you have a mobile site. (ConsumerSearch Offers On-the-Go Shopping Advice with Free Product Review App)
- 77%. Percentage of people who access search and social sites via mobile phones. (Mobile Movement)
For certain small businesses this could be a gold mine of new leads and traffic to your brick-and-mortar store.
But should real estate agents jump on the bandwagon? Great question. Let’s take a look.
1. Can You Determine Customer Location?
What makes mobile advertising so powerful is that the ad networks work with geo-targeting, allowing advertisers to show ads in well-defined areas. For companies that service a large area–like a county or two or a major metropolitan area–this is likely to increase your conversion rate. You are likely to get in front of many customers.
2. Can You Create Call to Actions?
Mobile advertising isn’t just meant to tip people to the existence of your real estate business. It’s also meant to get people to take action when they see your ad. For example, a good call to action encourages a home buyer or seller to:
- Call you directly.
- Send an email.
- Visit your website.
- Sign up for a text alerts or an email newsletter.
- Submit contact information.
- Secure an appointment.
- Follow you on social media.
- Register for an event.
These actions are easy to measure and allow you a method of tracking your mobile marketing campaign success.
3. Do You Have a Mobile Site?
Your current website will not render nicely through a mobile phone. You’ll need to build a mobile website to accomodate your prospects who use their phone. If you use WordPress for your website, then the WP Touch plugin will do a nice job of recognizing when someone is accessing your site via their phone and rendering a mobile version.
Otherwise you can invest in a m.yourdomain.com (mobile site). Wonder if your site is mobile ready? Check out Google’s project.
Don’t forget to make contact information easily accessible.
4. Start with Google AdWords
If you want a little jolt to get your campaign going, consider spending some money with Google AdWords. These ads are easy to create since they are nothing but text. No images or banner creation.
The cool thing about AdWords is that you an build a mobile specific campaign (with separate bids) separate from your website-specific campaign. Set maximum budget levels so you don’t exceed your pocket book.
5. Consider Other Mobile Ad Networks
If you roll with a different ad network, you will need to provide a banner. These networks roll out ads across mobile websites and apps. Banners can be created in any design software or with Google’s ad display builder. Last May Trulia launched mobile advertising for real estate agents.
Check out the Guide to Mobile Advertising Networks for a great review of the different networks out there.
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