The right address: Mobile real estate marketing via SMS

The research of many tenants and buyers begins on the Internet, but ultimately always ends on foot directly on site. And now? Quite simply: a specified SMS code is sent and immediately comes all the important information about the real estate as SMS to the mobile phone. Didn’t you know yet? We explain how it’s done.

Living space is becoming scarcer, more expensive – more in-demand. If you cleverly design your real estate marketing strategy, you will gain important advantages over the competition. At the same time interesseted tenants and potential buyers are offered a lot of service to simplify their search for the dream home. The goal is the direct path to the new home and this requires an equally direct and reliable communication path. What would be better suited than the well-tried and popular SMS?

Inform directly on site about your real estate

Be it by chance when passing by or during the targeted search: Sooner or later someone stands in front of your real estate and want to know what’s behind the scenes. A corresponding information board usually provides only brief basic data and contact information. For many interested buyers that’s too complicated and not fast enough. Therefore, extend your signposts with a smart call-to-action message, either as a short code (numeric/ letter combination) or as a QR code for scanning.

This way, the interested person can be informed directly and fully automatically via SMS – while standing in front of the real estate. At the same time, it gives their a first impression of the building structure as well as valuable details about the equipment, room layout, prices, etc. However, you are not permanently interrupted by calls during your work and still convey reliability and competence.

The short code is simply sent to the given phone number, and interested parties will automatically receive an SMS with information about your real estate.

Fully automated SMS marketing

The principle is both simple and ingenious: Person A (in our case, the interested party) sends the SMS code, which is on the information board, to the mobile number also indicated there. Of course, this doesn’t  have to be your own number. A virtual or physical number would be optimal for this. This can, for example, be integrated into your SMS service via an inbound system and serve as sender for outgoing messages.

The message ends up at the server of your SMS service provider and is verified there. Fully automatically, the system then sends a pre-programmed SMS back to person A. This includes, for example, information about square meters, year of construction, availability and more. The process takes hardly a few seconds and then the SMS appears on the receiving device of the person A.

The key advantage: The receiving device (of person A) does not require internet access or other special requirements. Even older mobile devices can easily receive SMS. At any time. Worldwide.

Design your newspaper advertisements short and crisp – but with QR code. This can be scanned by app and sends e.g. an SMS or e-mail to the recipient, or forwards them directly to your website.

Interactive customer communication

• It becomes more complex as soon as you select email as the return channel. Then your SMS will be sent as an email, so person A has to enter their own email address. Via two-factor-authentication, an SMS gateway now automatically sends an SMS with PIN code to person A, who has to enter this code as confirmation. The gateway checks the data – again everything fully automatic – and finally sends the corresponding email to person A. This gives you more options, amongst other things attaching images, such as views of the rooms, floor plans, motifs of the courtyard or anything else that those interested in real estate might want to see.
• Via app, in which you manage and publish your real estates, a registered user can also request additional information, which then appears as a push notification directly on the display.
• It is also possible to use a QR code as the main medium. This is photographed with the mobile phone camera. As a result, person A can either go directly to your website or to your app.

In the last three variants, of course, an internet-enabled mobile phone is required. However, as you may have noticed, no person B comes into play. Everything can be fully automatically configured on request. Of course, you set the desired parameters and contents in advance, but there is no given syntax to you. At least not with professional SMS Webapps, where you can integrate your external software via API interface. This gives you numerous options to customize your application. The SMS Gateway scales with.

Use several media

Of course, you don’t have to confine yourself to a billboard standing directly in front of your object. Other very practical ways to offer SMS codes are:

• Newspaper Ads: The shorter the ad, the cheaper the ad. Use a few keywords and then your SMS code or the picture of a QR code. In this way, readers will receive additional information directly to their mobile phone in parallel to your advertisement, without having to read much or search long for you.
• Showcase: At your headquarters, public bulletin boards as well as similar advertising spaces, you can showcase your real estate. Design the SMS code as conspicuously and individually as possible for each object in order to market your real estate in a detailed and targeted manner.
• Cross-Marketing: Employee vehicles, buses and trams as well as moving boxes can all be labeled in an appealing way. Your SMS code can actually appear everywhere. However, you should pay attention to whether you generally want to inform about your offer or specifically to selected objects – and then choose a suitable product or medium to present your message.

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