mobile strategy? What is your Hannes Buhrmann, Head of Rightmove Mobile, reviews the new
and very important technology that puts your business where you need it to be – in the palm of your clients’ hands.
why is Mobile iMportant? Around 22 million people accessed the internet on their phones in September 2011 (according to the latest Comscore figures). Comscore further reported that around 2.5 million people have accessed real estate listings on their phones in the same month. In a Rightmove home-mover survey that
was conducted in September 2011, more than 45 per cent of the 13,500 respondents – that’s equivalent to a potential 9.9 million of the 22 million users – in one month, indicated that they have used their phones to look at properties for sale or to rent, and the majority indicated that they have then gone on to either phone or email the agent from the same phone. Convinced?
36 JANUARY 2012 PROPERTYdrum
how can you ensure an effective Mobile presence? Mobile opens a whole new world of opportunities for agents allowing them to reach home-hunters on the move. The capabilities of mobile technology are increasing all the time and growing ever more sophisticated, but with sophistication comes complexity. Mobile platforms, with their immense
variety in operating systems, manufacturers, handsets and form factors, can seem a daunting area to invest in. But perhaps, even more so than with print and with standard websites, the more you invest, in time and money, the greater the return. Here are the three most important things you should do:
Make your website phone friendly People don’t use their mobile devices for idle browsing, they use it to get to information as quickly as they can, with as little input as possible. Your mobile website should be functional, minimalist and finger friendly. If it isn’t, mobile users will abandon your site in droves. Your standard website will work on most
smartphones, after a fashion, but the user experience will be rather bad – slow, fiddly, small, unresponsive, especially on 3G or 2G networks. It is easy to test this for yourself. Get hold of as many iPhone and later models of Android and Blackberry phones as you can. Connect via 3G, not through your nice and fast wireless office connection, and do the following tests:
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68