WEBSITES
TREND OR FAD? INTELLIGENT MOBILE’S VIEW ON THE LATEST TECHNOLOGY TECHNOLOGY
Near Field Communication (NFC)
TREND OR FAD ? WE RECOMMEND TIPS Avoid
Fad – the technology works brilliantly on your Oyster card when travelling on the London Underground but not on property boards.
Review in 12-18 months to see what % of smart phones have NFC pre- installed. Predicted to be big for contactless payments but not clear what the benefits will be, if any, for property search.
Augmented Reality
Fad for Now – predicted to be big as another way of searching for property but only available as an App and not yet gained mass appeal.
Apps
Fad – unless you are a portal or one of the largest agents – still why would you divert traffic and visibility away from search engines?
Mobile Web
Proven – more than half of all home- movers used a mobile device when searching for property in Q1 2012. This is only going to grow.
QR Codes
Trend – been big in Japan and the US for years, growing fast in the UK (up 300% in 2011 over 2010) and predicted to continue. A great way to measure your advertising and marketing spend.
SMS
Proven – still growing as an effective marketing tool – 98% of all text messages are read, 95% within 15 minutes of being received.
Watch
Watch developments carefully– expect one of the big boys like Google to perfect a web based solution, then consider.
online as their first port of call, and 89 per cent of people used an online search facility at some point in their search. These figures probably don’t come as a
surprise but you need to consider that the way your customers search is changing. For 10 years it has been imperative to have an online presence. Now, that presence needs to cross all media – web, mobile web, social media and tablet. Customers are looking for interactive content and they’re looking for it 24/7, whilst they’re on the go. Having a Facebook page isn’t enough – it needs to be useful – it needs to have property search function or some way of interacting with
Avoid
Ignore the hype. 2nd generation mobile and tablet websites (CSS3, JQM, JAVA etc) will render the ‘better user experience for native Apps’ argument redundant.
Adopt
Invest now in mobile and tablet optimised websites for instant returns.
Our email alerts not only create viewings, they also dramatically increase applicant
registrations.’ ANDREW CLACK TECHNICWEB
Adopt
They sure are ugly but the technology works. Should at least be used in print advertising and considered for other media where proven to work.
the page (beyond clicking on a link to your website). Having a website isn’t enough – it needs to be compatible with mobile and tablet. Around 25 per cent of your current web traffic will be on either a mobile smart phone or a tablet and is growing exponentially. As you know, online no longer means just a PC.
WHO CAN HELP YOU? Adopt Supplement
existing customer communication with respectful text marketing – if done properly it’s more effective than email.
Of course this all comes at a cost. While the bottom end of websites, using a basic template and delivering limited functionality, can cost as little as £950 (Technicweb) or £1,495 (Property Lab), a bespoke site is likely to cost more than £10,000 and could be many times more than that. There are also on-going costs; for adding content, hosting and
30 JULY 2012 PROPERTYdrum
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