This past Thursday we had the opportunity to be involved in the Fall Conference hosted by the Indiana Association of Realtors. It was a great opportunity to see some of our current clients, like Larry Mitchell (video testimonial), and connect with new ones. Read More…
As part of our Real Estate Mobile Marketing package we have an automated reporting service that delivers a weekly activity report to all of our clients. This is a detailed report of all account activity in the last week. It includes phone numbers, email address (if applicable), property information, and date/time of the inquiry.
How long have you been a realtor? What made you get into real estate?
This is our 9th year in real estate. We had positions with major corporations, relocated and moved a number of times, and sold a number of homes in Cleveland, Columbus, and Chicago (if the city didnt start with a C we didnt move there weve lived in Chagrin Falls/Bainbridge for 21 years). We were so involved in real estate with all our moves, that becoming Realtors seemed like a natural transition.
Whats your favorite area to show homes and why?
Chagrin Falls, Ohio is such a unique little town. Most of the buildings are either 100 years old or older or built to look like they have been around for 100 years. It’s businesses still function and the town could be in the middle of Anywhere, USA. When relocation is the reason for a move to our area, it’s fun to see the looks on people’s faces when we drive into town for the first time. There is actually a waterfall in Chagrin Falls in the center of town. The famous Popcorn Shop Factory is located right alongside the falls…also a great place to get an ice cream cone.
What do you do in your spare time?
We really like to visit our grandchildren. The older 3 live in Wadsworth, Ohio via Chattanooga & Hartford (Tommy -17, Frankie 15, and Katherine 12). We have 2 that live in Goshen, NY via Columbus (Andrew 3 and Aubree -2). The youngest live in Alaska, via Reno/Tahoe and New Zealand (Benjamin and Jonathan 9 month old twins). The visits aren’t nearly as frequent as we would like. Thank goodness for the Skype video phone calls.
*In the photo above, Jim & Joan share time with family in New York.
What impact has mobile marketing/social media had for you?
When working for the Cleveland Convention & Visitor’s Bureau, we were teaching our members how to network. Now we are back to being the students. To date, most of the impact has been the time and effort spent to initiate programs that will benefit our clients. We’ve realized the importance of developing and sharing information that will benefit the Home Buyers and Home Sellers that we work with and allow us to attract new clients.
Any additional information that you would like to share?
There are many parts to a real estate transaction. We believe that there are 2 important parts of being a good realtor. Part A is to be a good resource. We provide the right information to arm every buyer and seller with the data they need and want. Part B is to be a good friend. To be a good friend, we do a lot of listening to get to know and understand our clients. The better we understand them, the more we can help them through the buying and selling process. This can be a stressful time, and sometimes all we need to do is listen. We dont make decisions for our friends. We give them good advice and information so that they can make good decisions.
Want to learn more about this real estate team? www.yourclevelandrealtors.com
When you launch a business, you always have your first customers. Those who, despite knowing that you’re new, embrace what you have to offer and if you’re lucky continue to provide feedback that is crucial to your growth and success. For us, one of our very first real estate customers was Nathan Pfahler. We remember that first meeting with him nearly 2 years ago and can’t forget his enthusiasm and lucky for us that excitement hasn’t gone away.
We have been getting more and more requests for our API (Application Programming Interface) function so we thought we’d highlight what we offer-a REST based API that provides a wide range of functions that enable our customers to integrate Mobile Marketing (SMS/Text Messaging) into their own products.
Our API provides clients with the ability to:
Deliver messages to one Cell Phone
Deliver messages to an entire Text Club.
Schedule Messages for delivery at a later date.
Initiate a Text Club Opt-in Process.
Unsubscribe (Opt-out) a subscriber.
Check the status of delivered messages.
Retrieve the number of subscribers for a particular Text Club.
Retrieve the Mobile Subscribers’ numbers for a particular Text Club.
Set up an Initial Message to be delivered to a new subscriber.
Each time an action is submitted the API returns a status, error code and ticketid. The error code and status can be looked up in the API documentation. The ticketid is used to check the status of that transaction. You can tell if a message has been delivered, is waiting in queue, or was undeliverable.
We are very pleased to have our API publicly available and are constantly working to enhance it and add new functionality. In the near future we expect to add the following features:
Add new Keywords to an Account.
Manage Real Estate Accounts.
Deactivate Keywords on an Account.
Change account information (Billing address, logo, etc…)
Expanded Reporting via API.
If you have questions or want more information please feel free to contact us:
info @ connectivemobile.com
We will keep you up to date as we make enhancements and modifications to our API.
This week we thought it would be a good idea to post some tips for our realtors that we think might help them maximize the mobile tools at their disposal.
Is it really just as easy as placing a sign in the yard? The answer to that is yes and no. Placing a sign in the yard will develop leads and those leads will turn into customers, but in order to get the most out of your mobile marketing tools you should first exercise the full options of your mobile tools and then integrate the mobile tools into your overall marketing strategy.
We saw this clip and felt that it expressed (in about a minute and half) why every company, Realtor, and marketer should have a Blog. While blogging is something that we’ve just recently started doing as a company, we are pleased with the exposure and interactions that have resulted thus far. Similar to Mobile Marketing, it is definitely not a silver bullet means of getting your message out there. However, when integrated with your other marketing methods, the impact is consumers who are more educated about your products/services, your company and you. What success have you had with blogging? What blogs do you follow….why?
Does mobile marketing generate leads for Real Estate? Yes!!! Real Estate is a business founded on the concept of marketing property to prospective buyers and representation for sellers. It’s all about marketing and reaching prospective buyers. One of the key success factors is providing information to buyers in a quick and timely manner. Consumers are accustomed to being able to get the information they want fast. Time is of essence for Realtors. This is where mobile marketing comes in.
Often customers and prospective customers will ask us if we can send pictures via text message or SMS. This almost always starts a conversation that ends with the other party feeling like another messaging provider has left out vital details that will greatly impact the decision of which provider to use.
On October 7, 2008 we had the opportunity to attend a sales rally hosted by RE/MAX Realtors. The event was held in the newly minted Lucas Oil Stadium here in Indianapolis, IN. This was my first time in the new stadium and I must say that it is an incredibly impressive facility. If you get the chance I would highly recommend attending an event there.