RISMEDIA, Oct. 26, 2007-Scenario: While waiting in line at a convenience store, a woman notices a miniature house among the magazine, newspaper and brochure racks. She begins watching a tour of homes in the large picture window of the house. Noticing a real estate brochure in a rack hanging from the bottom of the house, she picks it up and begins looking at other properties the agent has available. Seeing one she likes, she picks up the agent’s business card, which is displayed under the digital sign.
If this woman is a Baby Boomer, she will probably take the brochure and business card home, and call the agent later for details or to set up an appointment. But if this woman is a part of Generation Y, she wants instant gratification. She pulls out her cell phone, dials the agent’s number immediately, and a sales lead is born.
As the agent speaks with the woman, he has several choices. He can offer to meet the potential buyer at the house immediately for a tour, he can set up an appointment for later, or he can say, “If you have a few minutes, stay right there and watch the screen. I’ll show you a tour of it.” Then from his own computer – whether at work or at home -he uploads the tour, and within minutes the woman is watching it on the screen.
“Millenials” . . . “Echo Boomers” . . . whatever you want to call them, they are Generation Y, they are some 78 million strong, and they are entering the housing market as we speak. Yet their parents and grandparents still make up the majority of home buyers.
This widely diverse clientele needs a different kind of marketing approach – one that instantly gratifies the tech savvy Generation Y, while still appealing to the sensibilities of the traditional home buyer. A Midwest company Innovation Marketing Systems, Inc., has developed a real estate marketing tool that does both.
The IMS Real Estate Sales Center combines a digital sign with a brochure rack and business card holder. These are all bundled into a display shaped like a miniature house designed to attract attention and generate qualified sales leads.
The digital sign portion is what sets the Real Estate Sales Center apart. The dynamic content on it attracts attention without demanding it, and the viewer opts-in to the visual message – which is much more effective than “in your face” advertising.
The digital sign is a full color, LCD screen in either 19″ or 32″ sizes, and is accessible from any computer via the intuitive IMS Control Panel on the Internet. This gives a real estate agency or brokerage the ability to create their own network of Real Estate Sales Centers citywide, area-wide or even nationwide. The network is easy to manage because agents and brokers use the images and virtual tours they already have on their Web sites.
The digital sign can run 24 hours per day, seven days per week, generating sales leads around the clock. A four-minute loop gives plenty of time for agents to showcase properties or give virtual tours of homes. Agents and brokers can schedule images in advance, or change them within a few minutes as properties sell.
The Real Estate Sales Center plugs into a standard electrical outlet, and checks the server every few minutes for updates via a standard Internet connection. IMS also has a cellular option for locations where an Internet connection is not available.
For more information, contact IMS at 866-450-4442 or visit its Web site at www.ims3k.com.
