More than three-out-of-four real estate professionals surveyed who registered to attend the 2012 Leading Real Estate Companies of the World® Conference that began Thursday in Orlando, Fla. selected an iPad Presentation App as the single most preferred marketing tool they would like to have, according to a new survey released today by Imprev, a leading real estate marketing technology company.
The iPad Presentation App topped a list of 25 different marketing products, from which respondents chose up to five different products they would like to have. The next most popular marketing product was automated (or “Drip”) eMarketing campaigns (35 percent), followed by single property websites (29 percent), a personal blog (28 percent) and video (25 percent).
“Real estate agents are shouting that they want their iPad apps,” says Renwick Congdon, CEO and Founder of Imprev, the marketing technology firm that conducted the survey and is a sponsor at this week’s LeadingRE MarTech Event for marketing and technology professionals. Congdon also pointed to his firm’s internal research, which shows the explosive popularity of iPad-enabled designs it offers real estate brokerage firms. “The iPad from Apple is quickly becoming a ubiquitous marketing and productivity tool for the real estate industry,” Congdon says.
The Smartphone was picked as agents’ and brokers’ current favorite technology, with a little more than half those surveyed saying it was their top choice (52 percent), followed by the iPad/tablet (26 percent), laptop/notebook/netbook (16 percent), desktop computer (5 percent) and other (1 percent).
“Mobile marketing continues to accelerate at breakneck speed,” said Congdon. “It’s a game changer for the industry.”
The Imprev survey also asked what the “five most effective marketing products” were that agents use today compared to the marketing products they used 10 years ago.
Email marketing ranked number one as the most effective marketing product used today (51 percent), followed closely by an agent website (50 percent), virtual tours (42 percent), printed postcards (36 percent) and Facebook (32 percent).
Those surveyed said the most effective marketing products for agents 10 years ago were newspaper display ads (69 percent), followed by postcards and flyers (tied at 66 percent each), newspaper classified ads (58 percent) and magazine display ads (48 percent). Today, just 12 percent of agents picked newspaper display ads as one of their effective marketing products, with 10 percent selecting magazine display ads and just 8 percent selecting newspaper classified ads.
The number one reason more than one-in-four agents still place a newspaper display advertising for every single listing: their seller expects or requests the ad, according to 79 percent of the respondents surveyed.
The Imprev survey also showed the marketing clout of Leading Real Estate Companies of the World® members, as nearly one-out-of-three (31 percent) conference registrants surveyed spent more than $5,000 for marketing per agent in the last 12 months. They also were significantly more active in selling homes than the average REALTOR®, with
two-thirds (66 percent) of those surveyed completing 10 or more transaction sides in the last 12 months, compared to the latest National Association of REALTORS® research, which shows just half of all agents completed 10 or more transaction sides.
For more information, visit www.imprev.com.
