International real estate publisher, The Real Estate Book®/RealEstateBook.com is finding more and more home shoppers are turning to their smart phones for housing searches. How they find the mobile tools they use, however, may be a surprise to many.
“Most people are familiar with our brand because they’ve picked up one of our digest-sized magazines in one of 300 markets across the U.S., Canada, and the Caribbean,” says Scott Dixon, CEO of NewPoint Media Group, publishers of The Real Estate Book. “For many, it’s a recognizable icon like McDonald’s golden arches or Nike’s swoosh.”
“And, during the 12-week process of either buying or selling real estate every 7-10 years, it’s a very useful tool to get a quick snapshot of the market and of the most successful real estate professionals in the area,” Dixon adds.
What consumers find when they begin interacting with the brand is the little magazines’ link to the big digital world. RealEstateBook.com receives daily updates from hundreds of Multiple Listing Services and has over 1.5 million searchable listings on RealEstateBook.com – on the web and on mobile devices.
“We find that over 25 percent of our traffic is coming from a mobile device today,” says David Vining, Vice President of Interactive at the company. “And that is increasing every month and will continue to increase. We expect mobile traffic to eventually overtake web traffic.” Vining also said that the majority of the mobile traffic comes over the weekend, when consumers are naturally on the go.”
RealEstateBook.com recently re-launched the mobile version of the site. NewPoint Media Group partners with Mobile Real Estate, LLC to create their mobile versions and to provide text codes to all advertised listings. These codes are printed in the magazines, on yard signs, brochures, and mailings – all offline and primarily print sources.
