1. Many have asked; which is better, texting for
real estate agents or using a QR code. Both
offer distinct advantages and it really depends
on what your desired, end result is. Fact is,
they are similar but remarkably different in the
way they work. We will discuss the benefits of
text marketing and how you can implement
texting in to your real estate career.
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2. How a real estate agent/broker can use text marketing Within the dashboard
of a text marketing account you configure your text auto-response to send out
a text immediately upon someone texting in the keyword you choose In that
text you embed the link to that property What I did was I created a YouTube
channel then created a slide show of the property, uploaded to YouTube then
copied the URL in to the auto-responder text That way when someone text'd
"Len1 to 41242 it automatically sent to them the link to view the property
Pretty handy hey? With QR codes you can't do that If a person scans the QR
code then they are redirected to the QR code providers site where the
profile/information on your property resides Also, with QR codes you can't
capture the inquirer's cell phone info
3. What service to choose? There are a lot of text messaging services out there
Most are fairly competitive and basically do the same thing as the others
There really is no great difference The texting service I have used is called
Yep Text Pricing: Depending on how many texts you want to send each
month determines the plan you want to choose Prices range from $9 a month
to $149 a month and there are additional, higher volume packages as well
The $9 a month package allows you 150 texts per month + one yep word and
$149 package allows 4000 messages a month + 3 yep words Additional Yep
words can be purchased and added to any package for $8
4. Billing: You are only billed for outgoing texts and that rate is about 5 3 cents
per text What is a keyword for texting? Texting services have a dedicated 5
digit number associated with their service For example, Yep Text's designated
number is 41242 You don't own the number, they do What you would own is
what they call the "keyword" or "Yep Word" Essentially, your Yep word is your
keyword So, let's say you have a listing on East Broadway
5. Then you would enter that "yep word" in to the dashboard and see if that
keyword is available If so, then you now own "East Broadway" for the 41242
number What keyword do you choose? We've all seen something like this
before: "text the word Subway to 41242 to receive our weekly specials" You
create your key word and add the word to your website, business cards and,
what I did was that I even created a sticker to attach to my signs I wouldn't
recommend using a specific name or number associated with each property I
would use something like "YourName1, "YourName2, etc , for each of your
properties and here is why Once that property sells you want to reassign that
Yep word to your next property
6. And, if your keyword is something like "East Broadway1" and your property is
on East Broadway then once you sell that property and reassign the keyword
to a property say, on 7th Street, then you'll be stuck with the sticker on your
sign saying "Test East Broadway1" to 41242 That may become confusing to
your potential buyers Benefits: Text marketing allows you to capture the
inquirer's cell phone number so that you can re-solicit to them a property that
meets their criteria at a later date Much like an email data base, you are
creating a "text data base" which is the most important thing in real estate; a
list QR codes, at this point, do not allow you to capture information So, the
jury is out on this one Really depends if you best stuff want to create a list and
re-solicit later or if you want to just offer QR codes so that the customer can
gain access to the relevant information for the property
