talkingDigital

It’s no doubt that companies exist to sell a product. If you think about it, everybody’s selling a product, even if they’re not aware that they are doing it.

Starbucks has a presence through billboard, commercial, film, internet, mobile app and obviously their stores, among many other things. The reason they exist is to sell coffee, and other coffee related products. Just because you don’t own a Starbucks or any other business, doesn’t mean you’re not out there to sell a product.

Everyone’s Out to Sell

When you go to Facebook or Twitter, or Instagram, or when you write a blog, you’re doing it because you want a response. Nobody puts up a social media profile and then says…”Ehhh, I don’t want any friends…or followers.” It isn’t natural.

So in the way that Starbucks is selling coffee, you too are selling a product, and that product is you. The product would more specifically be your words if you were a writer, but the point is-the world is a giant network of cogs all working and moving as a giant commercial machine.

Now that it has been established that this is a natural way of life, let’s talk about some of the different ways that companies are using devices like the mobile phones that everyone owns to sell a product.

Text Messages are Bigger Than You Realize

What may have started out as an innocent way to chat with friends has developed an entire life of it’s own. Text messages are the form of communication preferred by Americans. In other countries, it is still popular to carry out conversation through messaging apps. The reason is because wireless companies in other companies haven’t made texting as affordable.

Today, companies on a global scale are realizing the power behind text messaging. The way that they use it can be very diverse, but it proves to make operating business more efficient, and it also helps to bring in more customers and boost sales.

Convenience Rules All

People are willing to pay a price for convenience, and the companies know this. Businesses that create mobile apps for customers to browse and buy products are generally way more successful. It’s much easier for a person to shop from their couch and have a product delivered than it is to get up, warm up the car, drive to a store, browse and buy their product, pack it up, and get it back home. Convenience wins almost every time.

Look at your phone right now. Do you have the mobile app for Target, Nordstrom Rack, Modcloth, or Kohl’s? This is how companies sell products. They study you intently and know what you want. It can be a little overwhelming to think about, but remember, everyone is out to sell something.

The real estate industry seemed to go an entire century with very little change to the way it fundamentally operated. If you wanted to get a new place, you found a real estate agent, drove to see apartments or houses, picked one, and sealed the deal.

If you wanted to sell that place later, the same agent helped you by putting it on a listing exchange. But times have changed … and they’re still changing.

Here are three technologies that are driving innovations that have occurred in the real estate industry, or are on their way here!

1. Smartphones

It would be hard to narrow down smartphone functions to one word, because the many ways that smartphones have disrupted the real estate market are vast. You can walk past a property, search for it with a mobile application, find photos of the interior, and dig up former sales prices, tax assessments, and sales contract status — all online.

You can call the agent as well, although in this app-crazed world, many people seem to have forgotten that functionality!

2. Digital signing

First there was the fax machine, which drastically reduced the time it took to conduct real-estate transactions. And though fax machines eventually achieved a network effect that drove high usage rates, they’re becoming obsolete, thanks to digitally signed documents.

Now it’s as easy as signing the screen of your smartphone to buy, sell, or lease a property.

3. Blogs and content

Blogs are hugely abundant and constantly growing, so content is becoming more focused. Thanks to blog frameworks that are easy to replicate, the time it takes to set up a blog has diminished to the point where it can be done in five minutes.

Content creation, as a result, has exploded. And when there’s more content, the nature of competition dictates that consumers will expect a higher quality and more relevant content from the blogs they choose to follow.

A great example of this can be found in the Clinton Hell’s Kitchen real estate website that’s operated by a local office of Keller Williams. On this site, you’ll find not only real estate listings for the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood, but all kinds of specialized content that should be helpful to consumers who are considering a move to that neighborhood.

When websites were harder to build and information was less connected online, this type of content would be fairly rare. But today and tomorrow, we should expect this type of excellence in every real estate market in the developed world!

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