Buying a home is a huge decision and often harder than it needs to be. Take listings, for example. You need a decoder – what the heck is bot, atfn, and dhkp? (That’s boat slip, attic fan, and dryer hookup to the uninitiated.) And flyers? They're never in the box on the For Sale sign, so drive-by shoppers can't learn anything about the house.
Carpenter Realtors, Indiana's largest real estate company, understands the stress and frustration of its clients. The agency focuses on nurturing an interactive relationship with homebuyers, combining traditional marketing such as print, signage, and television with the online world.
Recognizing the marketing potential of Microsoft Tag, Carpenter created a marketing program in 2010 called “Tag It!” that delivers virtual property tours, mobile-optimized property sites, and agent contacts directly to the buyer’s smartphone. To engage shoppers, Carpenter puts Tags on yard signs and flyers, in newspaper ads, and in its Call Carpenter for Homes magazine. Agents put Tags on their business cards and brochures.
“By using Tags, we are filling an information void in the real-estate marketplace by bringing a fresh and technologically astute experience to the home-buying process,” says David Caveness, senior vice president at Carpenter Realtors.
Forget empty flyer boxes and cryptic codes. Now home-buyers can scan the Tag on a For Sale sign and instantly read about the property, see photos and videos, and contact the Carpenter agent or visit their website.
Plus, the realtors can use Tag’s analytics to gauge property interest by seeing how frequently Tags are scanned and how much time customers spend on the mobile sites. For Carpenter, Microsoft Tag provides a win-win for both buyer and seller.