“On the second day of Christmas my true love gave to me . . ” Ok, you definitely don’t want to hear me sing but I needed a (somewhat) clever way to present to you the second enhancement in our 2012 roll-out.
I hope you have all seen a glimpse of our new Mobile Search that debuts in late January. I was recently asked to define what makes this enhancement so significant. In one word: geolocation.
If you’re shopping for a home from your mobile phone it usually means you’re . . . . well, mobile. Geolocation doesn’t just allow buyers to search homes through a mobile friendly site, it allows them to search homes around them at the moment. Instant access to opens in the area, homes for sale in the neighborhood, even directions. . . simplifying the home search and most important branding it all to you. Your photo, your name, your contact information, your leads.
And yes, it works on iPhones. It works on the Android platform. It works on any smart phone.
The below gallery shows samples of materials to support your new mobile search.
Which brings me around to our next enhancement.
A few months ago I asked the manager’s to send a representative or two from their offices to a roundtable discussion of the search on our website system. The overwhelming feedback boiled down to one request:
Simplify the search. Make it clean. Make it easy.
So that’s exactly what we’re doing.
Debuting in late January 2012 we’ll be rolling out a new search, listing results page and listing detail page as shown below. Click on any of the images to enlarge them to full size.
Search highlights include:
- Ability to search by county, city, zip, address, school, subdivision and mls#
- (New!) Auto-fill fields to make searching easy
- (New!) Search by price or monthly payment
- (New!) Easy point-and-click features to narrow your search by amenities
- (New!) Search by ‘newly listed within’ to view the newest homes
- View as list or on a map
Search results page includes:
- (New!) Ability to refine the search directly on the results page
- Ability to save favorites and searches
- (New!) Ability to share listings to Facebook and Twitter
- Call to actions include ‘Set Appointment’ and ‘More Info’ forms.
- (New!) Trip Map
Listing detail page includes:
- (New!) Two embedded contact forms. Studies show these open forms can increase the number of leads by almost 500%.
- Calculator with charted mortgage breakdown
- (New!) Walkscore community information
- School information (not shown)
- Directional map, birds-eye view map and street view map
- QR code link
- Price change and sold information
- Printable flyers
Two of my favorite new features are the Walk Score and Trip Map which you can see enlarged shots of below.
Walk Score gives each property a score between 0 – 100. 0 represents you need a car to get everywhere and 100 represents you can walk to everything you need. It’s a great way to discover your community.
The Trip Map is a wonderful buyer’s tool. The client can select properties they would like to view (up to 7) and enter their starting and ending location. The system generates the best route to see all the homes! Just print (or email) and they are off!
Expect more surprises by the end of the year. We’re working hard to bring you a wonderful line-up of features and tools for 2012.
Sarah Grobe, Director of Marketing & eBusiness
Prudential Select Properties
sarah@discoverstl.com | DiscoverStL.com
Prudential Select Properties | Marketing 