Live Demonstration of How To ‘Marry’ Print Media to Smart Phones in Order to Sell Real Estate
About 4 months ago my website developers started to talk about the benefits of using QR Code technology. I admitted I had no idea what a QR Code was.
My developers told me that a QR Code was like a bar code in print media that could be read by a smart phone. Once the smart phone reads the QR Code, it automatically brings you directly to the URL website which is in the QR Code. Supposedly QR Codes are becoming the rage all over Europe and Asia, so I decided to Google QR Code. What I found was some sort of Rorschach test looking square. I tried taking a picture of it with my iPhone and nothing happened, so I forgot about it.
Fast forward to a few weeks ago and my developers are again talking to me about it. These guys know their stuff, so I listened closely. I told them about my experiment and they said, “No, no, you need to download an App to read the code.”
I downloaded QR Reader to my iPhone, which was either free or $.99. Once downloaded, I scanned it over a QR Code I printed out. Holy Cow! It worked! So cool, but how would it work in real estate? A half an hour after my conversation with my web developers, my printer, Richard Goldberg at Sir Speedy in Tequesta, Florida, calls. Richard was getting ready to print a huge mail-out we were working on. He literally said that he wanted to stop the presses. Richard came back from a meeting and had the latest and greatest in print technology and wanted to talk with me. I interrupted him and said, “I’ll bet you want to talk with me regarding QR Codes.” Richard was completely speechless!
We had a pretty complicated print project that was going to 10 separate communities. Since I have a separate URL website for each community, we decided to put a separate QR Code for each community. An example below leads the client to our page featuring BallenIsles Homes For Sale.
This was a smashing success and we have already had 5 new clients as a result. I’m now putting QR Codes on all our print brochures so Buyers can go directly from the brochure to the website on their phone. There they can send the website photos directly to their friends or loved ones. We plan to use them on signs, our newspaper ad in the Palm Beach Post, magazines, and even business cards (which we’ve already done).
To generate a QR Code, go right to Richard Goldberg’s site at www.SirSpeedyTequesta.com. Put your information and website into his form and it will spit out a QR Code. You don’t even have to use Richard to do this, but I would highly recommend him.
Like the old Frank Sinatra song, ‘Love and Marriage’ between Print and the Internet has finally occurred. Now let’s hope it sells some homes!
