Western Mass Homes Lesley Lambert

qr code

QR Code Marketing in the Wild…How Can REALTORS use them?

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Yesterday I bought a plant at Home Depot and I noticed something different about their tags. A QR Code!

I got excited and scanned the code and found information on the plant, how to plant it and what other plants would go well with it. Very cool and interactive…what can REALTORS learn from that? Well…make sure your QR Code has good value. What audience is your code directed at? Is it on a sign rider? Then your audience are buyers who will want a lot of information at their fingertips about the home in question, as well as an easy way to get in touch with you.

The biggest argument against QR Codes that I keep hearing is that people won’t make the effort to download a QR Scan Reader program and then actually scan the codes. I agreed that it would be a fringe audience when I first began using QR Codes, but with major retail outfits like Home Depot, Target and Best Buy using them prominently, I think the time is ripe for trying QR Codes in your marketing.

Real Estate Geek Girl

Many of you know that I am not only a real estate agent at Park Square Realty in Westfield, MA, but a total geek girl and that I love using social media for developing friendships in real life. I have been blessed with so many wonderful new friends and clients and even an amazing boyfriend because of my use of social media that I can’t help but share my success stories and encourage others to try using social media to grow their business and personal lives, too.

Recently I wrote a post for my column at Agent Genius Magazine that shared the truth, that most of my closed real estate transactions in 2010 came to me through social media in one form or another. The post got some attention within real estate circles, but I was floored last week when out of the blue Mike Myatt of N2Growth sent this tweet:

The link provided led to a blog post about people who have social media influence and included the likes of Chris Brogan, Gary Vaynerchuck and Dell Computers. Within the post was a video which included a highlighted quote from the Agent Genius post mentioned above. Watch this short and entertaining video which highlights Social Media Influence and includes yours truly:

This week I was featured in another blog about QR (quick read) Codes. The post was describing the multitude of applications for using a QR Code and featured this video about my use of QR Codes for marketing real estate in Western MA made for me by my talented and wonderful boyfriend, Morriss Partee. I learned about QR code technology at PodCamp Western MA and have been incorporating it into the marketing of my homes for sale in Westfield, Ma and the surrounding Pioneer Valley towns. This video crafted by Morriss explains what a QR code is and how I am using it to help my homes for sale stand out and get homes sold.

I am proud, excited and thrilled to see that my use of social media isn’t just improving my life, but I am able to share some of my hard earned knowledge to help other people working to use these tools.

If you are a fellow real estate agent looking to use social media as a tool in your marketing and prospecting you can read my contributions to Agent Genius Magazine.

If you are a consumer looking for real estate news and advice you can visit:

My personal blog
My real estate blog
My Masslive blog

QR Code Technology for Real Estate Marketing in Western Massachusetts

Wondering what a QR Code is? Why you need one to help sell your Western Massachusetts home? This video explains how I am using QR Code technology to help home seller’s in Westfield, MA and the surrounding areas find buyers in an innovative way.

The Real Estate For Sale Sign of The Future

Real estate is said to be the second oldest profession in the world (no jokes please) and for much of its history the standard operating procedure didn’t change a whole lot.

When I began my real estate career in 1988 (again, hold the humor) there was no internet. We collected a book of postage stamp sized, grainy, black & white photographs on crappy newsprint paper every two weeks: that was the multiple listing book. You carried that book with you to meet buyers and sellers and tried to fathom which properties might be of interest from these lackluster and teeny tiny descriptions. Fast forward to the advent of the internet. Many real estate agents feared that by making home information available on the internet our function would be obsolete and we would be out of work. I never understood this fear. The very LEAST of what I do as an agent is giving buyer clients lists of homes for sale. I don’t actually sell anything, I facilitate the real estate transaction, but I have no actual goods to sell. For me, I thought the internet was a great way of saving me loads of time driving that stupid MLS book around (I was right).

So, over the years, as technology advances and real estate agents wring their hands in fear and confusion, I step ahead with my adventurous geek girl spirit and try some new “stuff”. Over the last few years I have created blogs, utilized my love of social media to grow my business, learned Search Engine Optimization and even some basic web site coding, all to advance my real estate services (and feed my nerd gene).

Recently I attended PodCamp Western MA 2 where we got t-shirts with this new thingymabob on the front. Called a QR Code, it looked like a square Rorschach test and I was curious as to why it was on our shirts. Event organizer, Morriss Partee explained that our friend Jaclyn Stevenson had added this code to the shirt and with a special application to your smartphone you can scan this code and it will automatically open the website for the event. Cool! Days later I got to thinking…”I think I can use this in my real estate marketing.”

I did some research and found this article by my friend (and editor at Agent Genius) Lani Rosales. I had seen her post this blog, but had no concept what a QR code was at that time. Now I re-read her post with new interest and started plotting out a marketing strategy.

First off: What the Hey Diddle Diddle IS a QR Code?

A QR Code is a matrix code (or two-dimensional bar code) created by Japanese corporation Denso-Wave in 1994. They are currently used for a wide array of purposes including: drivers licenses, paperless coupons, on bills and other publications. A QR code, when scanned by a smartphone (ie: BlackBerry, iPhone, Android) will take the scanner to a website.

For Example above is the QR Code for one of my listings. This code is placed on a sign rider on the yard sign. Let’s say a potential buyer with a smart phone drives by the house and is curious. They stop to write down information and then notice my sign rider. They take a scan of the QR code and ZIP! they are delivered to a webpage dedicated to information on that property. A website that is rich in information and content like video, photos and important documents…all available instantly by scanning the code. I also include the QR code in my mailings to the neighborhood, on the home flyers and in print advertising. The next door neighbor opens a just listed letter and is curious what the house next door is going for and uses the QR code to get all their questions answered in a minute. I am rolling this new tool out on every listing that I take from now on. I hope that this will be a fun new gadget for people to try at first and later will set me apart as being the area innovator in real estate marketing.

I recognize that this isn’t something that many people are using in their day to day lives (yet), but I have a feeling that this is the for sale sign of the future. A sign that answers the buyers questions, that represents the seller’s property and that demonstrates my skills as a marketing professional. If you have a smartphone you can find a QR Reader application in your application store. Go download the application and give the code above a try….I am holding a contest for a $25 Starbucks giftcard for all the souls brave enough to experience this groovy new tool!