Mobi/Leads was initially launched in KwaZulu-Natal during March and was recently introduced on a national basis in June 2010 by RE/MAX South Africa.

Says Adrian Goslett, CEO of RE/MAX of Southern Africa of the launch: “Mobi/Leads was launched in March and ran a two-month trial for agents. In June we decided to open the entire system up nationally and to encourage all RE/MAX agents to use Mobi/Leads. Since our March launch, we have had 1214 unique leads generated by the system. However, since we have started our national effort to get agents using the system, we have had 468 unique leads generated in the last 30 days. We received 136 leads in the first four days of July, so things are definitely picking up as more and more agents start advertising that their properties can be viewed on mobile phones.”

Built from the ground up, Mobi/Leads is a cutting-edge mobile property publishing system feeding off RE/MAX Southern Africa’s property portal. Jordan Wallace, the system developer of Mobi/ Leads, explains how it works: “Whenever a new property is loaded onto the RE/MAX website, Mobi/Leads duplicates the listing onto a mobile version of their website and the web reference is duplicated as an SMS keyword. This SMS keyword can now be included on all the agent’s advertising, allowing potential buyers to simply send an SMS requesting all the property’s images and information be sent to their mobile phones.”

This, says Wallace, means that consumers can now view much more property information than print can provide, without having to logon to a computer. “And this is where the power of Mobi/Leads as a sales tool comes to the fore – as a potential buyer is browsing a property on their phone, Mobi/Leads sends the listing agent an email with the potential buyers’ cell phone numbers and details of the house they were viewing. This allows the agent to promptly and efficiently follow up on the interest shown,” says Wallace.

So how are the various provinces adopting this new technology? Goslett notes that although KwaZulu-Natal is still leading the way in terms of usage and leads generated by the system, Gauteng is starting to gain momentum. On a month-to-month basis, he says that there has definitely been an increase in the amount of leads the system has generated since its nationwide launch: “We have received as many leads during the first few days of July as we did during the whole month of June. This is due to more agents advertising the system, and as this increases, so will the usage of the system start to increase exponentially.”

He says the technology has revolutionised the way the real estate business’ operates on a number of levels – one being the fact that the size of the office and its location make no difference in the efficiency of the system: “Some of the best offices in terms of leads garnered are small, more rural offices.

Like the rollout of any new technology, Goslett says the nationwide launch of Mobi/Leads has not been without its challenges: “Rolling out any new technology is a challenge, especially to larger groups of people who have various ways of managing their advertising. What we have found is that the minute an office starts using the system, they start getting leads – it's as simple as that, it is a truly effective marketing tool.”

Goslett says that RE/MAX Mobi/Leads remains the most substantial property publishing system in the country: “Property information is placed in the buyer's hands cheaply, effectively and conveniently, and agents are informed of their interest early on. This enables agents to provide prompt service that simply out-does the competition.” To date, he says that two properties have been sold directly using Mobi/Leads and notes that as the system continues to gain further exposure on a nationwide basis, this number should rise dramatically.

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