Native Apps vs. Mobile Sites

More and more people are using a mobile phone to begin their home search. It should be obvious by now that having a mobile presence is an absolute must for real estate brokers. When you take the next step and actually begin investigating your options, you'll be faced with a variety of inevitable questions, one of which will be: Do you want a native app or a mobile website?

First, you'll have to understand the difference (if you don't already). A native app must be downloaded from the app store and installed on the user's smartphone. A mobile website is accessed from any smartphone, using the phone's browser, without the user being required to install an app on their phone.

When brokers ask us about this at VoicePad, we think it's really important for them to understand that developing an app is not a complete or sound mobile strategy. We point to several key points when we direct people toward mobile Web:

• The declining number of app downloads by consumers.
• The complexity and hassle of developing apps for all platforms – Android, Apple, and Blackberry.
• Apps require consumers to jump through more hoops, and the likelihood of actually getting the lead gets smaller with each hoop. First they must download the app, usually while they're sitting in front of the property. It assumes they know their app store password and are willing to both wait and pay for the extra wireless data needed to download an app away from home. It's generally not quick enough to solve the primary issue for a potential buyer, that being: I want info now.

Instead, we recommend that brokers use a lead-generating mobile site, because that's where your mobile traffic originates. VoicePad GPS mobile sites are uniquely tied to a consumer's mobile phone number (as opposed to and email address only), allowing real estate professionals the ability to obtain the user's name and, oftentimes, an email address – all without asking the consumer to do anything besides click a link.

And, although we're focusing on smartphones today, one of our guiding principles is that real estate professionals need to provide options for "dumb phones," too. So we advise people not to stop at mobile Web. It's important to reach every consumer and deliver information about every listed property on every kind of mobile device. At VoicePad, this includes:

• Voice
• Text
• And, of course, mobile Web

But no matter what the channel, we capture leads. Because, after all, if you're not getting leads, what's the point?