It’s becoming more obvious over time that luxury goods have found a good home on mobile. While the mobile advertising industry in general is enjoying huge growth at the moment, more expensive items have been sold through the medium for much longer. In particular, between today and yesterday, three developments have proven the success of selling cars and houses on mobile. Why does it work so well?
What’s the news?
The last day has seen a short burst of news about how mobiles can be used to shift luxury goods:
Car dealers use mobile chat for marketing – Cars.com launched in 1998, and has been a popular on-line marketplace for dealers and buyers to meet over the last 12 years. One of the more popular features is an on-line chat service that allows dealers to interact with prospective customers remotely. Yesterday, Cars.com announced that the chat service has been ported over to mobile, to allow mobile-to-mobile chat between dealers and customers. Michael Page, VP of advertising products for Cars.com says “mobile chat allows salespeople to be more responsive to shoppers’ inquiries, even if they’ve stepped away from their desk… dealers can use this capability to enhance their customer service and sell more cars.”
Real Estate agents using mobile advertising – the Real Estate Journal yesterday published an article about a mobile marketing service for retailers called 90210USA.com. On top of singing the praises of the service, it also mentioned that the real estate industry is already “saturated by mobile marketing”
Lexus launches iPad app – As reported on New Media Age today, Lexus has launched an iPad application that allows visitors at a trade show to book test drives, and request additional brochures and information about car models.
What we think?
The announcements by Cars.com and Lexus aren’t the earliest examples of mobile advertising for cars by a long shot. Car manufacturers from Maserati, BMW, Ford, Volkswagen and Volvo have been at this for years. And real estate agents have been using their mobiles to sell homes for as long as mobile devices have existed – through voice calls at first, and more increasingly through location-aware apps, barcodes and advertising. Why are houses and cars so easy a fit for mobile?
1) Houses and cars are expensive – buying a new car or home is, in almost every case, going to require the customer to seek financing. There are loans to consider. It’s a long term investment. People will naturally be skittish about spending that much money. Mobiles allow the salespeople to stay in much closer, more personal contact with the prospective client. It allows them to effectively hold their hands during the purchase.
2) Mobiles allow you freedom to move – as Michael Page said above, having a mobile allows the seller to be much more useful to their client from any location. Instead of just taking a call and saying “I can check that for you when I get back to the office”, the salesperson can now have an entire suit of applications and information at hand through their phone. Smartphones have enormous connectivity. When you step away from your desk, you can take all of your connections with you. You can access your email, voice, messages, IM, Skype (or other VoIP) and SMS from your pocket.
3) Luxury goods buyers are more likely to have smartphones – if you’re selling a nice new house or a luxury car, the chances are your customer will have a smartphone. The capabilities of the device in their pocket don’t just make them easier to stay in contact with, it also makes them much more responsive to mobile advertising. Not making a move into that marketing channel is a pretty silly thing to do.
