When Barack Obama announced Joe Biden as his vice presidential pick, 2.9 million people received notification via a SMS text message to their cell phone. It might have been the clearest indication yet that mobile is becoming mainstream, and it’s time for you as a Realtor to sit up and take notice.

Here are three reasons why SMS matters to your business:

1. It’s a differentiator. When you deliver information – whether it’s your latest lead or property fliers – via SMS, it commands attention. Unlike e-mail marketing or direct mail, SMS still commands attention. It’s new, sleek and different – something the average agent isn’t doing. This can be levied to your advantage both with buyers and sellers. Sellers will be impressed at how complete and modern your marketing plan is, while buyers will be eager to recieve your listing information on their phone.

Think about why the Obama text message got so much attention: precisesly because it was sent via SMS. If Obama had sent an e-mail blast to millions of subscribers, no one would have cared. It’s bland – it’s been done. But SMS still attracts attention.

2. It’s sticky. With an SMS text message, you have an opportunity to give your buyers all the information they need about a property to have at their disposal at any time. If a buyer visits your Web site, they may or may not bookmark the page or sign up for e-mail alerts. In fact, the odds are pretty low. And if they want to get more information again later, they may or may not put in the effort to find your site again.  With e-mail, buyers will have all your important information saved in a message, but this isn’t accessible from anywhere.

SMS solves these problems. If you are using technology – like SPS Mobile Marketer – to generate and send SMS flyers to your buyer’s phones, you are giving something that’s both durable and accessible. All the property information – and your contact details – will be saved in the message into perpetuity AND it’s accessible at any time from any where from their cell phone. The minute they think about your property, they’ll be able to find out all the details immediately.

3. It’s easy – and cheap. It used to be that SMS was expensive to deliver, but now it costs very little for you and your buyers. As a seller, SMS flyers are free with a ProSPS subscription with no per-property costs or per-message fees. And your buyers pay only the standard text message rate charged by their cell phone carrier.  Click here to learn more.