Real estate is an industry where proactive networking can impact business growth—the reason why countless realtors actively engage in real estate networking events.
But the traditional approaches of engagement at events—such as exchanging paper business cards and generating leads—are teemed with inefficiencies and manual processes.
For instance, your clients can quickly lose track of your contact information, given the influx of paper business cards they receive during the event. You also have no means to monitor the engagement of each card you share.
Switching to digital or virtual business cards is a better approach to networking effectively at real estate events.
Continue reading to learn the five key benefits of digital business cards at real estate networking events. We will also provide five tips on how to make the most of your event networking initiatives.
Table of contents
- 5 benefits of using digital business cards at real estate networking events
- The 5 bonus tips to follow when networking at real estate events
- Will digital business cards still work if the event encounters an internet bandwidth issue?
- Boost your networking ROI at real estate events with Uniqode
5 Key benefits of using digital business cards at real estate networking events
Individuals and organizations already use digital business cards for various use cases. When it comes to real estate networking events, here are the five benefits digital business cards offer:
- Appear professional, well-prepared, and tech-savvy
- Conduct 100% paperless and contactless networking
- Enable instant two-way contact sharing
- Make networking at real estate events truly interactive
- Measure the impact of your event networking initiatives
1. Appear professional, well-prepared, and tech-savvy
Imagine meeting a prospective home buyer and realizing you forgot your paper business cards.
While there’s no harm in sharing contact details manually, typing out the information can be prone to errors for both parties. At worst, you could come across as someone unprepared.
You can avoid such scenarios with digital business cards.
You can share your digital business card (as an Apple Wallet/Google Wallet pass) from your mobile device as often as required—regardless of how many prospects you meet at the event.
You no longer need to worry about misplacing or forgetting your cards since you always have your mobile device in hand.
Ultimately, this demonstrates your tech savviness since you do not have to force another paper business card on a prospect during the event.
Even if you encounter different audience segments, you can instantly update your digital business card or create different versions to suit each buyer persona.
This flexibility lets you project a well-prepared and professional image of yourself—and the organization you represent.
You can create different versions of your digital business card, each suited to a specific buyer persona—with Uniqode’s digital business card solution.
For instance, you can create a version of your digital business card with content that caters to first-time homebuyers. Meanwhile, you can create another version that targets luxury clients, ensuring your card’s content aligns with the needs of this particular segment.
2. Conduct 100% paperless and contactless networking
Digital business cards enable 100% paperless and contactless networking.
This modern approach provides various advantages over sharing paper business cards:
- Going 100% digital reduces the massive overhead costs ($194 per team member, per year on average) needed to print large quantities of paper business cards.
- You can conveniently network by sharing your digital business card via Apple Wallet (or Google Wallet), email signature, and other contactless mediums.
- Transitioning to paperless networking lets you embrace sustainability. You also attract more eco-conscious clients compared to your real estate competitors.
3. Enable instant two-way contact sharing
Through a digital business card, your prospects can instantly view and save your contact details on their mobile devices with a single click.
But here is an interesting fact: You can also capture their contact information using the same virtual business card.
This capability is made possible by two-way contact sharing—a digital business card feature that allows recipients to submit their contact information via a form in your card.
With Uniqode’s digital business card solution, you can customize the Two-Way Contact Sharing form based on the information you wish to capture. Toggle on or off different fields such as name, email, and phone number. You can even provide a field prompting clients to leave a message.
Each form submission becomes a lead entry in your digital address book. From this address book, you can view and manage all the leads you collect from this address book and export them directly to Salesforce or 700+ other CRM tools via Zapier.
4. Make networking at real estate events truly interactive
According to a recent Demand Metric report, interactive content generates 2X more conversions than passive content.
This statistic reinforces the importance of making your content—including your digital business card information—highly interactive and accessible.
However, paper business cards lack real-time interactivity. Your recipients have no choice but to view the printed details, then manually type and save/access the contact information and web URLs.
In contrast, digital business cards are highly interactive. They offer a click-to-access feature. Your prospects can access your card details in real-time with a click.
For instance, they can tap a phone number to instantly place a call. Similarly, they can tap on a URL or social media icon on your digital business card to access it.
5. Measure the impact of your event networking initiatives
You cannot track your networking success with paper business cards—regardless of whether it is used in events or not.
You cannot ensure how many (or which) of your paper business cards got your contact details across or drove traffic to your website.
In contrast, you can track and analyze engagement metrics with digital business cards.
They give you visibility into:
- The total number of views your card has received
- The total number of times someone saved your contact information
- The total number of unique recipients your cards reached
- Details about the devices used to view your cards
- The exact hours of the day users are viewing your cards
- The specific locations where recipients view your cards
With these metrics, you can determine how successful your networking efforts have been during a real estate event.
Moreover, these metrics allow you to make data-driven decisions. For instance, you can determine the most beneficial events to attend, identify the right people to connect with, and craft more compelling messaging.
5 Bonus tips to follow when networking at real estate events
1. Do your research on the participants and attendees. Understand the specific homebuyer personas attending the event to create customized versions of your digital business cards. Sharing customized content can result in higher conversions.
2. Prepare your elevator pitch. Craft a compelling elevator pitch summarizing your experience and value proposition. This ensures you respond clearly to questions such as “What do you do?” or “How can you help me?”.
3. Wear something professional and memorable. Sticking to the usual professional wear will guarantee a crisp impression. But you can add a unique touch, such as a colorful scarf, a t-shirt printed with your company logo, or a smart pair of shoes to serve as a visual cue to remember you.
4. Gather as many insights as you can during the event. Take notes methodically from the talks and sessions you attend and the discussions with the people you meet. This helps you share on-ground insights with your organization.
5. Introduce one connection to another. Establishing a solid agent network requires creating a viral loop of building connections. So ensure you introduce one connection to another so that they do the same for you.
Will digital business cards still work if the event encounters an internet bandwidth issue?
Real estate networking events often see a very high footfall. The annual National Association of Realtors Conference and Expo alone sees roughly 20,000 real estate professionals.
This amount of footfall at an event can lead to bandwidth issues (even if the venue uses a high-speed internet connection), making it difficult for prospects to load your digital business card to their mobile device.
To avoid such scenarios, you can use Uniqode’s Download On Scan option for every digital business card you create.
Toggling on this setting optimizes and compresses your digital business card to load faster on mobile devices, even with low bandwidth.
As a result, your recipients can access, save, and download your digital business card despite any bandwidth issues that may arise.
So while other professionals are having difficulties sharing their virtual cards, you can smoothly share your Uniqode digital business card with prospects without interruptions.
Boost your networking ROI at real estate events with Uniqode’s digital business cards
A big part of effective networking during real estate events is sharing your contact information with the right people in the right way. You can achieve this with digital business cards offered by a specialized solution.
With Uniqode’s digital business card solution, real estate companies and agents can use a feature-rich platform to create and centrally manage digital business cards at scale.
Through Apple and Google Wallet sharing, Two-Way Contact Sharing, lead management, and card-scan tracking and analytics, you can conduct all your business card activities via a single dashboard with Uniqode.
Moreover, the solution safeguards your networking initiatives with enterprise-grade security measures. These advanced capabilities make Uniqode one of the best digital business card solutions in today’s market.