Lower-priced mobile app enhances event experience and member engagement for Missouri REALTORS®
Missouri REALTORS® works as an advocate for its 26,000 members to safeguard real property rights and provide essential resources to advance the professional role and success of real estate agents across Missouri. The organization is 100% member-driven and serves as a primary educational, information, and business resource for its members in support of Missourians’ pursuit of the American Dream of homeownership.
“The mobile app helps us produce a better conference experience, bringing our members together to learn, share and stay connected.”
Cara Harmon, MBA
Vice President, Communications and Member Engagement
When Missouri REALTORS® wanted to provide more direct access to relevant and timely member information, the organization began looking at mobile applications. In its initial review, the organization found most mobile solutions were price prohibitive. With further exploration, Missouri REALTORS® discovered MobileUp, as the ideal, affordable application to connect, lead, and engage its members. With the successful implementation of the MobileUp app in 2022, the organization is now bringing its members a more efficient, more useful, and more engaging, user-driven mobile experience for its member conferences and events throughout the year.
Challenge: Find and deliver a lower-priced, easy- to-use, branded Mobile App to streamline event management for staff, and the event experience for members.
Missouri REALTORS® serves its members through advocacy, risk management, and educational resources to support residential real estate professionals. Members can meet and exchange ideas at its business conferences and educational events held throughout the year. The conference experience is a key strategic component of the Missouri REALTORS® programming and continuing to optimize the conference experience is critical to its success.
To deliver greater value to its members, Missouri REALTORS® wanted new technology solutions, including a mobile app to enable and improve the event experience for its business conferences. Cara Harmon, Vice President, Communications and Member Engagement; and Gary Bitsicas, Director, Digital Engagement, decided to explore MobileUp further.
Solution: Meet members where they are, with what they want. Enable conferences with a mobile app solution first, but also give members the choice of other information channels.
“We had a strong desire to create and implement a mobile app for our members,” said Harmon. “First, and a very important consideration, we knew the MobileUp app was in our budget. And from the early discussions and demos, the app aligned to our member goals, and the functionality of the event management was very attractive to us.”
Harmon and her colleagues found the usability of the back end was easy to implement and customize with Missouri REALTORS® branding and content categories. What’s more, the MobileUp app offered a lower price point than other solutions. “Through the evaluation process, we looked at other competitors. The initial meetings were often positive, but we quickly learned price points just did not fall within our budget for this project,” said Harmon.
Enhancing the Conference experience is clearly the most important member benefit of the Missouri REALTORS® MobileUp Event App.
“Our members profile across a wide range of technical competency,” said Harmon. “Some of our members are highly technical. Others are not and still prefer print materials to guide them through the conference and other educational programming. Our goal is to best accommodate all. Implementing our mobile app has brought cost efficiency, but the greatest value is an improvement in the conference experience,” she added.
Digital Director, Gary Bitsicas commented about how the MobileUp event app has streamlined conference workflow, setting aside the more cumbersome web-based solution. “The MobileUp app amplified our prior approach of creating separate microsites for each event, which didn’t allow for an intuitive presentation of the event content,” said Bitsicas.
Responsible for online product implementation, Bitsicas quickly discovered the app itself is easy to use, allowing member attendees to access the features with minimal effort. The navigation is intuitive and straightforward, and the icons are clear and representative of our event programming.” In particular, the MobileUp app has been very helpful as Missouri REALTORS® shifted back to in-person conferences, after virtual event experiences during the Covid pandemic.
MobileUp’s implementation team has been quick to respond, working alongside Gary and the Missouri REALTORS® team during implementation, highlighting a key MobileUp advantage — the simple, easy-to-manage back-end administration. “I love
it,” said Bitsicas. “We have a page on our website, explaining the app and how to use it. I have also created a YouTube “how to” video which has been very helpful to our members,” added Bitsicas. The MobileUp platform is self-sufficient, but when support is needed, the MobileUp team is available to help us quickly solve problems,” commented Bitsicas.
Results: Business conferences and member meetings made easier and less expensive with MobileUp
Since implementing for all Missouri REALTORS® Conferences throughout 2022, member response on the mobile app has been extremely positive and downloads prior to and during each conference continues to grow.
Harmon said the integration of MobileUp into its conference experience has been positive for Missouri REALTORS® and its members. The association gets a flexible and useful mobile app platform, and members get easier and immediate access to conference details and programming. The app has also helped the organization conserve resources, streamlining the communication flow of dozens of separate business meetings throughout each two-day conference. “We typically have over 500 attendees at each of our three conferences during the year, and though some of our members still prefer paper, the app has definitely enhanced the conference experience for our members, creating a one-stop shop for all activities throughout the conference.”
To highlight the value of the event app, Missouri REALTORS® promotes the app throughout the year — encouraging downloads, usage, and engagement. This effort includes a page detailing the app on missourirealtors.org, and regular posts on social media, particularly around each conference. “We will also promote new features and point our members to these enhancements, as they are added,” said Bitsicas.
“Our member conferences are a vital part of the Missouri REALTORS® offering,” said Harmon. “And the mobile app helps us produce a better conference experience, bringing our members together to learn, share and stay connected. Our members are clearly using the app and find it valuable. We plan to continue building engagement, so we can drive even more added value to our members,” added Harmon.
