Where Real Estate Gets Its Dirt

A billion reasons why I want Inman Next to succeed.

I was recently talking to another vendor who heads a large technology firm in real estate. We got around to talking about what the market opportunity is, with technology products, in real estate. He said mater of factually, “I’ve done the math, and it’s about a billon dollars a year”. [He referenced the technology spend numbers in a recent NAR member profile]

A billion dollars a year?

Just doing some quick math in my head, using 1M members for NAR. That works out to $1,000 dollar per year, per agent. Which breaks down to $85 per month, per agent. Which sounds plausible, hell maybe a little low!

A billion dollars. I sure like the sound of that!

I’ve been poking around Inman Next. I really like the vibe these guys are putting out. Chris Smith seems to be a great hire by Tim Smith (CEO of Inman News). The content is agent focussed, fresh, I like the use of video, the site is clean. I see a lot of potential.

I’m sure hoping they succeed. Reaching agents is a bitch. I need help. I want a big ‘ole piece of that billion dollar pie!

So anyone that can help me reach agents is going to get my money. Here’s a few ideas that may make that easier.

1. Prove it to me. I want real numbers of your reach. How many real estate agents get/access your stuff?
2. Leverage the web. An email with a link to my kick ass landing page can be wonderful and profitable to me. Plus it seems to make the most economic sense.
3. Help me, help you. It would be great if you could provide me assistance setting up a landing page, writing copy, maybe have a few landing page templates I could use, and some best practices to follow.
4. I want to be on stage. If you want be to buy a table at the back of your room or sponsor your event then give me 3 minutes on stage to make my elevator pitch directly to the attendees. Just having the conference speed read a list of sponsors isn’t doing much for me.
5. I want a partner. When I succeed, you succeed. So how about a little love (less cost) when I begin so I can gain some traction and, in turn, spend more money with you.
6. Target. How about sending all your conference attendees a special email with a list (links) of special offers from your sponsors post event.
7. Segment. My product doesn’t work everywhere so it would be great if you could segment your list by MLS provider. This would be easy, just add a MLS Name field when agents register for your site.
8. Make me a winner. If you have an ad placement, or email list serv that you know really performs well how about picking a vendor (maybe who is at a certain level of service) win that spot for a week (a month?).
9. Extend your reach. Maybe you can help organization like MLS providers and Associations monetize their member lists. You have great content, they need to get some messaging out to their members. How about a product that serves as a communication platform for MLS providers/Associations that is free to them because it’s ad supported?
10. Help me, help you part II. How can I, as a vendor, promote you? The more people visiting your site the better for me. Sometimes in my own marketing efforts I don’t convert them to paying customers. But if I turn them on to you then maybe we can get them the second time around.

A lot of that is stream of consciousness stuff. And I know many of you (RETechnology, AgentGenius, Inman News etc) provide some of what I’m asking.

Point is, the market is there, let’s go after it together.

  1. Hi Greg,

    Great blog and always helpful to get the vendor’s perspective. InmanNext is a great real estate agent channel to go along with Inman’s 24 city Agent Reboot tour. Hope to see you in San Francisco next week for Real Estate Connect, San Francisco!

    Best,
    Mike
    mike@inman.com
    Sponsorship sales

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