Where Real Estate Gets Its Dirt

Listing Bits Episode: Making Video Marketing Profitable – with Christian Sterner of WellcomeMat

Video marketing is a powerful way for agents, brokers and real estate companies to reach consumers. But how do we get the most mileage out of our videos? How do we maximize the marketing value of the content we create?

Christian Sterner is the Cofounder and CEO of WellcomeMat, the premier platform for managing your real estate video. Christian’s team facilitates successful video marketing campaigns for agents, brokers and companies who are committed to video as a long-term marketing strategy, helping clients leverage video content to generate traffic and engagement on their domain. Christian has been playing in the technology and marketing space since 2000, and he has led WellcomeMat since its inception in 2006.

On this episode of Listing Bits, Christian explains how WellcomeMat maximizes reach for every video in a user’s library and helps them make educated decisions about what videos to create. He offers insight around what kind of content really moves the needle for real estate professionals, sharing his take on the pros and cons of producing humorous or provocative video content. Listen in to understand how WellcomeMat is working to facilitate visual search for the real estate industry and learn how drone automation can be used to create killer listing videos and accelerate the adoption of video marketing among brokers and agents.

What’s Discussed:  

WellcomeMat’s mission to make video the most valuable thing agents and brokers can do to market themselves and their properties

What makes WellcomeMat the best way to maximize reach for every video in your library

How WellcomeMat accepts content from any service (and allows users to switch providers at will)

What WellcomeMat does to help users make educated decisions about what videos to create

How WellcomeMat increases site visits by an order of magnitude over using YouTube alone

Why listing videos are best for pushing top line revenue

The value in producing evergreen content like neighborhood tours, agent profiles, etc.

WellcomeMat’s referral database of 5,000 video production companies

Christian’s take on producing provocative and/or humorous video content

The MLS rules around branded and unbranded content + how WellcomeMat offers tools to remove branding for MLS compliance

WellcomeMat’s work to facilitate visual search for the real estate industry

How drone automation facilitates the production of quality video at scale for the real estate space

Connect with Christian:

WellcomeMat

Christian on Twitter

christian [at] wellcomemat [dot] com

Resources:

RE/MAX

Trulia

8z

Booj

CBRE

Revaluate

Homebot

ZAVI Homes

TED

For Sale by Owner

LeadingRE

Luxury Portfolio

Halstead

Semonin Realtors 

Wistia

Tim Smith Group on YouTube

Smith Group’s ‘Teach Me How to Duffy’ Marketing Video

Gracenote

Shazam

Cole’s Drone Video

Amazon’s Ring Always Home Cam

Skydio

eWebinar

RIP Bob Offut

Scott Quinn let me know that an industry innovator recently passed, and I asked me if he wrote something, would I post it on Vendor Alley. It’s my honor Scott.

Bob Offut

The MLS industry lost one of its early pioneers this week.  Bob Offutt was an advertising sales rep who moved from Louisville KY to Greensboro, NC in 1969. Bob was amazed there was no homes magazine in Greensboro for the public to look at houses for sale.  He quickly decided he would start a company to solve that problem and in 1971, he started Offutt Publishing.  In short order, Bob was doing homes magazines in many east coast cities then started printing MLS books.  His homes magazine and MLS book publishing company was growing rapidly and the company employed lots of folks working 3 shifts per day.
 
In 1979, the company delivered its first “on-line” MLS system which was based on IBM Series 1 computers.  The company was very successful selling their new “on-line” MLS system which delivered the blazing speed of 300 baud on the famous TI 745 paper terminals.
 
In 1999 the company delivered one of the first internet-based MLS systems and had great success selling that system for many years.  In 2006, Mr. Offutt sold his company to First American and enjoyed many great years of travel and retirement with his wife Lois and his family.
 
Bob was a fun-loving guy so as made famous by the old Budweiser commercial, let’s just say, Bob, we salute you, you were a “Real man of Genius”  
 
To Bob Offutt, thanks for all your contributions to the MLS industry and may you RIP.

Scott Quinn

Capitalism

Well it seems Zillow’s recent move to acquire ShowingTime has motivated other vendors in to the space.

Trusted Real Estate Partner SentriLock Delivers SentriKey Showing ServiceTM, the Industry’s First Real Estate Experience Management Platform

More than a year ago, SentriLock and its volunteer board of directors, chaired by Bob Goldberg NAR CEO, observed the consolidation occurring in the showing service space. “Our board directed us to develop a solution to address the growing lack of choice in this technology sector, given the natural fit with our current lockbox business,” said Scott Fisher, Founder and CEO of SentriLock. “With recent industry acquisitions, this validates the decision that a trusted partner is needed more than ever to ensure REALTORS® have a choice in showing service solutions. We did this with great success in the lockbox space 18 years ago and look forward to extending this approach into showing services.”

This is a playbook SentriLock knows well. The “Trusted Real Estate Partner” vibe is a bit much though. I think we can all read between the lines.

And speaking of reading between the lines.

Homesnap Announces Development of Showing Management Tool

“Yesterday, news broke that Zillow has entered into an agreement to acquire ShowingTime. Real estate professionals use showing management tools every single day, and they trust that software with information about their clients.

First off, “Announces Development”? At least they are being honest it’s vaporware.

And then there’s this…

“At Homesnap, we believe that agents should have tools that protect that information and their client relationships. That is only possible when an independent vendor is providing that software — not a market participant like Zillow who is their competitor.”

An “independent vendor” owned by a public company worth over 35 Billion? Gimme a break. It seems apparent that HomeSnap vis-à-vis CoStar has gone all-in on using fear as their main marketing tactic. You do you do CoStar, you do you.

All this fear mongering reminds me of something I over heard.

“Agents raging on Facebook about the Zillow acquisition of ShowingTime are giving QAnon conspiracies theorists a run for their money.”

Then Morgan Carey of Real Estate Webmaster’s chimes in with, Build a showing time competitor? How hard can it be?

Pretty fucking hard Morgan. What Scott and Mike built isn’t easy, almost impossible.

Now I’m just waiting for Remine to issue their press release about some showings vaporware they are working on and the industry can collectively yell, “Bingo!”

Listen, I get it. During periods like this there is a ton of opportunity. That opportunity is going to turn in to competition, and that will yield better products. That’s capitalism. I love it.

But can we drop all the fronting? If you have done a better job solving the problem of handling real estate showings, let’s see it. Otherwise, shut up and get back to work.

Zillow acquires ShowingTime

Zillow Group will pay $500M to acquire home touring tech company ShowingTime

“ShowingTime has a network of nearly one million agents across North America and facilitated more than 50 million showings last year. Its software is used by 370 Multiple Listing Services. The 225-person company also produces market reports.

Zillow will take advantage of ShowingTime’s technology for its Premier Agent business. The Seattle company said it plans to keep ShowingTime as an “open platform” available to anyone, much like it has with previous acquisitions including Dotloop and Bridge Interactive.”

It’s great to hear about good things happening to good people. Scott and Mike are two of my favorite people in the industry. Good on them!

This is a huge move. Zillow didn’t just buy a software application they bought an entire category. An entire operating system if you will. ShowingTime is the defacto standard in how organized real estate does showings, period.

There’s a lot to unpack here, I’m going to have to fill my “thinking glass”.

Looking for a new gig?

Technical Solutions Consultant and Enterprise Sales Exec. – Dotloop (Zillow Group)

Technical Solutions Consultant

“This is an important role within dotloop due to the proven impact dotloop Connect partners have on revenue, generating leads and customer retention! As a Solutions Consultant, you will be responsible for driving engagement and usage while working cross-functionally with sales, Partner Success and Partner Experience to influence revenue and lead generation.”

Enterprise Sales Exec.

“The role of the Enterprise Sales Executive is to introduce, educate, and engage potential large real estate brokerage or franchise clients with dotloop. You will be responsible for obtaining new business through prospecting, building relationships and consultative selling that includes meeting with clients at the client’s site, communicating with clients via phone, email, and virtual meetings. You will build proposals, presentations, pricing, contracts and strategic business and technical plans that fit their needs.”

To find out about these jobs, and others or to post a position you are looking to fill please visit the Vendor Alley Job Board.

CRMLS to give option to display office compensation amounts on IDX websites.

Selling office compensation amounts may appear on all agent and broker websites

“As of Mon, Feb 15th, in compliance with the upcoming NAR-DOJ agreement, CRMLS will give users the option to display selling office compensation amounts on all agent and broker websites. CRMLS plans to comply with all terms, once finalized.”

Looks like it’s a trend! Great leadership from CRMLS!

New M&A consulting firm launched by Steve Murray and Scott Wright

Steve Murray and Scott Wright Launch RTC Consulting

“No consulting firm will have more experience advising on M&A than RTC Consulting.  From small one-office firms to the largest in industry history (Long & Foster), RTC Consulting is committed to exceeding every client’s expectations.  In 2020, together, Murray and Wright advised on a slew of transactions including Gardner Realtors in their sale to Latter & Blum, Benchmark in its merger with United Real Estate, Virtual Properties in its merger with United Real Estate, Better Homes and Gardens Kansas City to a local investor group, Lyon Real Estate in being acquired by Windermere, and many others.”

I think firms like these will be pretty busy in the coming years.

Zillow and Opendoor are eCommerce companies?

Interesting analysis on the changing perception of iBuying.

Redfin to display commission rate for buyer’s agents

From Inman News, Redfin to display buyer’s agent commissions in 65 markets

“Redfin first began publishing buyer’s agent compensation in Seattle, then began publishing the compensation on its own listings in every market where allowed in 2019. With this recent change — one that RE/MAX is also undertaking — that data will be available on every listing.”

Strategy credit or not Redfin has always been a leader in this type of transparency . I do like their implementation on this, much more evolved than remax.com

Although, displaying this information is not really a straight forward issue. Sam DeBord has an excellent Twitter thread about some of the pitfalls. Click the image below to read.

But you have to start somewhere. Great to see these two companies take the lead.

Court dismisses lawsuit targeting NAR and MLS providers

From Inman News, Court throws out pocket listing lawsuit against NAR and MLSs

“The suit alleged the defendants had violated the federal Sherman Antitrust Act and California’s Cartwright Act for adopting the Clear Cooperation Policy, also known as MLS Policy Statement 8.0, which requires listing brokers to submit a listing to their MLS within one business day of marketing a property to the public.


Office exclusives, or listings marketed entirely within a brokerage without submitting them to an MLS, are exempt from the policy. Some real estate brokers have threatened mutiny over the office exclusives exception to the Clear Cooperation Policy, which they argue inadvertently benefits large, national brokerages at the expense of smaller, independent brokerages.”

One down…

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