NYC Workshop

Strategies for Tough Times!

Property Portal Watch Workshop
6th January 2009
Marriott Marquis Times Square, New York

Click here for the workshop agenda

In todays tough business and financial climate, property portals around the world face challenging issues.  These can include:

• Where can I cut costs to ride out the financial storm?
• Can I really compete with the market leaders?
• Where do I get my next injection of funding?
• Will the free to list models really work?
• What impact will Google have on portal sites?
• What new products are coming and should portal sites invest in them?
• And so on …

Answering these questions alone is not easy, so we thought we would hold a workshop to discuss them as a group. Property Portal Watch has teamed with the folk at Inman News to create Property Portal Watch Connect – a free, one day workshop for the owners and operators of property portals from around the world. It will be held on the 6th January, at the Marriott Marquis Times Square, New York, the day before the Real Estate Connect NYC conference.

Over the course of the day, we plan to run a series of sessions covering:

• Property Portal Strategy
• Sales and Marketing to Agents
• Consumer Marketing to drive Traffic
• Product Directions and Development

Property Portal Watch Connect is a great chance for property portal operators from around the world to get together and discuss the key every day issues that face their businesses.

Not only is Property Portal Watch Connect free, but we have organised 50 free passes to the Real Estate Connect Conference itself - a value of nearly $900 each. These passes will be distributed on a first come first served basis to those that register and attend the Property Portal Watch Connect session. 

The Inman News Real Estate Connect conference is the world’s preeminent conference for those interested in the internet and its effect on the real estate industry. The team at Property Portal Watch have been avid attendees to the conference over the years and have participated on many of the panels.

To register or for more information, simply send an email to editor@propertyportalwatch.com.

Agenda

Date: Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Time: 8:30 am - 5:00 pm
Location: Marquis C, 9th Floor, Marriott Marquis Times Square, New York

08:30 - 10:30
Session 1 - Property Portal Strategies

General discussion of the various approaches property portals are using around the world and how the changing markets effect these strategies.

Issues to be discussed include:

• Different market types
• Different portal models
• Changing market conditions and their impact on the models
• Impact of “free” sites on established pay-to-list sites
• New models that could emerge
• Impact of Google
• One market versus multiple markets

11:00 - 12:30
Session 2 - Consumer Marketing

General discussion around the various approaches portal sites are taking to drive traffic to their sites.

Discussion topics include:

• SEO
• SEM
• Content distribution deals
• Other online marketing strategies
• Value from traditional media
• Complementary marketing - online and offline
• Use of PR

13:30 - 15:00
Session 3 - Industry Sales and Marketing

General discussion on how various property portal sites around the world approach sales and marketing to advertisers.

Discussion topics include:

• The role of industry marketing
• Importance of a data manager
• Telesales versus field sales
• Generating sales leads
• Selling premium products and services

15:30 - 17:00
Session 4 - Product and Random Stuff

General discussion about what types of product development and their pricing and how they are likely to generate value for property portals as well as coverage off of any other questions that arise during the day.

Topics include:

• Core property portal products
• Premium products - those that work and those that dont
• Pricing approaches
• New product possibilites - video, floor plans, etc

18:00 - onwards
Session 5 - Drinking

Venue to be organised!