TimPiazza

A client of mine, real estate agency, needs a way to use SMS messages to drive traffic to their properties. People see a sign outside the house for sale and by texting a number, they see a web page for the property. He currently uses a service that he pays $99/month for, and it's a lot of work.

I told him that I would develop a plug-in for his real estate website that will automatically generate an SMS link to every single property, which he can configure in advance or completely customize on a per-property basis. It should be completed in a few weeks.

So now I am going to have this plug-in that I know I can sell to at least 1 customer for $400, and I can probably sell to both real estate offices and auto dealerships for a similar price.

Or, I could offer a version of this plug-in to the general public for $50.

Or add a couple of tweaks that would let anyone set up a service providing sms response marketing to individuals doing their own "for sale by owner" stuff.

Or, I could set up a website where people can "lease" the service, getting a number of txt codes that they can point wherever they want, for $50/month.

I'm considering all of these ideas, plus one where I create a "business in a box" WSO.

Without revealing the awesomeness of the plug-in (Twilio-based), Which option do you think would generate the most revenue with the least effort, over a two year period?

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TimPiazza

Okay, so maybe this isn't an interesting subject, there isn't really a collective experience on plug-in marketing here, or it takes too much effort to write a lengthy response. So be it. I figured that WF had some of the smartest, most experienced online marketers on the planet and this would be a good group to discuss this idea with. Lord knows, I can't find anyone in my local community who has done this stuff.

EasyDigitalDownloads seems like the best solution for licensing, so far. Now I just need to decide how I want to market. $39/month is the most attractive option to me, especially if I can get 100 subscribers.

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cobra5106

Tim,
I use DAP (Digital Access Pass) to protect content and I found it is one of the most feature rich of content protection. They recently started offering a hosted solution in addition to selling the plugin.

Also, I have a product I developed that might supplement your product.
What I noticed is that the offline market (i.e. Real Estate Agents, Auto Dealerships, Restaurants, etc), isn't well versed on technology. So even if you have a great product, the learning curve is pretty big. Which makes it hard to sell to them.

So, I have already created a small course (48 page PDF & 10 videos, 10 audios) to explain to the offline clients why they need to use SMS (Text message marketing) and how it will benefit them.

The content is probably already familiar with IM'ers, but it may work well will what you have to offer.

I figure either product could be the front end, with the other as a back end offering.
Let me know if you would like to discuss further.

Humbee360

You should read up on the FCC rules for Text Message Marketing, SMS MMS, Many marketers unprepared as deadline looms for new SMS guidelines - Mobile Marketer - Messaging

There are sharks out there, be careful what you provide to business owners, it could bite you.

mjbmedia

Tim, focus on the one thing, creating it for the real estate market first, get that done right after feedback from your first XX clients, then set it on autopilot as much as can be and set about tweaking it for the motor trade or whatever, rinse and repeat but focus on the one niche upfront and nail that one

Mike

TimPiazza

I will be using Easy Digital Downloads for my licensing and updates. Does DAP work in conjunction with EDD or is it a replacement/alternative?

I will keep in mind your product. There might be an opportunity if I decide to offer a version of this as a WSO. Thanks!

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TimPiazza

I am savvy to the rules. This plug-in is totally in compliance. There is no "list building" mechanism, other than the follow-up auto-responder can be used to invite someone to subscribe to an opt-in list, which would be hosted separately. Numbers are logged, however, and someone could cheat by exporting the numbers from the mysql database. But that would be on them, my plug-in does not have export built in.

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TimPiazza

That is great advice, Mike. The plug-in is almost ready, but I will have to take a break from any development until mid-July because my business workload is stacked to the ceiling. I will roll this out to realtors first, as a beta test. Then I will explore different marketing techniques. It really looks like some limited-feature version offered for free on Wordpress.org is a great way to get my name out there.

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cobra5106

DAP is basically an alternative. I found it to be very powerful.

Sounds good Tim. If you want to talk in the future, that would be great! Good Luck with your product!