A Bit of Market Research

Dear readers, I’ve got a business conundrum from my Realtor life, and I’d really appreciate some input to see if maybe I can get away with my crazy.  My conundrum, in a nut shell, is this: I really want to be a corporate sponsor for Worldbuilders, but this late in the year, there’s not nearly enough money left in my marketing budget to support even the bottom tier.  A sane, reasonable person would just shrug and, now that this is a thing, do their 2013 marketing plan accordingly.  I’m frequently reasonable, but rarely sane, and marketing to the nerdcore audience that are Rothfuss fans, not to mention the mental images I get of Pat being happy when people support this, is made of so much win I’m having trouble letting it go.  The first line of my business plan, after all, is “Do whatever the hell looks like fun and see what happens.”

I’m one of those obsessive plan-ahead budgeters, so I do actually have enough money for the bottom tier sitting around.  Problem is, it’s earmarked for early 2013 marketing, some of which has a much higher projected return than what I suspect I’d actually get out of this corporate sponsorship (i.e. slightly maniacal joy).  Business-Anaea has issued a resounding “No” to the idea of poaching from next year’s budget for this scheme.

“But,” counters hedonist-Anaea – “The threshold for breaking even isn’t all that high.”  Which is true.  If four people take a referral* from me for transactions conforming to national averages, I’ll recoup the costs of the sponsorship.  That’s not leaving anything after for me to nurse my bubble tea and fiction addictions, but I can chalk that up to the nature of charity and keep business-Anaea happy.  The problem is, I don’t expect four referrals, let alone four that actually make it all the way through to a conclusion.

Maybe, just maybe, hedonist-Anaea is smarter than business-Anaea, so I want to check.  Would you, dear reader, be likely to contact a Realtor advertising through something like Worldbuilders?  Would you be likely to grab friends/family/acquaintances looking at buying or selling a house and pointing them toward somebody you found that way?  Do you even pay any attention to the people who do sponsorships for these sorts of things?  Feel free to send your friends/whatnot along to play guinea pig for me, too.  Business-Anaea likes data 🙂

I’m definitely putting it into my 2013 budget either way.  I’m just looking for a reason to be irresponsible and throw in for 2012, too.

*I only practice in the greater Madison area of Wisconsin, but that doesn’t stop me from being useful everywhere.  So people in, say, California can ask me to hook them up with a Realtor, and I can make sure they get somebody good, and who’s good for them.  I get a tiny, tiny bit of that transaction.  This is how I justify double-counting cons as a business expense (writing and Real Estate)