Trulia’s Chief Marketing Officer, Kira Wampler Talks Simplifying a Painful Process

If it seems like we’re doing more and more shopping online and on our mobile devices these days, it’s because we are.  Year over year now, E-retail growth consistently outpaces traditional retail sales growth, with more consumers turning to their computers, tablets and smartphones to research and buy virtually any good or service you can imagine.

According to InternetRetailer.com, a website that offers “industry strategies for online merchants,” online sales will top $414 billion by 2018, up from an already impressive $263 billion in 2013, accounting for 11% of total retail sales. Add to that the fact that consumers now spend more time interacting with retailers on their mobile device than any other electronic medium, and it’s crystal-clear why “e-tail” in all forms — traditional online, tablet and smartphone — is a white-hot market.

In fact, even the most sizable purchase you can ponder – real estate – is increasingly initiated via mobile devices. One of the biggest vendors in that costly sphere is San Francisco-based home-search site Trulia.

Housing Info in One Easy, Inviting Venue

Driving the marketing efforts for Trulia is Chief Marketing Officer, Kira Wampler. According to Wampler, a staggering 92% of people use the internet to look for a home. The Trulia platform, Wampler says, is “first and foremost about helping an enormous number of consumers go through a process that can typically be really painful, in a much more delightful way.”  The website’s extraordinary breadth of home listings, useful tools,  appealing, multihued graphics and down-to-earth, let’s-get-real subject headings (“5 Ridiculous Seller Sayings” and “What to Do if Your Landlord Neglects His Job”) make this a natural for 21^st-century homebuyers and renters.

Using Trulia to research in advance (what Wampler calls “Chapter One” of the home search process) creates a more educated, engaged buyer who will be better prepared for the next step in her search.  (See for example their intricate data on the Top 10 Affordable Housing Markets in the U.S.)  Furthermore, savvier buyers necessitate more effective agents, ultimately establishing a “win-win” for everyone involved in the process. Fully-scaled and serving an estimated 54 million consumers nationwide across the product experience (website, mobile apps and mobile site), Wampler attributes Trulia’s mass appeal to the fact that where you find home is “something that’s just core to all humans, and that’s true whether you live in a rural area, Silicon Valley, or the suburbs.” Trulia’s allure hasn’t been lost on competitor Zillow, who recently announced plans to purchase Trulia for a cool $3.5 billion.

Additionally, Trulia is seeking to reach outside its boundaries and create meaningful relationships with would-be home-seekers via e-blasts, an alliance with Houzz, an interior decorating firm,  and a recent cross-promotion with snazzy fashion/home etailer Rue La La, showcasing expert tips for moving-day and staging your home.  This last partnership is a clear indication of the site’s intent on reaching that golden target market: the professional, educated, 25-44-year-old female demographic.  Wampler explains Trulia’s focus on this specific market segment: “Women are the crucial decision-maker in terms of where the family is going to live.  She’s the psychological decision-maker and often the financial decision-maker — or she heavily influences the financial decision maker.”  In short, she calls the quest to effectively reach this segment an “of course” decision.

While Wampler is reticent to offer any full-blown real estate predictions, she does say that, according to Trulia’s chief economist, everything we’re seeing now points to growth, likening current trends to an airplane flight in takeoff mode with a few bumps still ahead. She does refer to a recent report from Trulia that determined that it remains more cost-effective to buy in most locales. “There are a lot of different points of view about the housing market, but what we certainly see in our data is that it’s still more cost-effective to buy than rent in most markets.”

Career Advice from the C-Suite

And who better to lead the charge for Trulia than Wampler, who personifies the Trulia target demographic? Her smart, friendly and, dare I say, human approach to business and life also makes her a perfect example of the changing face of the successful career woman. Though the “dragon lady” persona – a cutthroat businesswoman with no life outside the office – has faded as the perceived recipe for success in the professional landscape, Wampler says she actually never experienced that stereotype, even early in her career. “I’ve been really fortunate to be around women (both) as a younger woman and today around other senior women who are very inspiring and have always shown that it’s not easy, but you are capable of being really successful in your career and successful at home.  It’s about prioritization and the people you surround yourself with.  And it’s also about being real and authentic, i.e. yourself. I actually don’t think I could imagine a world that looks different than that.”

In addition to some good advice from her early mentors, Wampler attributes her approach to balancing career and personal life to “flow.” “I’ve found over the years that I spent almost as much energy trying to get things “in balance,” when actually one of the things you’re hoping for is to be more energized.  So I think about it now as more like ‘flow.’ There are going to be times in my life where work is flowing the most, and that’s OK, because there are going to be times where I have a lot going on with my family. I’m just conscious that things ebb and flow between work and home. You just have to be cautious of letting any one of those areas ‘overflow,’ particularly on the side of work,” she says.

No stranger to the feverish pace of working in the Bay Area, Wampler’s résumé spans categories, from fashion (San Francisco handbag brand The Sak) to software (Intuit) to consumer electronics (Lytro cameras). Now adding real estate to the mix, her experience delivers a breadth of knowledge that would seemingly make her an expert in virtually every category. (She tidily pulls together this would-be disparate work experience: “The key thread running all the way through it is that all the things that I’ve been worked on, I’ve been really passionate about the consumer experience – the ‘who’ matters a lot to me – and making their life better.”)

Still, in the competitive job market of San Francisco Bay Area, there is definitely an awareness of the volume of talent and brilliance all around. How to succeed? “Constantly learning. That’s the secret sauce. The people I know who are most successful here in the Valley are just inherently, insanely curious. And they’re not afraid to look like they don’t know something because that’s an opportunity to learn, and the more you’re learning, the better that you are,” she says.

Well-Researched Help for a Crucial Decision

So, for those curious to learn more in an increasingly competitive real estate market, there’s the indispensable Trulia.  Offering a traditional web, mobile site and app plus rental and mortgage apps, the site aims to deliver helpful information across the real estate spectrum. (Or if you just prefer to gawk at luxurious dream homes, there’s the get-away-from-it-all-for-fifteen-minutes Trulia Luxe Living blog, featuring the, ahem, un-humble abodes of the rich and richer.)   And for the rest of us, Trulia’s pragmatic and vibrant mix of hard info, vivid graphics, and lively language ensures that when you are preparing to take that leap into the real estate realm, Trulia’s ready and right there at your fingertips.