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clavehell6-blog · 6 years ago

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Can NAR embrace technology without rendering agents obsolete?

(Illustration by Chris Koehler)

It was summer 2017 when Bob Goldberg ascended the stage at the Sheraton Grand Chicago. With Bruce Springsteen’s “Born to Run” playing in the background, Goldberg was introduced as the new “boss” of real estate’s most powerful trade association.

The lifelong Springsteen fan — he’s seen the Boss in concert nearly 200 times — clutched a red electric guitar and seemed to signal the beginning of a new era at the 110-year-old National Association of Realtors as he pledged to “knock down the ivory tower façade of NAR.”

But doing so hasn’t been easy for the 23-year NAR veteran, who headed marketing and business development before succeeding longtime CEO Dale Stinton.

With 1.3 million members spread across 1,300 local associations, NAR is a lobbying powerhouse. But it’s facing something of an existential challenge: how to embrace the technology that is rapidly changing the brokerage business without rendering agents obsolete.

Its efforts to do so — through a wholly owned venture fund as well as a multimillion-dollar listings portal — have generated sharp criticism from its own members.

Rob Hahn, founder of real estate consulting firm 7DS Associates, said most of NAR’s members join not because they value its services, but because it gives them access to local multiple listing services.

“The vast majority of people that are ostensibly members are just buying MLS access,” he said. “That creates a lot of animosity among brokers.”

And for all the talk of shattering ivory towers, NAR recently secured city approval to sink $45 million into its Chicago headquarters at 430 North Michigan Avenue — where plans call for adding 18,000 square feet of office space and a 25-seat glass-encased boardroom. The group plans to finance most of the project through its existing budget, but will also use $6 million from a dues increase this past May.

Amid questions over what members are getting for their money, the association is still paying the price for one of its biggest blunders.

That misstep dates back to the 1990s, when NAR licensed the listings portal Realtor.com — which it controlled — to California-based Move Inc. for $9 million a year. In theory, Realtor.com could have gone head to head with Zillow if it had focused on consumers, insiders said. Instead, critics said, NAR handcuffed Realtor’s growth by limiting the kinds of searches and data available. Today, Zillow has more than 175 million average monthly users, compared to Realtor’s 63 million.

“The story is that NAR stifled Move, and that’s why Zillow won,” said the CEO of a data startup, who spoke only on the condition of anonymity for fear of alienating NAR members. “With 1 million-plus Realtors and a great platform, Realtor.com should have beat Zillow.”

While there are those who believe the fight for digital listings is over, Goldberg isn’t one of them. In 2014, News Corporation famously bought Move for $950 million, and it has since boldly gone after Zillow’s market share. And NAR’s licensing agreement remains in place.

At his guitar-strumming introduction last year, Goldberg promised technology that could change the industry for the better.

“If we resist change, it is futile,” he said at the time. “The status quo is not an option.”

NAR’s tech play

NAR was a different kind of disrupter when it was founded in 1908 in Chicago by 120 “real estate men of America.” The group formed to exert their “combined influence” on the industry — which in 1916 included trademarking the name Realtor.

Since 2004, the organization — which also occupies a wedge-shaped, glass building a stone’s throw from the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. — has spent $440 million lobbying on issues like tax reform, flood insurance and reforming Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to protect 30-year fixed rate mortgages.

This year has been no different on the lobbying front. During 2018’s first half, NAR spent $27.3 million on federal lobbying, second only to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which shelled out $43.7 million.

“Not to be glib, but there are homeowners in every congressional district and the Realtors frequently work to inform and mobilize them, which gives the Realtors a powerful base across the country,” said Michael Beckel, policy analyst at the Washington, D.C.-based Issue One, a nonprofit that aims to reduce the influence of money in politics. “It’s safe to say NAR is one of the big dogs.”

But starting in 2008, NAR also began investing heavily in tech startups through its wholly owned subsidiary Second Century Ventures.

Such funds are extremely rare for trade organizations, according to analysts, largely because the investments could easily lead to conflicts of interest. This past May, for instance, the American Heart Association’s announcement of a $30 million VC fund sparked criticism from prominent cardiologists for that very reason.

Second Century Ventures’ initial $20 million war chest came from the membership association in the form of a line of credit. Since then, SCV has taken its returns and reinvested the money in other startups, said David Garland, a general partner at SCV since 2016. “This was never dues” money, he said.

With a median investment of $3.3 million, SCV has made 38 investments to date, showing a preference for seed- and early-stage companies, according to a dossier from research firm PitchBook. “Anything we believe can keep the Realtor at the center of the transaction and also yield a very sizable return,” Garland said.

But Second Century has kept a relatively low profile among other real estate-focused funds like MetaProp, Fifth Wall, Camber Creek and Moderne Ventures.

Competitors say that’s because it’s exclusively focused on residential real estate and tends to favor investments that can generate solid returns with less flash.

“Because they are not invested in any of the products that could be a threat to the residential community — listing aggregation platforms or anything that’s a disintermediator — they also haven’t had many big wins,” said Clelia Peters, a co-founder of MetaProp and president of Warburg Realty in New York.

In addition, sources said, at times the fund has moved slowly or been stymied by bureaucratic holdups.

“There were investments I couldn’t make along the way,” said Constance Freedman, who was SCV’s general partner until she left to found Moderne Ventures in 2015. “At the end of the day, they are a trade association, so I understand the criticism.”

Startups that have sought out SCV as an investor, however, count the affiliation with NAR as an asset.

Andrew Flachner, CEO of the data platform RealScout, said for him it was simply about the numbers: “NAR has access to 1.3 million Realtors.”

At NAR’s annual conference in Boston early last month, its executives hinted that SCV could launch another fund. But this one could use money raised directly from members. Addressing several thousand in the audience, NAR Treasurer Tom Riley said SCV — like NAR itself — was getting a major “revamp.”

“Every single subsidiary, every single rock, every single structure of the organization for the past year and a half, we dug deep,” he said. SCV’s revamp is “going to be amazing,” he promised.

Questionable investments

But the blurry line between NAR and its portfolio companies has attracted criticism.

For example, along with the California Association of Realtors, NAR jointly owns a company called zipLogix — which provides digital transaction services. CAR separately has proprietary transaction forms that it gives its members as a benefit, which it allows zipLogix to license. Some have taken issue with that practice. Zillow, for example, sued, calling it anti-competitive.

Meanwhile, Second Century’s investment in DocuSign, another tech firm, erupted into public criticism this year after NAR proposed a dues hike for 2019. (Despite resistance from members, the board approved the increase.)

“It appears that prior NAR leadership invested $20 million of member money into Second Century Ventures, which stands to generate an estimated windfall of $100 million with the pending DocuSign IPO,” said Kenya Burrell-VanWormer, head of the Houston Association of Realtors, in an April statement. “But it appears that windfall may not benefit the members. Does this make any sense to anyone?”

In a scathing op-ed published by Inman, Jim Harrison, president and CEO of MLS Listings in the San Francisco Bay Area, accused NAR’s top ranks of pocketing the DocuSign earnings.

“Efforts by industry leaders, media and real estate entities to unearth information on how these funds will be accounted for or used, have been met without transparency or accountability,” he wrote in May. “They have been shrouded in secrecy.”

NAR’s board fired back, calling Harrison’s characterization replete with “falsehoods, misrepresentations and misinformation.”

At NAR’s midyear conference in Washington, D.C., Goldberg detailed where that money went. He said Second Century invested $5 million in DocuSign in 2009 and made $43.8 million after selling 28 percent of its shares post-IPO. Of that money, it returned $20 million to NAR. Goldberg did not say what happened to the remaining $23.8 million, but the trade group has said in the past that it reinvests its profits. Goldberg and Stinton declined requests for comment for this story, as did other NAR representatives.

Despite dissent within NAR’s ranks, some 20,000 members attended the association’s Boston conference — where leader said a planned dues hike in 2020 was off the table. The hike, they said, was unnecessary because of savings from budget cuts, a staff reorganization and a surge in membership.

“If you add it all up, it’s a substantial savings, which totally turned the tide on our financial operations,” said NAR’s Riley.

Outgoing NAR President Elizabeth Mendenhall — who received a standing ovation at the event when she officially handed off the job to successor John Smaby — said the organization remains as vital as ever.

“With the changes in the industry, a lot of members are questioning where they go with their own businesses,” she said. “That’s the role that NAR continues to play — to ensure Realtors are essential to the transaction. Knowing that NAR is behind you is very powerful.”

To symbolize the leadership transition, she handed Smaby a crystal gavel, cautioning that it cannot be used to silence the crowd: “If you hit too hard, it’s going to chip.”

‘The horse has left the barn’

One of NAR’s most ambitious projects in recent memory — not to mention one of its most controversial — has been the creation of UpstreamRE, a single point of entry for residential listings nationwide. Plastered across its homepage are the words: “Streamline and take control of your data and your future.”

But today, a sense of powerlessness remains.

Introduced in 2015, the portal was billed as a way to make data more efficient and accurate by having each MLS enter listings directly. It also gives brokers and MLSs greater control over listings at a time when many see digital platforms like Zillow as a serious threat.

“There’s a common analogy that the horse has left the barn,” said Alex Lange, president and CEO of Upstream, describing the feeling among brokers that they’re no longer in control of their listings. “I say, what responsible ranch hand lets the horse go?”

Early on, NAR earmarked $6 million for Upstream. It was expected to go “full throttle” by 2016. But a year later it was still puttering along and got another $9 million boost from NAR.

Not surprisingly, members voiced frustration as they watched their dues being spent with little to show for it, several said.

“This is members’ money,” Cindy Hamann, then-chair of the Houston Association of Realtors, told Inman in 2017.

John Mosey, president of NorthstarMLS in Minnesota and Wisconsin, said NAR made statements about Upstream “to the effect that they’re on track and achieved great progress.” But Mosey — whose MLS was selected as a pilot market for Upstream three years ago — said the opposite was true.

“To my knowledge, no one in our market is using it,” he said.

NAR isn’t alone in its attempt to catch up to its digital rivals.

For years, major New York City brokers resisted calls for a local MLS — inadvertently paving the way for StreetEasy to gain massive market share. It was only last year, when the Zillow-owned portal rolled out a series of fees, that the industry scrambled to syndicate listings through the Real Estate Board of New York.

But Upstream has also drawn scrutiny for how its rollout has been handled. The job of building it fell to Realtors Property Resource, a property database and NAR subsidiary.

Upstream’s Lange, who took over in 2016, acknowledged that while the work is complex, Realtors Property had taken “entirely too long to build this.” But, he said, because Realtors Property was “building it for me for free, I kind of have to go with it.”

Under Goldberg’s leadership, NAR has responded to the Upstream delay. In February, it directed Realtors Property to pull the plug on a project that would provide back-end technology for small and midsized MLSs. And in August, NAR slashed 10 percent of Realtors Property staff.

But it’s still not clear that Upstream has member buy-in — or that it ever did.

In a survey last year by the Council of Multiple Listing Services, more than half of MLSs said they weren’t sure if they would participate in Upstream, and 13 percent had “no interest” in participating.

Last year, former NAR Chief Executive Stinton blamed the MLSs. He said they hadn’t fully participated because they were unhappy that Upstream would control the listings.

“It’s pretty disappointing,” Stinton said. “Politics, and that’s my polite word.”

Even outside the MLS world, there remains an underlying skepticism about whether Upstream is a good idea.

Last summer, eXp Realty’s chief product and technology officer, Scott Petronis, expressed concern about having a “single point of failure” if Upstream consolidates control in one place.

And then there’s Zillow, which has a vested interest in ensuring that Upstream doesn’t succeed, given that its own lifeblood is the listings data that Upstream wants to control.

The listings giant —which has been Upstream’s fiercest critic — told federal regulators in July it was “greatly concerned” that Upstream could potentially cause “erosion of equitable access to listings data.”

The critique was part of a seven-page letter submitted to the Federal Trade Commission and U.S. Department of Justice in response to a June workshop on competition in real estate.

Zillow wrote that “members of Upstream’s board have repeatedly commented in public settings and in written communications that one goal of Upstream is to allow brokers to restrict data distribution to online portals.”

Yet regulators didn’t mention Upstream during the workshop itself.

Hahn, of 7DS Associates, finds that omission curious. “To have a national repository of some sort that was going to control access to listing data — that sounds like a big fat target for the DOJ and FTC,” he said.

Upstream’s governance prevents the company from making a profit, as does NAR’s. Once Upstream goes live in a market, it charges the MLS or brokers who enter data a fee. It can use those fees to cover operational costs. It’s also supposed to repay NAR’s initial funding; the first payment of $7.6 million is due in January.

Lange said that as of May, Upstream had commitments to cover a revenue target of $250,000 a month. But not all of those who have committed to participate are live.

“It’s not a 1, 2, 3, turn on,” Lange said. “Right now, it feels like a big Tetris puzzle. But it’s doable, and it’s happening.”

In the meantime, NAR and Upstream are facing competition from some of the very MLSs they are looking to serve.

In September, five MLSs — in Arizona, Wisconsin, Silicon Valley, Oregon and Utah — launched MLS Aligned, a platform that manages and distributes shared data.

“With 650 MLSs, we have a big industry,” said Chris Carrillo, president and CEO of MetroMLS in Wisconsin, referring to the number of MLS portals nationwide. “There’s plenty of room under this big tent to support different initiatives.”

But as projects like MLS Aligned and others launch, they may make Upstream somewhat irrelevant, Hahn said. Still, given how much money NAR has already invested, abandoning it also doesn’t make sense.

“It’s hard not to lose face if you just back away now,” he said. “Yet there isn’t a face-saving option that’s available.”

Source: https://therealdeal.com/issues_articles/nar-vs-the-naysayers/

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martechadvisor-blog · 7 years ago

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Six essential aspects of successful digital marketing

Dirk Wybe de Jong, VP of Digital Marketing at Celerity, explains six essential aspects of the ever-changing discipline of digital marketing.

Marketing is a vibrant, fast-moving profession that’s always improving and becoming more interesting: technology has given it speed and allowed it to explore new dimensions. It’s also a little too obsessed by The Next Big Thing. While the forward-thinking nature of marketing is one of its best attributes, it can also be dangerous.

New trends and buzzwords are thrown around like confetti, and treated as one-size-fits-all solutions to the complicated, unique problems of complicated, unique customers. In the recent past, big data, social media, and more have been touted as the cure for all promotional ills, and all have fallen short in some way or another.

It’s because marketing doesn’t need buzzy trends to be successful: it needs results. It’s easy to get so caught up in the romantic notion that we’re there to form an emotional connection with the customer that we forget that there’s as much science to our profession as there is art.

Going back to basics and focusing on the essentials of modern digital marketing is likely to yield more success. Here are six key areas to focus on.

Data strategy

Data has the potential to be a brand’s most valuable asset – but the operative word there is ‘potential’. It has no intrinsic worth, which is what makes the industry-wide overemphasis on “big data” so damaging. That you can capture vast quantities of information about your customers is often taken to mean that you should.

But ultimately, your business needs the right data, not just any data. It’s imperative that you identify what you’re trying to accomplish and who your target audience is before you gather any information. From there, it’s essential to identify the data you need to identify and message to this audience. Transient or session data can be useful for identification and segmentation, but do you need to keep it? Data needs to be actionable and available when required, but often ends up in data lakes ‘just in case we need it’.

Effective data management is aimed at having data available in the right form when required for segmentation and personalisation.

Marketing channels

It’s hard to overstate the importance of personalisation to contemporary digital marketing. According to a recent Accenture report, over 75% of customers are more likely to buy from a retailer that knows their name, their purchase history, and can make recommendations based on this purchase history.

But personalisation isn’t always easily accomplished. The best place to start is by knowing where your customers live – figuratively speaking, of course. An omnichannel approach to digital marketing seems a little redundant when most brands are yet to get multichannel right.

If a customer prefers not to receive marketing communications via email, then it’s up to you to pay attention. In fact this is your legal duty. If they prefer to be reached via text message, or phone call, then send them an SMS, or ring them up. The data you accumulate about them should reflect their preferences, and technology will make them easier to parse.

Segmentation and profiling

A further step towards personalization is segmenting and profiling your customers. A business that targets its marketing strategy at anyone, everyone, and their extended families is a business that isn’t really targeting at all. This is especially true if your organization has a diverse customer base.

Understanding this customer base requires forming the most detailed view of each demographic that comprises it. Grouping them and forming buyer personas according to factors such as age, purchase history, preferred communication channels, and others, can help you determine what, when, and how a customer will spend money with your brand.

Propensity modelling

Gathering insights from customer information used to require a finely-tuned analytical skillset – the kind typically held by data scientists. Modern technology makes this much simpler. Profile information, purchase patterns, and preferences can be gauged in a few moments using marketing automation software.

Propensity modeling can effectively let you know what a customer intends to purchase, and when they’ll purchase it. It knows that, if an individual wants to buy a large quantity of desktop computers, it will probably also need a large quantity of monitors, keyboards, and computer mice. These are obvious enough correlations, but the right model will be able to highlight opportunities for relevant upselling and cross selling – and factor in the customer’s preferred method and timing for each purchase.

Single Customer View (SCV)

The single customer view (SCV) has long been considered the holy grail of marketing. Unlike the holy grail, it’s quite attainable. The aim of unifying customer information across all relevant channels is ambitious, but well within reach.

Building an SCV database is a matter of bringing together disparate silos of data from across the business – from sales, IT, marketing, finance, and customer service, among others – unifying them, and making them available to any employee who might need them. It makes analyzing and understanding customers much easier – and therefore it also makes sending them personalized communications much easier.

When we know what customers are doing, how they like to do it, and where they’re doing it, our job as marketers is at once simpler and more sophisticated. Focus on getting these areas right and make sure your customers are at the heart of everything you do.

Consistent messaging

Finally, after conducting the right segmentation and personalisation based on actionable data, what is your message? It must have a different tone for different targets, and consistency across channels without being overly repetitive. You must also choose how to deliver it, from words to visuals, audio and/or video. Essentially, to manage and integrate the right content with your chosen channels, the tech needs to be supportive. If your content and asset management systems are integrated with your marketing automation, efficiency and consistency are achievable.

Finally

All the above basically come down to the following trichotomy: data, content and channel delivery. Each of these domains has a matching tool-set, often affected by different teams, skills and budgets and can be used as a top level model for consulting.

This article was first appeared on MarTech Advisor

#martech #marketing #technology #business #cmo

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raymondchougaming · 8 years ago

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Unit Comps: Terran; Marine-Tank-Medivac vs Ling-Bane-Muta (Part 2)

So I had originally meant for a somewhat long post, but that thing just really spiraled out of control. Like super fast. In fact, I anticipate that a part 3 is coming...and I still have to do MTM vs other matchups, as well as Bio-mine!

Anyway...

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ARMY MOVEMENT/POSITIONING

This discussion must begin by addressing the following two questions:

What are we trying to accomplish?

What are we concerned with?

Luckily, since this post refers to only MTM vs LBM, we can answer those questions quite easily. The first is quite simple, as is the case with all Terran vs Zerg matchups (except somewhat Mech-style play) - Zerg grows so exponentially fast that Terran cannot hope to keep up without being “slowed down.” Not even so much that, if we go into MTM, we do not have the infrastructure to support a very scary Terran late-game army. Let’s be real, the Zerg’s late game army is just so terrifying vs MTM, and whatever additions we add...Zergs try to retain their muta count, make a bunch of ultras, infestors, and Brood Lords, and all of a sudden things aren’t looking so hot for us.

As Terran, we notice that these 3 units all require a lot of gas, and that Zergs cannot comfortably support such an army on 3 bases; the 4th and 5th gases are what really allow Zergs to get that Hive-tech army that we’re so terrified of. Since you really only need like 4 gases to sustain MTM and upgrades (and a shit ton of mules), our objective must be to deny the 4th and 5th bases of the Zerg, and to try to keep them from full production. Once they are weak enough, having starved on 3 bases, we go murder them. If they give us a single opening before...we go murder them. On a map like Bel’shir Vestige, I absolutely think that this is really easy to do and super possible. On a map like Honorgrounds, I am a little more hesitant to do so, especially cross positions...on that map I would probably favor turtley mech into fast Sky Terran.

What are we concerned with? Oh boy...

Zerg getting Hive-tech out on 4-5 bases because we were unsuccessful in shutting them down (will rant about this during the endgame phase)

Muta counterattacks when we are out on the map

Ling counterattacks when we are out on the map

BANELING LANDMINES

Little baneling busts that run up to our workers and murder them all

Getting caught with our pants down (unsieged)

Mutas sniping off our tanks

Getting surrounded and then the banelings running in and blowing everything up

Baneling drops during the big fight

So at this point, I’d like to talk a little bit about the strengths and weaknesses of Ling-Bane-Muta, because after doing a strength/weaknesses analysis, I think we can decisively decide how the matchup is going to go for us.

ADVANTAGES OF LING/BANE/MUTA:

Unmicroed, it will crush any MTM army, even of somewhat larger size

Banelings blow shit up

Lings do a TON of damage

MOBILITY TO THE MAX

Counterattacks are scary

Air superiority (and hence, vision superiority)

Can snipe small Terran packs that aren’t with the rest of the army; easily intercepts reinforcements

Very, very strong in open fields

DISADVANTAGES OF LING/BANE/MUTA:

Army must stay together for the big fight (though you can break little bits away for the big engagements

Very larva expensive (Zerglings)

Very gas expensive (Mutas and Banelings)

Very, very time-limited on 3 bases (take a 4th or die)

Nearly impossible to break a perfectly microed Terran if they get to set up

Very...mineral expensive (Zerglings)

Weak attacking THROUGH chokes

MELEE/SHORT RANGED

So now that we’ve essentially discussed the scary parts of Ling/Bane/Muta, as well as what we have, I think the solutions are quite simple. We should seek to minimize its advantages, and maximize its disadvantages, while doing the opposite for our own.

First of all - we must invest in some static defense in order to not straight up die. If you play perfectly, you shouldn’t have to...but come on, that’s straight up unrealistic. Like super unrealistic.

Observation 1: Since LBM is mostly melee/short range, walling off our expansions seems like a good idea.

You see pro players do this all of the time, and if you don’t do it then you’re straight up lazy! Ha! Be careful though, mutas can fuck up those walls if you’re not careful. Some people wall with turrets!

Observation 2: Since a run-by into the main is super possible (and therefore shutting down production), keeping the wall up at the natural WITH THE RALLY ON THE LOWERED DEPOT is a great idea.

I first saw Innovation do this, but it makes perfect sense.

Observation 3: If they do a Muta counterattack, it’s probably a good idea to have turrets up, or any residual mines from early game. Not only that...since Mutas must stay together for effectiveness, if they’re at your base - then they’re not defending drops!

If we see the mutas at our base...we drop. I don’t give a shit how fast mutas are, they can’t fly all the way back to their base to save themselves from the drop. And if they greet the drop with Ling-bane...well, what’s going to stop the main push?

Observation 4: Since LBM is so good at picking off reinforcements, it makes sense rally to the natural and to wait a while until the army at home becomes relatively sizeable...then strategically retreat as the reinforcements advance, and have them join at a very solid position.

This may be slightly overkill, and this step can be bypassed if we are certain that no reinforcement sniping is possible, i.e. we see where all of his units are.

Observation 5: Since a few banes could run up to our mineral line and blow our SCVs up, perhaps a bunker with 4 marines in it at an expansion where there are sneaky paths would be a good idea. Or...just have better vision.

Sometimes they’re really sneaky though, but you can prevent this from happening if you see a few lings go missing...send a few marines there or something.

Observation 6: Every time you kill a drone, Zerg has the choice of either taking the economical hit, or replacing the drone. If you force them to make another drone, that is one less larva they have spent on army.

The more drones you kill, the more resources Zerg has to devote to replenishing the drones. This is a great way to keep the army somewhat smaller.

Observation 7: Because we are slower, yet more powerful when sieging/holding positions, we must identify key control points on maps that shut down their attack paths, and advance from those towards points where we can control their reinforcement paths/split the Zerg up.

Classic divide and conquer. This will most likely be discussed in part 3, when I start talking about the map-specific stuff, for the current map pool. Also, we should look for Terrain advantages whenever we are to force a fight - consult part 1 for those.

Observation 8: Siege Tanks are only vulnerable to being caught unsieged if the Zerglings/Banelings are very close by. If we can identify that they are far away (we see them somewhere), then we can push as hard/fast as we want.

This one is pretty self-explanatory.

Observation 9: We should:

Keep our marines near our tanks at all times unless we have identified that the mutalisks are far, far away

Scan ahead (or get like 1 raven) to ensure that we don’t get baneling landmined...or keep units moderately spread as they move across the map (unrealistic, so most likely scanning ahead)

Kill overlords whenever possible to prevent them from dropping banes, and this shuts down Zerg vision!

Try to find out where the Zerg army is so we can position ourselves as to not be surrounded

Move cautiously if we are unaware of where the banelings are

Observation 10: Most of the observations simply amount to having vision. Whoever has better vision (given somewhat equal circumstances) will win this matchup. Terran somewhat more because scans.

All of the things we are afraid of we can mitigate with proper vision, and we can march forward maximally with good vision. Once again...it all returns to awareness. So now that we have identified vision as a key component, let us discuss ways to gain vision, to deny Zerg vision, and discuss why denying Zerg vision is good.

Ways to gain vision:

Lone marines placed in key spots/run ahead of the army

Sensor towers

Useless buildings floating somewhere (not so much in Marine-tank; you’ll need everything)

Watchtowers

Scan?

Here’s another reason why it’s so important to halt the spread of creep; it denies the Zerg vision. When the Zerg is unaware of where our units are, it makes them much more scared; but usually they’ll be running all over the damn place looking for us, so it’s not that big of a deal. Our drops, however, become significantly more powerful.

Ways to deny vision:

Build a viking before mutas come out

Float medivacs everywhere, and drop to kill stray overlords

KILL CREEP

Fight for the watchtowers

Seal off key paths

Observation 11: Every time we leave a potential counterattack path open, we should leave ourselves a very quick retreat path.

Self explanatory...what if we end up with a bunch of lings at our base? Then we need to stim all of the marines and run back. Preferably, we keep his mutas busy by dropping or something. Ideally though, you spot this before it happens...

Observation 12: By being proactive, you force his hand; this allows you to see where their units are, which is key information.

It’s so easy to plan what your move is if you know where their guys are. So the key, for most of the midgame, is to think the following:

Where is he expanding?

When is his hive? (How are his upgrades?)

Where are his mutas?

Where is his ling/bane? (small counterharass groups don’t count)

Is he going to try to harass me?

Let’s answer each one of those.

Where is he expanding? We scan ahead and push until we kill that expansion, and we try to drop the other side of the map. Is it safe to drop? If so, do it. If it’s unsafe to drop, then we push harder, knowing that their army won’t all be there (otherwise it would be safe to drop)

When is his hive? I’ll cover the correct reactions in the late game section. Or at least, what I think the correct late game reaction is.

Where are his mutas? In his base? Don’t drop and shove harder; maybe send a pack of marines out to clear creep. These marines are somewhat sacrificial, and they will reveal army positioning to you. If they’re out and about, you can spot them with the watchtowers. If you see a safe drop path, then go drop. If they’re near you, protect your tanks with your marines.

Where is his ling/bane? In his base? SHOVE HARDER. Maybe threaten a drop (empty medivac) to keep those mofos at home. Push super aggressively with your siege tanks. He can’t do anything about it! Out and about? Threaten a drop to draw his duders home. Then shove. Like purposely float a medivac (empty or not) over his guys and make him run home. Near you? Siege up and get ready, or pull back to a defensive spot and siege up.

Is he going to try and harass me? How many units is he sending? Tiny amounts of ling/bane? Use your reinforcements to deal with it. A ton of shit? Pull back to an intermediate position where you can siege the outer expansions, but have a short path to run back to defend. This is easier on smaller maps.

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A BRIEF OVERVIEW OF THE MATCHUP

Early game: Don’t die, try to get map presence

Early mid-game (before mutas), maybe pressure third a little, harass? CLEAR CREEP AND KEEP VISION OF KEY PATHS. Deny as much vision as possible. Get the CC count up, and GET AS MANY BARRACKS AS QUICKLY AS YOU POSSIBLY CAN. You can support 8 comfortably on 3 base, and 10 with constant muling.

Midgame/Late mid-game (mutas), push to the “key stronghold” on the map, and then from there, push to deny Zerg’s later expansions. Use drops as necessary to accomplish this objective. Drop only if you know the mutas aren’t nearby, or is safe. If Zerg gives us a weakness, exploit it. Take your expansions along your push paths.

Guidelines to taking expansions:

Build CC in safe location

As CC is floating, have a few SCVs pre-build missile turrets/other wallins/bunkers that you design earlier

As those SCVs are going there, perhaps 1 tank and a small Marine squad (or you can actually stop by on the way to your push, since you should push as you take this expand) sit by to defend

Perhaps adjust your rally

Maybe get a sensor tower

Transfer workers and build gases (prebuild gases as mech)

If in dangerous place, or one without a good reinforce path, build a Planetary

I’ll cover the late game part later.

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ACCESSORY UNITS

Thors: Excellent for when the Muta numbers just get a little too out of hand. Maybe leave one at home, or at the most vulnerable expansion for when the turrets aren’t quite up yet. If you’re smart, you’ll leave marines around until the turrets are done...unless you know where the mutas are! It’s all about knowing where his shit is! Good unit because it requires no investment in additional infrastructure. Its slow speed isn’t a detriment because the tanks are already kind of slow, but we do have to baby them a bit.

Liberators: Excellent for helping siege, and a pivotal late game unit, due to its versatility as being able to shoot against Brood Lords, or sieging key positions against ultralisks. Essential to keep them alive. They synergize well with the siege tanks, due to their stationary sieging nature...but it’s important not to get too many too early. It’s fine to get them to harass (at least until the mutas come out, then be careful...because that’s 150 gas down the drain), but later on, you’ll need them en masse to survive against Ultra Broodlord.

Vikings: Really good for killing overlords early, kind of bad when mutas roam the map, but essential when Zerg makes the techswitch over to Broodlord/Corruptor. There’s no need to get them if Zerg hasn’t gotten hive yet, since marines will shred through corruptors and if you control your medivacs well, you’re fine. But essential later on.

Mines: I’d rather have more tanks...maybe later on, once tanks become useless. But when tanks start to become useless...mines start to become useless.

Ghosts: A PIVOTAL late game unit. Snipe deals 25% of an Ultralisk’s health...EMP will shut down infestors/vipers, etc. Super essential. High DPS against light units as well. Kinda fragile though so you have to keep them behind as much buffer as possible. Will discuss more later.

Ravens: I think Ravens are such a strong unit honestly. I wish there was better infrastructure, but I’m not opposed to getting a second Starport with a techlab after being on 3 base, about to take a 4th base, and starting to pool up ravens (if you plan on a Sky Terran transition). Usually though, the gas is better spent on more medivacs or liberators or tanks. However, I’m not opposed to getting one Raven in case of burrowed baneling land mines...but you do have this thing called scans. I’m not sure. Autoturret is a HUGE dpser (especially on cliffs), PDD is huge against mutas/corruptors, and Seeker Missiles wreck Brood Lord/Swarm Host clumps.

Marauders: Eh..........honestly not terribly necessary if you’re getting tanks. Maybe a few. Against Terran that’s a different story, but you’re better off getting more marines. I’m not opposed to getting a few though, for the meatshields, and concshell is always cool, especially against ultras later on...but more importantly, the tech labbed Barracks are important for the Ghost transition. So maybe late-midgame.

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TRANSITIONS TO THE LATE GAME

Here is one big weakness, in my opinion, of Marine-Tank-Medivac: the late game. Once Zerg finally does get what they want, if we fail to shut them down, the game becomes difficult. Not impossible - but difficult. Our mindset must change completely - we must go from trying to kill the Zerg to starving the Zerg. Terran, coming off of the infrastructure created for MTM, isn’t terribly well equipped to deal with Crackling-Bane-Ultra-Broodlord-Corruptor (and god forbid, infestors)

Since this post is about MTM vs LBM, I won’t talk too much about the late game, but I think switching the infrastructure to move towards Ghosts/Marauders, (switch the labs on the factories with the reactors), and start pumping out mines (make sure to research drilling claws first!), or maybe keep getting tanks. I don’t know, I’d have to think about it and try it out...get ghosts, and START PUMPING LIBERATORS. The idea is to hold down key chokes on the map, and make Zerg continuously throw their money at us until they run out of gas. I don’t see a Sky Terran transition working from MTM. I think Ghost/Liberator is SUPER strong late game though.

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EXECUTION CONCERNS

So now that I’ve outlined what it is we should be doing for most of the game...let’s talk about actually doing it. A strategy is only as good as it is executed.

Our eyes will predominantly be on the minimap. I mentioned the importance of knowing where their army is - in fact, that’s everything - so keeping our eyes on the minimap is crucial. All of our decisions will be made from there.

Hotkeys: Keep all Marines/Medivacs on 3, and Tanks on 4. Ghosts, later, on 2 and liberators on 5...but until then, R will be the drop, Q if I’m crazy enough to do a second drop.

When I’m at home preparing defenses or whatever, I will try to keep my eye on the minimap as much as possible. Think of it this way - it’s like texting while driving. You want to check what’s on your text, but you need to look at the road as much as possible LOL. [I totally don’t do that]

I’ll write one more post regarding MTM vs LBM, which is going to be map specific stuff, and I’ll try to make that as brief as possible. There’s still so much to explore though; I’ll definitely revisit this topic at some point, after trying it out on the ladder.

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